Thanksgiving 2009

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We took the week off from schoolwork and visited with family over the Thanksgiving holiday. The kids enjoy seeing their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We get to take a break from the norm and sit around working jigsaw puzzles or taking walks outside or just watching the kids play.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, too.

Exploring Brazil

For the last three weeks we have been learning about Brazil.


One night I tried to serve a semi-authentic Brazilian dish.



When in Brazil, eat what the Brazilians do.

We played GeoSafari to help us learn the Countries and Capitols of South America.

This was our read aloud. It is a biography of the pilot who flew with 4 others into Auca territory in Ecuador to try to reach them with the gospel. It was his sister Rachel who eventually, along with Elizabeth Elliot and her daughter Valerie, went and lived with the tribe and saw them accept the forgiveness of Jesus.

We made a replica of an MAF plane like the one Nate Saint flew to help Missionaries in the jungle.

All of us enjoyed learning about the animals of the Amazon Rain Forest. We continue to watch our ants. They are not the leaf-cutting ants of the Amazon. They are harvester ants, but they do stay very busy.

While we read books, they created more and more tunnels.

And dumped more and more dirt out of the hole.

See you next time in Norway!

"I" is for Insect

That is what Josiah's lessons will be on next week. I had ordered harvester ants and they arrived last night. Yah! We were all so excited. It's fascinating to watch them get busy and start moving the dirt to make their tunnels.
On this side of the ant farm is a fake "ant hill" that they climb up and into.

You can see the darker soil that they have already cleared out and put at the top of the hole.

This is the side where you can view the tunnels. Josiah was memorized.

No More Magic?

I tried several times to download my video and it just wasn't happening, so we will do something different today.
It is good to give thanks!
Today, I am thankful for . . .
the fact that a boy can have so much fun with a stick! . . .

that a few minutes of outside play can change our outlook. . .

that there are bright colors in our world. . .

little blessings of lettuce,

and peas. (Sorry it's fuzzy.) . . .

and new things to discover! What is that tiny bug?

The Inside Scoop

Some of you have asked about the beautiful loaf of bread I posted about. It was a Bread Becker recipe and yes I used a long loaf pan that they sell. The thing is, the first two slices came out really nice, but after that, . . . the inside crumbled and I couldn't get another whole slice. So what looked so good on the outside, did not hold up to expectations in the middle. It is hard to butter and make cinnamon toast when the bread doesn't stay together.
We ate it anyway, because it tasted good. I don't know how to remedy this problem. When my husband makes bread, it never falls apart in the middle. The only thing he said he does different is put a pyrex dish with water in the oven during proofing.

Exploring Canada

We have finished our two weeks in Canada (not literally, just studying it). I think we enjoyed most learning about the Inuit (they use to be called eskimos). I found a book at the library called THE THREE SNOW BEARS. It was similar to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but it takes place in the cold north and the bears are polar bears. It is a very cute story and the pictures are wonderful.

We learned how to make an igloo, and how the polar bears "migrate" during the different seasons. And I found it interesting that they basicly "hibernate" during the summer. They eat very little and their body slows down. They only eat in the winter. Just the opposite of bears here.

The kids enjoy getting their passport stamped each time we start on a new country. Hannah had in her possession a Canadian nickel. We don't know where it came from. I take that back. We know WHERE it came from, but we don't know how we ended up with it. Usually we have some Canadian pennies, but I could not find them.

We had pancakes and maple syrup during our "trip" and listened to a French language CD. Hannah liked the word Bonjour, and realized it was in a book that she has called Fancy Nancy's Fancy Words. Her reading has really improved this year and the Spelling Power is working great for her. She is doing more independent reading and writing, and is accepting correction better.

Josiah is on Lesson 9 in MFW Kindergarten. He has a pretty good grasp of the sound of most letters and is working on sounding out words. He likes to pick out books at the library and has me read them to him several times and then I see him sitting on his own "reading" from memory.

Hannah is doing Math drills with a Flashmaster that someone loaned us and she seems to enjoy it. Josiah has been using a die to practice math and now knows the numbers at a glance without counting the dots.

For science, the focus was rivers and lakes. I don't remember anything new or interesting about that. We read about different animals that live in the water, or spend part of their life in the water. We visited a lake and fed the geese and ducks.

Next up, Brazil!

More Magic Monday

There are more coming!

Tune in again next week.

This year's Reformation Celebration

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Little Lady - 2 years old

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We've enjoyed Little Lady for 2 years now, from our first visits after she was born to today.

She has been a happy addition to our family.