Artists

I enjoyed taking the kids on a field trip to the Toledo Art Museum yesterday. We had to move at a rather speedy pace through the galleries in order to keep Emmery's attention, but we all enjoyed our time and were particularly amazed at seeing some originals of artists we have studied. One of the highlights was hanging out in the Family Center, a place for children to create their own works of art:

Creation Museum

 Grampa and Gramma treated our three big kids to the field trip of the year...an overnight trip to the Creation Museum!  The kids took along their camera and here are some of the memories they captured:

Calvin, Abigail, & Easton all fully engaged in this amazing learning opportunity and we know it gave them a deeper understanding of the Perfect Designer of the universe. They came home filled with stories of the exhibits, the gardens, the camel rides, the planetarium shows, the swimming pool, the hotel breakfast, and all the little surprises Grampa and Gramma had for them along the way.  We are so thankful that they could have this educational, faith-building, memory-making time with their grandparents!!

Cultivating Grateful Hearts

One of the things that's a REALLY big deal to us as parents is that we cultivate grateful hearts in our children. Ultimately only God can change their hearts, but we are trying to give them as many tools as possible to choose gratitude and trust rather than discontent and unbelief. Last year each child began a journal that they write in several times a week during our Bible time in school. They record gifts/blessings in their life, and then they share them aloud.We pray that the cumulative effect of this exercise produces great fruit in the years to come!

This Is Life!

Life does not begin when the baby grows out of her tantrum stage, or when we find the perfect house, or when the mosquitoes die off, or when I get my entire to-do list completed, or when.... Nope. Right here, right now, life is happening, and I don't want to miss it! I'm working on accepting each moment of the day as a gift from God, just the way it is. Sometimes the moment is bursting with joy, sometimes it's exploding with frustration, sometimes it's just so normal it goes unnoticed. I don't want to wait for the perfect smile before I snap a photo to preserve the memory. If the hair was always perfect, the outfit always coordinated, and the background always spotless, then it wouldn't be an accurate memory anyway!! So here are a few snapshots from today. This is life, and I don't want to miss it!!

Working on a crayfish trap before breakfast.

Abigail did the breakfast dishes with a little extra style this morning!!

Emmery loves to run into this little corner in the boys' room and "hide."  This is the face she makes when we ask her to give us a smile. :)

We started "back to school" on Monday.  This year Dan is doing Phys Ed with the kids and part of their daily "homework" this week was to practice some different jump rope exercises.  So fun to see them work as a team and grow in their coordination!

Enjoying an apple juice popsicle.  She knew she wanted the one with the pink holder. And yes, that's a tortilla with peanut butter on it smeared to her chin.

Examining a crayfish they caught!

Sketching the crayfish in their nature journals.  We are doing a lot more notebooking this year, so you can also see Calvin's  pages for Columbus, Van Gogh, and Martin Luther in his notebook

Emmery squeezed into Abigail's lap after dinner with her current favorite book, Are You My Mother?  Emmery has a lot of it memorized and pronounces mother "mu-noo."

And nothing beats climbing into Daddy's lap with a pile of books!!

Quote to Ponder

“Education is not the filling of a pail,

 but the lighting of a fire.”
- William Butler Yeats

Loving Life's Little Moments

The other days the kids were sitting around the table working on their school and Calvin was enjoying a moment "talking" with Emmery (she's taken quite a fancy to her big brother, and they have long conversations. :)  I looked at them and was overwhelmed with gratitude that we could all do life together, and that because we're homeschooling, the older kids have numerous opportunities through the day to interact and bond with their baby sister.  They take full advantage of those opportunities (full disclosure: that means they sometimes actually fight with each other about whose turn it is to bask in her smiles and cooing.  Yes, fighting over a good thing is still fighting.  We're working on it.)
I am one blessed Mama!!

Great Lakes Science Center

As a special birthday outing for Abigail, we went to the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland. It was just perfect for our kids - very hands-on, interactive, lots of fun and learning!

I appreciated that there were even some exhibits out of doors...

Working as a team...

Honestly, the escalators were the highlight of the day...

Sweet Rewards

In an attempt to use up one more of the prizes the kids received through the library's summer reading program, we followed their last piano lesson with a trip to Ben & Jerry's!   What a great perk for doing something we already love doing - reading! 

Surprise Field Trip

On Wednesday morning Dan received a message saying that his flight to a conference (for his new job) was cancelled. He was rescheduled on a flight out of Boston and needed me to drop him off. There was no way we were going to spend four hours in the van without doing something fun, so after we dropped Dan off, we went to the New England Aquarium in Boston.  The kids loved the penguins and seals.  They got to see the same sea turtle that was there when Dan and I went as children.  They were brave enough to touch sharks and rays in this touch tank:

It was a windy, wet day, but we still enjoyed walking along the harbor:

We were thankful to get one last chance to hang out in Boston before our move!

Celebration of Learning

School's out!  We've officially finished our formal schooling for the year (though we continue to enjoy learning new things every day!)  Saturday evening we had a special dinner and then each child shared some of the highlights of the things they'd learned this past year.  They each kept a notebook during the year and filled it with pictures and summaries of books we read, people we learned about, plants we researched, composers and artists we studied, etc.  Here they are:

Abigail talked about Shakespeare, Columbus, and Thomas Jefferson

Easton talked about the Black Death, Chopin, and Martin Luther & the 95 Theses

Calvin highlighted language arts, dragonflies, and The Secret Garden

We presented each child with a certificate of completion.  They just beamed with pride!

We were able to affirm each of them for the ways we've seen them grow over the past year and the joy that it has been to teach them and learn alongside them.

I couldn't ask for a better group of students!!!

Finishing Up

We're in the home stretch of finishing up our school year!  On Monday we took a field trip to a World War II Museum (the Wright Museum.)  One of the most helpful parts of the museum was a time tunnel that showed key events of each year as well as what life was like during that year.  Here Dan, my Dad and all three kids are glued to a video clip about one of the battles:

All of the kids were very interested in the equipment that was used in the War.  Here's Easton:

The last couple days we've been learning about Shakespeare.  Here's Calvin summarizing his findings:

I love teaching my kids and they are eager learners, but we're also excited for the more relaxed pace of summer!

Lilacs & Iron

Yesterday my parents invited us to join them on a couple field trips in Boston.  First stop: the Arnold Arboretum.  It was amazing!  We could have spent a full day there and look forward to returning some other time.  The lilacs were my favorite.  Here are a bunch of photos:

Keziah and Abigail seeking to identify a tree

My parents.  Don't they look amazing?  They are amazing.

Next stop: Saugus Iron Works.  We were given a tour with demonstrations of how iron was manufactured in the mid 1600s in MA.

The kids amazed me with their incredible attention and interest during the tour.  They hung on every word the guide spoke.  Let's just say that they were a good example to their mother. :)  I am greatly blessed to be in this homeschool journey because I am learning so much more than I ever would if I was not responsible for teaching them. 

Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma, for a day filled with learning, laughter, and great memories!