School - Week 27

Gabe's week in school focused on the letter 'Z' and the unit study of the zebra. 

Leah did some coloring for Gabe in the top right picture.

We went to the zoo this week and the kids took a picture with the zebra there.

We read the book If I Ran the Zoo which is about a kid who makes up his own silly animals to put in the zoo.  So the boys all made up silly animals too.  These are Gabe's...

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We continued reading in 2 Kings about Elisha and the story about how Naaman was healed from leprosy.  Naaman was an important general and thought that he should have to do something impressive to be healed since he was so strong and impressive, but God, through Elisha, healed him by having him do something so simple that anyone would be capable of doing it.  Exactly like how we can be saved from eternal death by something simple, that anyone is capable of doing...putting our faith in Jesus Christ alone and his gift of salvation.  It's not something that only impressive and important people can do. 

It was neat how just a week or so before we read about this story for school, we read and discussed this story in our Bible study group.  The Bible is so relevant for both children and adults.


We're almost caught up in art.  This first lesson was to copy the picture of the statue on the page, using lines to shade to show depth.  Christopher's is on the left; Matthew's on the right.  And I don't know why Matthew's looks like the man's brains are exposed.

This lesson was about drawing people.  The boys usually draw stick figures, and this lesson added ovals and rectangles to the stick people to make them look a little more real.  Under these pages, the boys drew the scene of Jesus walking on water during the storm. 

Christopher's on the left; Matthew's on the right.

We also started some painting using acrylic paint.  The boys practiced mixing colors and then painted in the picture of a stag beetle, trying to copy the color of the real painting. 

We've also been trying to catch up in science.  We are working quickly through the chapter about plants in our science book.  One of the experiments we did was to grow plants from seeds we have around the kitchen...beans, spices, and herbs.

And we also had our last homeschool co-op meeting of the semester, and the last one that we'll be able to attend with our awesome group.  In the class I taught, we made Easter baskets out of milk jugs and I brought in some eggs to give out as well.

If you'd like to see what other MFW families' school week looked like, click here.  2 ladybugs and a lizard is guest hosting this week.

And I'll leave you with some other zoo pictures from this week...

I love that they are all able to walk around together, hanging out. They walked through the reptile house, following each other around like little ducklings...so cute!

The elephant was really neat to watch this zoo trip.  He kept sticking his trunk into a stream of water and then putting his trunk in his mouth to drink the water. 

I got bombed by a bird while we walked through the bird aviary...yuck!

Part of the group of friends we went to the zoo with.

And should you think that I dress my kids in the same clothes everyday, we actually went the zoo, took bluebonnet pictures, and went to our Bible study Easter egg hunt on the same day!

Have a great day!

School - Week 26

So eight more weeks left of this school year for us!  If felt like it was going pretty slow for a while, but suddenly it seems like the end of the year is very near.

Gabriel's letter unit this week was K-k-Kangaroo. 

In the activity below, I choose the letter of the week plus another letter and mix the picture cards up.  Gabriel has to sort them based on the beginning sound.

Here, he has to cut and paste words to the pictures they belong to.

We read about kangaroos, tried to hop as far as one (only about 37 feet short), and made this cute little pencil box.  Gabriel was really into it when we did it, but when it came time for picture, he got all annoyed about it. 

Christopher and Matthew spent the week reading about Elijah and we read quite a bit about the religions of India, Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as some about their caste system.  We initially read these things about India last year, and one of Christopher's favorite missionary biographies we read was about Amy Carmichael, which talked a lot about the caste system as well. 

The boys finished up their copywork and memorization of Psalm 1.

Matthew's

Christopher's

They only wrote one verse a week, and it's really the only cursive I make Christopher do his schoolwork in (other than a handwriting copywork sheet) but he really just doesn't like to write with it.  I can't imagine taking the time to print all of what I write, so I hope that as I have him do more cursive copywork, he'll get more comfortable, and quick, with using it. 
He did ask me that once he finishes his cursive handwriting worksheets (he's doing one letter at a time), if I could write the words in print and he could copy them into cursive.  It was an odd request, but sure, I can do that!

Matthew was excited to finish up his Singapore Math 2A workbook, mostly becasue he has the next week off from math, except for some fun math games.  And I still need to order 2B, so he may get even longer.  Whoops.

Christopher's Writing Strands assignment this week was to write a story with a problem and a solution.

One of the art assignments this week was to draw household items around the house.  Usually Gabriel wants to do art with the boys, but he didn't for this assignment, so I used the copy I made for him.  Obviously they kids do not get their drawing talent from me, although I think I did quite well compared to usual.

Christopher's is on top, Matthew's to the left and mine to the right.

And on (most) Fridays, I follow the suggestion of MFW and have the boys write a letter to a family member.  A letter with a pencil and on paper.  Not very common these days, right? 

Now, if I could just remember to look up the addresses and get them in the mailbox! 

If you'd like to read about more homeschool highlights from other MFW families, click here.

Have a blessed week!

School - Week 25

In Creation to the Greeks this week, we finished reading about King Soloman.  While he had a great start, asking for wisdom to be a great king to his people when he could have asked God of anything, apparantly all of his wisdom didn't keep him from making a lot of mistakes that the Bible warned about in Deuteronomy 17:16...becoming too rich, having many wives, worshipping false gods.  His heart left God while he worshipped the false gods of his wives, and because of that, the kingdom of Israel would be divided.

We then started reading about the prophet, Elijah.  God had him wait around for a while before he used him to do great stuff.  The boys drew handguy versions of Elijah challenging the Baal worshippers on Mount Carmel to see how powerful each of their gods was.

Christopher finished Singapore Math 5A last week, so this week he reviewed some of the concepts he learned with math games and facts practice.

We're still working on catching up with art and the boys used their practice of drawing dragons last week to draw their own version of this scene from Revelation by Albrecht Durer.

More art...

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Gabriel's Kindergarten lesson this week was P-p-Penguin. 

His words to remember were "I show love to everyone, especially my family."  We talked about how the daddy Emporer penguin would sit with his baby egg on his feet for almost two months and not even eat so that he could keep the egg warm.  That's a lot of love, just like the love that God has for us.

This is a card that Gabriel made for his daddy.  The big blue oval is the egg on the daddy penguin's feet.

This book was a good one and opened a conversation about how we move around a lot as a military family but that the city or the house that we live in don't matter, as long as we are together as a family.  That's where home will be.

If you notice that Leah doing a lot of our school activities with us, there is a reason for it.  Well, of course she loves to do this kind of stuff, but also, we moved the two girls into the same bedroom and now nap time is a little off.  Leah hasn't taken a nap since we moved Anna into her room but she's proving that she still needs one, so we'll have to get that figured out, whether she takes a nap in my bed or in Christopher's maybe (who now has his own room).  But for now, she's totally enjoying the glueing and the painting and the coloring.

I think someone else in my town is learning about penguins also because this is all they had available at our library this week.  We have some more at home, so it turned out to still be enough penguin saturation for us.

We added the penguins to our Africa map (yes they live in south Africa!) and while you see a polar bear visiting where Antarctica would be, Chris reminded us that they do not in fact, live in Antarctica, so we took him back off after this picture was taken. 

This is what we keep in Gabriel's school box for his tactile letter drawing...salt in a tupperware.  Sometimes we get the playdoh out to shape into letters, but we use the salt every week.

This whole school year Gabriel has been counting craft sticks for each day of school.  This was the big week that Gabriel has been looking forward to for a long time...his 100th day of school!  Technically this is his 100th day of preschool, so I think we'll do something even better next year for his kindergarten year.

To celebrate this year's 100th day though, Gabriel got to count 100 of one of his favorite sweet treats...chocolate chips!

And of course, all of the kids want in on this school assignment!

Leah can count up to about twelve before she starts repeating numbers, so she thought that she should be able to do this too.

If you'd like to read about more homeschool highlights from families using My Father's World, click here.