Another Year of AWANA...

Another year of our church's AWANA program has ended successfully.

This year was Abi's second year of Cubbies. She did so much better this year than last. She was able to say all the verses on time and finish her whole book. She is able to pronounce words more clearly now, and can often say the verses after only a couple days of practice. She earned the Cubbie bear doll for finishing both Cubbie books over 2 years.

Andrew finished his 2nd year of Sparks. He breezed through his book, as well, and then did the review book which goes through the whole book a 2nd time! He also memorized the books of both the Old & New Testament. He is great at memorizing and gets excited about going to AWANA every week.

Leah finished her first year in T&T and earned the Alpha Award for finishing her book. Her verses were much more challenging this year. Although she usually only had one or two each week, they were usually longer verses or more difficult. She also had work each day to complete, finding things in her Bible, reading & answering questions in order to apply what she's learning in the verses. It has been great for her as she's established a daily quiet time and is growing so much in her faith! She stood up in front of all the people at the end-of the year ceremony and told all about what she's been learning-- a feat most adults would be uncomfortable doing. 

Here are a few shots of our little AWANA group from the year. We're not a huge club, but the kids are all such great friends and love spending time together. They are all faithful to come each week and work so hard on their verses. I am so thankful my kids have these friends to grow up with.

Shelburne Farms

Last weekend Brett went out of town for a conference in D.C., so the kids and I decided to do something fun. It was probably the hottest day of the year (and one of the few where it didn't rain this month!) but we braved Shelburne Farms, where I've been wanting to go for awhile.

We got to ride a tractor from the parking lot to the farm. (You can tell Jacob is already hot and we just got there!)

This is what the "farm" looks like. Inside the building are different exhibits, offices, and other things. We had lunch on the lawn first.

Then we saw the Children's Barnyard. They had a cow, sheep, chickens, and a couple other animals. (According to Jacob, they all say "meow".)

It was very kid-friendly and they had a lot of things set up for them to learn more about different farm animals and activities.

Doesn't it look like they're driving the horses? (It's a photo on the wall!)

Jacob  was determined to pet the chickens through the fence. I'm really surprised none pecked him! 

We got to see a red-tailed hawk and this guy told us a little about her. We were the only ones there for that (and really there wasn't too many people at the farm at all that day-- we got there after a big school group left!). Jacob doesn't do well in wide-open spaces like this-- he just wants to run and can't sit still, especially if he's tired, so I had to walk around with him a little or he would have been GONE.

Then we went on a short hike on the Storybook Trail, where you can read a story along the way (although we didn't take the time for that). Jacob was determined that he would walk by himself the whole time. He wandered off the path quite a bit and got mad when I picked him up, but otherwise they all did well.

They had a woodshop, and a cheesemaking room, which wasn't nearly as exciting as I had thought it would be. It was all behind a glass window where they make the cheese so we couldn't see much up close and just had to read about the process.

We'd seen most everything in a couple hours, but before we left, they got to go milk the cow. I can't believe we've lived in Vermont-- where there's more dairy farms than people-- for more than 3 years now and they've never gotten that close to a cow. First Leah held a chicken.

The workers were great at showing them how to milk her, and they did well. Abi didn't want to try, but Leah and Andrew were sure proud to tell everyone of their adventures!

And Now we do Baseball...

This year Andrew asked if he could play baseball. We wanted to let him try it out without having to commit to traveling all over the place and paying a whole lot of money. It turns out our town has a little rag-tag t-ball team that is part of the local rec dept. but very lax on who they let play. It is mostly preschoolers from Abi's school and they only practice one day a week at the school less than a mile from our house. So even though Andrew is a little older than most of them, it seemed perfect for our first year trial run. He is already loving it! He loves that Daddy will play catch with him in the backyard. And he is actually pretty good at it. Unfortunately they only have about 3 games scheduled and 2 of them will be while we are on our trip to Texas, but we knew that going in. At least now we know he likes it and wants to keep doing it.

Their coach is really great with them and very patient. He lets them all have a turn to bat every practice and lets them all try different positions in the field. And he makes them run. 

Meanwhile, despite my efforts to keep him in just one extracurricular activity at a time, he is also still doing taekwando, and really advancing. His instructor gifted us with a set of sparring gear (we're still not sure why she just gave it all to us, but think it may have something to do with our ordeal with Jacob-- she wanted to help with a fundraiser but we told her we didn't need it, so she wanted to do something else!) so last Saturday Andrew got to try sparring-- another thing he really loved. It is a great way to 1) learn self-defense and 2) put into practice some of the skills he's been learning in his taekwando class.

Here is a little video of sparring practice. He beat this kid 3-0 (in all honesty, the other kid had never sparred before either). 

End of the School Year

We've officially made it through 5 years of homeschooling and the kids are happy and intelligent and still alive! For them, homeschool is the way things have always been and they love being able to be home and have Mom as their teacher (most of the time!). Here is a little of what we learned about this year:

This year was Leah's 4th year doing Classical Conversations, and Andrew's 3rd. It was also my first year tutoring. What an adventure it has been. I have learned so much right alongside the 6 five-and-six year olds in my little class. They were crazy and full of energy but also so smart and so sweet and I had such a good experience. This is them:

Here is Andrew with his best friend from school, Daniel. Daniel was probably the biggest challenge and together these two were often loud and crazy, but I am thankful that they got the opportunity to be themselves and that they don't have to sit at a desk all day with all that energy brewing inside of them. 

Here is Leah with her class. She had a great tutor as well and was really challenged being the youngest in class. She kept up well and learned a lot from Mrs. Love and from the rest of her class-mates.

Presentations are just one of the things they do in CC. The chance to speak in front of peers on a regular basis has made both of my big kids more confident in themselves, and neither of them are afraid to talk to anybody! Leah even did her presentation about Grandma the week she took them to school!

And Leah's best friend at school this year was Sophia. They're even writing letters to each other over the summer.

Abi was still in the nursery this year, but had the same "teacher" she had last year and really flourished with her. There were several little girls her age in her "class" at CC that she enjoyed spending time with.

One of the big reasons we love CC is for the science, which is otherwise a little tricky to do at home on our own. The beginning half of the year, we studied astronomy. The kids got to go outside and build a "to-scale" solar system using different sized balls.

Then they made the solar system on paper, as well, making sure the planets were the right size and the right distance from each other. They can also name the planets from memory, among other astronomy topics.

Besides science, they also do Fine Arts at CC, another area that would be difficult on our own. The tin whistle isn't really a favorite of my ears, but it is great for teaching basic music theory.

And in art they got to draw and paint with a lot of different mediums I wouldn't have at home. They studied a famous artist from the Renaissance, which is the period of history we were learning about, and then did a work of art in a similar form. Andrew and Daniel always liked to include lava in some shape or form in their school projects.

They love just getting the paint out at home sometimes, too.

At home, we read through stories about history from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. We didn't do as many projects this year as we did last year, now that they're getting older (and there's more of them!), but they always loved when we got to do something a little hands-on, like these puppets of Charlemagne and his friends.

We did a lot of geography with CC, but at home we tried to learn about a different country each week, finding it on the map and learning a little about its culture and language. They each got their own little "passport" and we read a little about what God is doing in those countries as we studied.

We also learned some government this year, as it was an election year. Leah really got into the Presidential race and I was so proud when she actually asked to watch the Inauguration on TV. 

P.E. at home looks different all the time. When it's nice, they of course go outside, and sometimes we even did races to practice our memory work at school, but seeing as how it's cold 7 months of the year in Vermont, we make do with dance videos on YouTube sometimes, or Game Time at AWANA.

For fun, Leah has started to learn cooking through my own made-up curriculum. We don't do it as often as I like, but she is great at helping in the kitchen and learning how to do things on her own. She cut these veggies all by herself.

Abigail has grown so so much this year in her public preschool class, where she goes Monday and Friday. It took awhile, but her teacher tells me she has really opened up and will now participate in discussions, talk to other kids of her own will and offer suggestions about things. This is a far cry from the shy little girl who cried every time I dropped her off and the beginning of the year. She tells me detailed stories about her friends from school and I can usually understand what she's saying! She has learned to count and recognize numbers, colors, and shapes, although she still struggles with letters. She isn't quite as ready to read as Leah was at her age, but she does things on her own time and when she is ready, she will likely pick it up overnight. She loves playing the I-Pad while we do school work, or doing a few worksheets of her own.

Jacob learned a lot, too, of course. He learned how to destroy the entire playroom while we were doing school, and how to cause the most trouble possible while everyone is trying to concentrate. He is very good at it. He is only entertained by "quiet" toys like blocks for a short amount of time before he gets bored and wanders off to dump something else out. But it teaches the older kids how to work with distractions and also how to take care of younger kids when needed.

Our CC end-of-the year celebration was on a cold rainy day at the end of April. But we got together, had lunch, and gave out some certificates, made little presentations. It was a good close to the year. We have decided that next year we are going to take a break from Classical Conversations. We will take it one year at a time, but this year was a lot of traveling, as our community is an hour away, and we had to go up there a lot extra for Jacob's dr. visits and all the things we had to deal with, and I felt I was missing out on a lot of things we could have been doing with friends here from church, ministry opportunities, etc. So we are going to try to see if we can do it at home on our own, maybe do some things with a group close by. We will miss our CC family but have made the decision on what is best for this year.