late september 2016

at CC (Classical Conversations), the girls give a presentation each week, with a suggested topic.  little man has been staying with me in buddy's class rather than going to the nursery, and he generally does pretty well.  we always pack things in his backpack, but he usually just draws on the maps with dry erase markers, looks out the window, and listens.  and offers his sister moral support, as you can see =)

Rocket Man demo during science time

we have at least one in the family who's not shy ;-)

the girls are taking a Chinese class, and I was excited to see that they offered a preschool class.  after a few tries though, I took him out, as they were using a first grade book and doing a lot of writing.  I did like that his class was taught in Chinese, which the girls' class is not, unfortunately, but they are learning a lot of vocabulary that probably wouldn't come up in our home conversation.

preschool class

at st. joe high school (where the Chinese class is)

 

practicing our calendar and subjects

 

last chance for swimming!

 

 

BLTs

making use of the many pool chemical buckets

 

and uses you would never think of, e.g. campfire ;-)

 

c riding a mini

 

 

meanwhile, we picked berries around the corner

 

 

 

ways I never thought to play with Lincoln logs

 

long chain addition

memory games with Taiwanese phonetics

unfortunately, we haven't been able to keep going with them because it takes us all week to do their class homework

the girls decided to have a 'Christmas is too far away' party, and made gifts for each other =p

they were really quite creative!

last minute weekend trip to stl - welcomed after midnight by appropriate snacks for all ;-)

fun with wigs ;-)

 

 

 

 

walking to an estate sale

 

outlet mall: when you forget to bring a stroller, the double fire truck starts looking like a pretty good deal

 

 

with g&g and uncle n

school outside, preparing our 3 sentence western European country presentation

the girls got some 'help' putting away clothes

 



oh, I've missed you so!

'bi tze' = nose

picking honeycrisps during horse class



CC art lesson on Michelangelo

science lesson on planets, plus one little dude

one of two curiosity apples given to ben by a patient.  the other was all wrinkly like a potato, apparently called a russet apple

*disclaimer: our days are not all smiley as shown, but mommy is not in the mood to take pictures at those times, luckily for all involved ;-)

early september 2016

time warp, up to the start of our 2016-2017 school year!  I told the girls in mid-August that we were going to start the week before Labor Day, so we could have a few days to recover from the weekend's trip.  they started to groan and my heart sank, and then they said, 'but couldn't we start now?'  =)  a little over 2 months into our school year, I can say that this year has been much smoother than last year, with fewer meltdowns and more 'yes, this is why we're doing this' moments.  not sure whether it's because they're simply a year older or whether I have a better idea of what we can accomplish in a given day.  I still find myself in the perpetual homeschooler conundrum - are we doing enough, are doing we doing too much, or somehow both at the same time?! ;-)

breakfast on day 1

learning the bookworm ways early

3rd grade pancakes

acting out Josiah discovering the book of the law



nothing wrong with a little bribery, right =p an m&m for each word they could think of starting with 'beh' (first Taiwanese phonetic)

 

 

(bath necessitating) recess in the cul-de-sac after lots of rain

 

'these are ferries to mackinac island' (the shoes)

 

getting the bees in our railroad ties exterminated after one stung me

 

like father like daughter

trying out our neighbor's tractor, which we bought

we did school as much as possible outside

we all loved the cherry tomatoes

 

first horse class!  grooming but no riding

 

the instructor kindly let si have a turn

 

we are always trying to figure out what to do during horse class, since it's too far to go home.  riverfront park in niles was a good choice =)

 

 

first ride in the (very dusty) indoor arena

 

UPS man



 

out in front this time

popcorn in a bucket is apparently the best thing ever

such a ham

sandy the penny horse at meijer

hanging out with daddy while he assembled accessories for the new tractor

there she is

the lure of the sprinkler

 

after daddy de-thatched, the girls decided to make hay bales

 

 

actually worked better than I thought it would

 

family time is at the top of my 'why we homeschool' list

 

i'm fwee, like this

wasn't my idea ;)

hayride with their church youth group

friends from CC and gymnastics over for lunch.  the overlap in friends between activities this year has been an answered prayer, providing more friendship opportunities

our little eskimo in c's new coat

sometimes a kid's gotta clean