Learning Time

Katie thinks I don't give her enough work, so the other day she took Ethan's flashcards and started quizzing herself.

Swimming Lessons

Katie has been waiting and waiting for swimming lessons.  She was jumping for joy when I told her it was finally time.  Ethan, not so much, until I told him it was swim lessons or sit along the edge of the pool watching his sister have all the fun.  Then his tune changed.

They actually both had a great time.  Katie had the exuberance she has more most activities in life.  Ethan was cautious, but did very well, and even discovered the joy of being able to see under water.

At the end of the session the swim instructors passed out awards to every child.  Katie received, "Most Enthusiastic."  Ethan, "Most Cautious."  Yep, pretty much sums up just about everything in life!

Ready for the first day

"Swimming" in the deep end

I thought Ethan was more adventurous than
Katie in being willing to "swim" the deep end
without holding on to his instructor.

"Hi Mommy!"

Ready, Set...

Dive?

Experiments

Ethan has been inventing and experimenting all summer.  One Sunday while David and I were busy working on a project Ethan decided to "build" his own flashlight and check out the opacity of various papers.  He came and got us to show us.  He had created three piles: "light shines through," "light sort of shines through," and "no light shines through."

Ethan and his piles.

He had created a casing for one of Daddy's real flashlights.

Welcome to the New Year!

July 1.  Welcome back to school!

Campmeeting

Campmeeting 20014 - what a blessing!  Fun times, cold times, inspiring times, growing times.

Enjoying the annual camp-pitch softball game.

We spent an afternoon with Miss Mary at Camp Au Sable.
My kids think Miss Mary owns the whole place!

What an adventure!  My arms aren't
as strong as they once were, that's for sure!

Helping "Detective Kidlicious" during the evening
meeting in the Primary division.

Feeding baby chicks at the Adventist Heritage
booth in the exhibition tent.

Thankfully it only stormed a couple times.

Making lunch

Making all sorts of wiki-stick creations during
the adult meetings.

Prayer time

Great friends!

New friends!

Growing Up...

He walked in my cute little boy...

... and came out my responsible metal mouth.

Adventurer Weekend

Our Bible Achievement team

Friends :)

Discovering the lending library at the nature center.

I think he's discovered a love of books! ;)

Watching Mr. Thompson feed baby racoons

Exhausted Daddy

Playing with fire is a painful (and expensive) experience! ...

... You might just end up with a piece of ash under
your eyelid and get an emergency visit to the
optometrist.  We won't be forgetting this weekend!

Year-End Celebration to Koteewi

The kids had been wanting to visit the Koteewi Nature Center in Strawtown, so it ended up being our end-of-year field trip on May 15.  It was a very quiet, but nice, way to end our first official year of homeschool.

Looking at all the Indian artifacts.

The interpreter was quite knowledgeable about both the
artifacts/history and animals of the area.

Did you know a turtle's shell has rings, just
like a tree?  If you use a magnifying lens you
can count the rings to tell the age.

A Little Paper, A Little Tape, A Lot of Creativity...

Ethan has been building with garbage recently.  This aircraft carrier was his early morning creation while waiting for Katie to wake up.  It morphed and became even more intricate later on in the day, but I didn't get pictures.

Sand Art Patch

While we were in Washington visiting my parents, Ethan missed out on several Adventurer meetings.  As much as he hated missing out on them, getting to complete the patch activities together was great fun for the two kids.

Learning to Borrow

I was a bit surprised to realize that though Abeka Math introduces multiplication even in first grade, they don't even touch on borrowing!  So, I decided we'd learn it on our own.  Ethan was doing pretty well, but I wanted him to realize exactly why you borrow from the next group over.  Enter the pennies and dimes to help it all make cents...

Digging for Dinosaurs

Ethan has been begging to learn about dinosaurs all year.  We've done bits and pieces as I've found appropriate material, but when we saw a dino egg that you excavate for bones, we knew it was the perfect activity for him.  He hasn't gotten very far yet (it's slow, meticulous work, just like a paleontologist!) but it's coming.

Copy Cat

Katie so desperately wants to do school just like Ethan.  She'll even take his assignments and copy them, pretending she's spelling, etc.

A True Boy's Solution...

I just couldn't mark it wrong...

Writer's Workshop

We haven't done a whole lot of writing this year.  My focus has mainly been on establishing a routine and expectations for school, and then we'll add more content as time goes by.

Each year, though, we have the opportunity to write and publish a book with a school up in Michigan.  I'm trying to pick a different genre each time.  This year I decided we'd learn about ABC books.

We read a whole stack of ABC books, so the kids could see what a wide variety there is.  The next step was to brainstorm some themes they would be interested in writing a book on, and then fleshing it out by coming up with items for each letter of the alphabet.  They really got into it and had fun!

Katie's list