School Week of 12-9-13

Hey ya all! What a great week of school. Even though we are busy, busy, busy with the holidays and so forth we are having a wonderful week. This week we made a ton of gifts for our family and friends. You know things are financially TIGHT right now for our family, as many families are, and the only way we were going to be able to give any gifts this year was to make them. So we did. I LOVED it! It was so much fun and we had great blast thinking through what we were going to make for whom. What supplies we had on hand and what we still needed to buy. I will post a few of the things we made once they are all delivered. Maybe with my Christmas post.

Anyhow, we are still into learning all the countries of Europe and making flags for each of the countries. I don’t think we will get all the country flags done, but I made sure we had our heritage flags, such as  German, Poland, Czech Republic and Austria, done first and now we are working on getting some of those tiny countries in Europe. Wow, some of these countries are so tiny, but so out there in the news. Hmmm!

I like that we are in Europe right now because for History we are still working on England and this week we are covering the topic of language and how English became the language of Britain. Very interesting that the Old English language was the original language. And let me tell you it is NOT what you think it is. It is more like Scandinavian gibberish. But between the Old English, the Viking languages as well as some French etc. we have our Britain English language that we all know and love. See our language is OLD and a mix of so many languages. That’s why it is one of the hardest languages to learn to read and write. So many exceptions to the rules because it is such a mixture of so many languages!

Oh and this week we decided to make a castle out of rice crispy treat. Now don’t laugh at me, but I have NEVER made these treats before. They are sooooo easy! It was fun, the walls never really stood very well. I think we made them a little too thin. We will try again sometime and maybe get a better castle.

Wait until you see our art from this week . This class we were taking was fantastic. Unfortunately it is over. I highly recommend that if you have not taken a pastels class, do so. It was fun and easy and the pictures turned out beautiful every time. This last lesson was on still life. I think each of ours looks pretty darn great. In a couple months we will be starting a watercolor class. Oooo, I cannot wait!!!

In Bible we are learning the 9 ways we can glorify God. They are…. by giving God all the Praise, giving Him Thanksgiving, By telling other about God, By giving freely of our possessions and of our time, knowing that suffering can be part of glorifying God, With our bodies; making sure to keep our bodies holy and pure, of course Doing good works; doesn’t get us to heaven but glorifies God in the process, listening to that small voice of the Holy Spirit and doing what is RIGHT, and lastly just in everything we do. If we remember that God is watching us every moment of the day then we will want to make Him happy in all the things we do. Even in rush hour on the fwy!

We are continuing our lessons about the Big Cats. We are learning the difference between a cougar, mountain lion, panther and puma. Do you know the difference? Nothing! Just depends on where you are from. They are all the one and same. I already knew that but the kids were all amazed. I tricked them. I pulled up pictures of these (wink, wink) cats and had them tell me what the differences are. My daughter was sure that the ears were different, but my son said, “Mommy, I cannot tell the difference. Are you sure these are the right pictures?” He figured it out. We also went into Lions and tigers to some degree. The fun part was when they had to chase each other around the house and try to catch their prey….blindfolded. Hey they have to learn to use their senses like the prey animals do too. LOL

OK, well, Christmas is done. All the gifts are made and wrapped. Not too sure Santa will be able to visit our house this year. This may be the year we have to come clean about Santa. Things are tight, but everything else is done and ready. My voice is almost back to normal. 3 of 5 of the concert I or my choirs are singing in are done, cookies are made and delivered and I am ready for Christmas break. But next week we have a couple parties to attend and a musical to perform in and then singing Holy Night on Christmas Eve, so one more week and then we are on a two week break. Yee Haw!

Catch you on the flip side!