Reading

Abishai asked me to record him reading.  I video taped him sideways thinking that I would be able to rotate it later in iPhoto but the program didn't allow me to.  If you just tilt your head sideways (or turn your computer) everything will right itself.

Abishai and Micaiah have finished memorizing all of the books of the New Testament which was apart of our Bible curriculum. Micaiah was being too silly to say the books properly so Abishai asked to be taped alone.  This time I recorded him straight on.

A Week of Poetry

We've been reading Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I normally read the boys poetry at lunch each day, but we did a little extra on this particular week.

I love the snowy pictures.  So beautiful!

The boys tried to make snowy tree branches of their own.   Micaiah's is above, and Abishai's, below.

  

We made snow flakes from tortilla shells.  After baking them and melting coconut oil over the hot steamy shells, we sprinkled cinnamon on top and had a tasty treat.

Since a lot of animals make their home in the woods and their tracks can easily be tracked through the snow, we read some books on animal tracking and then did a matching game footprints and the animals they belong to.

 

 Poetry that we read.

Our favourite book was Sing a Song of Popcorn.  The boys enjoyed the nonsense poems.

Jesus, Light of the World

A couple of weeks ago we talked about Jesus being the light of the world from John 8:12.  To help the story sink in, we made "Light of the World" lanterns. When we weren't using them as table centrepieces, we placed glow sticks inside and put them in the boys' rooms to look at night before falling to sleep.  Now whenever we look at our lanterns we can remember that Jesus is the light of the world.

We also did a Science activity called Polar Night.  We learned that the Arctic Circle in winter experiences polar night: 24 hours of darkness. In June it experiences Polar Day: 24 hours of daylight.  I placed a big "Cars" sticker on Greenland so that when I spun the globe the boys could see that the sticker stayed in the darkness without any light.  We talked about how Jesus is like a light (morning sun) that rises up and makes everything day after it has been dark for many months. If we follow Jesus and listen to the Bible then we will never stumble around in that darkness again.  This also was a great experiment to add on to our Arctic Study.  

I also showed the boys that the earth travels in a circle around the sun (the lamp was our sun).

Greenland ("Cars" sticker) in total darkness. 

Greenland in 24 hours of daylight.  

Character Development

Over the last couple of months we've been focusing on character development.  Focus on the Family has a resource called Character Crew, Develop Moral Character.  Their site has a printable poster and story relating to each virtue, as well as an Adventures in Odyssey episode, and a related age appropriate activity.

To supplement the stories from Character Crew, my husband reads God's Wisdom for Little Boys just before our family bible reading each morning.  I've drawn on it a few times when my boys were fighting.  You might find me saying,"Boys, God's little boy is self-controlled."

At lunch time while the boys eat, I read two or three stories from our Book of Virtues which correspond to the virtue of that particular week.  It's a great book for developing moral character in your children. Here's the table of contents.