Week 5

Well that month of school just kind of flew by!
We are on to studying Mexico and Latin America countries in Exploring Cultures and Countries. The boys were given their faux passports and we flew around our house (all of us holding our arms out as if we were the airplane!) follow-the-leader style until we landed back at the dining table. Through out the flight, Christopher made sure he announced when we passed over the Rio Grande river. Flying from Texas, we really didn't have too far to go.

We are learning all about desert ecosystems. Seeing how we went from drought conditions to getting rain nearly everyday for a week, it wasn't really good timing for the desert study. Things are actually GREEN-ish around here for the first time all year. And we've said good-bye and good riddance to the 100 degree days that kept us indoors for most of the summer. It's still clear enough in our memories that we can remember what desert weather feels like though. We also listened to some Spanish music on our "Wee Sing Around the World" music cd. We are to keep studying Mexico and Central America next week and maybe we'll listen to one of the many spanish music stations that we get.
We started playing a geography game where Christopher has to know the location of every country of the continant we are studying. He did great, only missing two out of all about 15 or so countries of North America. Me...not so well!
Christopher is reading and studying the book of Matthew this school year. Each week he has a memory verse that is from the book of Matthew and we are locating the places we read about in the Bible on our Bible map. It brings us even closer to Jesus by actually following his path of travels with our fingers.

Christopher with the bookmark he made with the name "Matthew" written out in Greek letters.

We'll also start reading about missionary Cameron Townsend once we catch up with our reading of "Kingdom Tales". I think he'll enjoy the non-fiction reading much more.

We finally did our "Apple Doll" project. Well, we've started it anyways. First we had to peel an apple and carve a simple face into the side. Then we baked it on low all day and now we have to let it finish drying out in the sun for a few days. Well, it's gotten rained on a couple of times so there's no telling when it will be dried out enough or if it will just get nasty and need to be thrown away. Poor dolls!

Matthew's moving right along with learning new vowel sounds. I don't think you really understand how complicated our language is until you have to learn it or teach it. I really feel bad telling him a rule and then explaining that some words don't follow the rule and you just have to keep trying out vowel sounds until it sounds right. He's doing well though and amazes me with how quickly he picks it up.

Gabriel continues to want copies of everything his brothers do. I've pretty much decided that I will start him with the kindergarten work next year (he'll be 4 3/4) but still keep him on track grade wise. So he'll be in pre-k but be doing kinder work and go at his pace. As much as I think "the later the better" regarding starting kids with formal school, he really wants to be doing what his brothers are and sits at the table with us everyday, answering questions I ask Matthew about reading . He still talks about how he "always wanted to be a Cubbie" in Awana and I think it's because it's the first thing he's done that his brothers have done. He's such a cutie.

Leah is still working on walking and talking. She amazes me with her vocabulary, although it's still all one-word things that she says. She'll repeat anything we say. Her favorite words are still "ball", "bubble", "dog" ("woof woof") "baby", "Daddy", "Mama" and now she says "eat", "brother", "duck" quite a bit too. But there are many many more that she'll say if we say to her, "say _____".

We are taking a trip to Houston in two weeks to visit with Chris' sister, brother in law and our neice who just turned two who will be there from Florida. I was hoping Leah would be walking by then (she's 16 months now) but I guess she can still have fun with Caroline just crawling around. We'll be staying in a hotel and I hate to think about her crawling on the floor there!
There is going to be a "Homeschool Day" at the Houston Space Center that we will be going to while there, so what a fun field trip!