Our Monday

After the kids got their bookwork done the girls organized a little play. Using umbrellas and flowing skirts they pretended they were traveling. With Nathan and Kamie there to turn on the fans for the blowing wind the girls decide to spend the night under their umbrellas. I am not sure if they have decided how the play would end but they sure had fun creating it. While they were doing that Joseph and Kaleb played chess. Then the two boys made up their own game using two sets of chess pieces and two boards.. it had to do with star wars and at the end Kaleb was the winner.

We watched a great geography video on the American Southwest. It was a 30 minute video and covered the states in the southwest, people, history, and geographic/geological sites along the way. Tomorrow we will watch one about Texas.

After a lunch together, in which the kids listened to the "Seeds of Courage" scripture cd, they played outside for a bit of free time together. We also got to watch a bit of Art History via "Gallery" a Hidef art channel (Degas little dancer), and a bit of Buffalo herding with "Equator" Hidef. The kids were very interested in the buffalo roundup esp since one of the cowboys used a bullwhip (Cat/Jo and Nate got bullwhips this past weekend at a garage sale.. they are small homemade ones but they can still crack them if they do it just right.)

For reading time I read from our Apologia Science and we learned that Mars takes 2 earth years to go around the sun. We also learned it is cold year round there but does have seasons, that it has polar ice caps, and that its day is 25 hours long. The kids retained a lot from our last lesson and decided that they would NOT like to live on Mars if a man made ecosystem was built there.

I then read "The Warlords Beads" and "D is for Dragon Dance" both books about China. Then I gave the kids a chance to vote on our next book the choices were "Treasure Island", "King Solomons Mine", and "20000 leagues Under the Sea" the kids agreed on Treasure Island so I read two chapters. I have decided however that it will probably not be one Kamie and Taylor will like.. might be a bit scary.. so I will allow the others to read that to each other and change our group reading to "Little Lord Fauntleroy" which I have on hold in audio tape at the library.
During quiet time Catherine and I will do our Latin together while the other children read or draw quietly. Taylor chose to do some sketches from our science book and Joseph is working on designs for his robot in his new "Robot Journal".
I think most of the kids are pretty tired from a busy weekend.. so a little bit of quiet time is good for them.

Two of our favorites from the new cd are
Philippians chapter Four
6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
and
1 Timothy chapter Four
12Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.