April was an exciting month for us in homeschooling. We took the kids to Medieval dinner and tournament. They all learned so much about that time period. I can't wait to study more with them!
We took the children fishing and Valerie caught one fish. We talked a lot about nature.
Classical Conversations ended the year with a celebration. Lily's class played Mary Had a Little Lamb on the tin whistle and sang us the ten commandments~
Here is Lily with the other girls in her class. She loves Boston and Hope and they even color coordinated!
Lily became a Memory Master this year~ Such a huge accomplishment. She memorized over 400 facts and was able to recite all of them to her tutor without any errors. Then she went on to be randomly quizzed by our director of CC. Lily didn't miss any again! So now she is a Memory Master. It took hard work and lots of study time. I am so proud of her for not being afraid of this challenge, but going at it with full integrity!
Everything is a learning experience when you homeschool. We went downtown and found this amazing old building. We studied the time period it was built and went around looking at all the old features. I even showed her some old black and white movies to show her how everything use to look. It was great! I felt like we were in one of those glamorous old movies!
At New Life, we started a unit on Little House on the Prairie. Rebecca Carter taught the children about wood carving by using bars of soap that they made into creatures. Valerie and Lily made ducks! They also learned about how to tie a knot!
My favorite thing this month has been learning about the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23. We have been talking about each fruit and the children are noticing each other showing love, joy, kindness, etc. As they notice them, they write down what they noticed from one of their siblings and put the paper in a bowl. When the bowl is full, we will read them all and celebrate with a family party!
On this same note, Christina and Kelly decided to plan a random acts of kindness day. Such a great opportunity to teach the children about serving and loving others. We started at the dollar store and bought toys and snacks to give out at the mall. At the mall, we wrote verses to give out. The children also brought some of their own money. We went around giving toys and snacks to boys and girls with notes telling them that this was just a random act of kindness. The kids loved seeing the smiling faces! The funny thing was how shocked people were. They almost didn't know what to say or do. We also put little bags of money on soda machines and candy machines to bless people. We even took baby wipe packs and set them on changing tables for moms!
After the mall, we headed to the hospital. This was my favorite! The children gave out flowers to people in the different waiting rooms. People were so thankful. It really brightened their day on a very rainy day and when they didn't feel well or were waiting on loved ones. One lady hugged Little Lily and kept smiling and then told us that she didn't know English, but she definitely showed us how thankful she was with her smile! We also gave out crayons and coloring books. One family was so thankful. They had been there for over two hours and needed something to keep the kids occupied. We also taped money on the soda and snack machines and talked to the kids about how long people have to stay at the hospital and how stressful it is. We also gave out more snacks to people! It was a beautiful experience.
God is so good! It is great to be able to share that love with people and to bless others!
Love Medieval Times, we used that as part of a special project study, we built a castle with working portcullis, and made a feast of foods from that period. We also made a coat-of-arms, and made our own spelling lists (we used www.spellingcity.com to make the lists). My daughter still talks about that years later. What a wonderful experience for your family to get to go!
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