December 21, 2011 – 8:45 am
We are celebrating Chanukah this year, in honor of my husband’s Spanish Jewish heritage and, of course, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We were able to go to the mall last night where they had a whole Menorah lighting service. First there was a performer who was remarkable in his craft:
While he performed, they gave out donuts and dreidels. Next, they had the blessings and the lighting of the Menorah:
We signed up for the free raffle, in which Taz won a lovely wooden Menorah. We were going to buy one, so this was a great treat for us!
Lastly, they were dancing up a crazy storm to celebrate. Taz got really into it and ended up dancing for around 15 minutes! He was so cute!
We hung around the mall a bit longer after the celebration ended only to see a good friend of ours and talk with him for a while. He was nice enough to share a coupon that would allow us to get Menorah candles cheaper than we expected. We left the mall and headed to the last store we would go to for the night, allowed Taz to pick out the candles, and went home with high hopes!
We ended the night with our own ceremonial lighting of the Menorah and playing with dreidels:
All in all a great start to the Chanukah week!
December 20, 2011 – 3:04 pm
We are reading Hanukkah: Eight Nights, Eight Lights by Malka Drucker. There are 8 chapters so we can read for 8 days of the holiday all about what it entails, culminating in a report about what he has learned.
We are working on more of his writing skills, as his story telling skills are already superb. We have also had to go back into math a bit and re-establish some of the 3rd grade fundamentals as 4th grade math has posed a bit of a challenge. He is doing phenomenally in all other areas of study. We are also stepping up his language learning, as we are going to make more evident in paper work as opposed to just speaking and understanding.
I am listening to him read right now. There are some pretty interesting words in the book like Hellenistic, sophisticated, Macedonia, circumcision, Shabbat. He is doing a great job of sounding out words that are difficult. It’s also wonderful to hear him draw from his previous knowledge in other studies as he reads about different aspects of the history of Hanukkah which are relevant to the background and culture of the times.
*Edited to say that he found out that Greeks used to wrestle naked in the gymnasium and he exclaimed “I’m glad we’re not Greek!” HA !! Poor baby was a bit traumatized by that naked wrestling thing. He LOVES MMA and wrestling, so it made him feel weird.*
December 1, 2011 – 11:01 am
November 17, 2011 – 10:52 am
It’s been a rough first quarter for all of us school-wise and life-wise. I am pregnant, my husband is out of commission due to a car accident in August (which apparently happened the week AFTER we conceived), and we are finishing up our own course study work for Bible school.
Meanwhile, we still were able to fulfill the requirements for this quarter, and I was able to send out the first quarter report on the 15th. Yay us!
His likes have changed a bit to more grown up fare. For instance, we no longer watch Nick Jr. and barely PBS Kids. He is more into The Mighty Bee and Disney for teens. He is still all about legos. That has only increased! He is in want of some of the more elaborate lego sets that cost around 300 dollars. The best part is that he has an entrepreneurial plan to get his wishes met. He is into modern art and ancient foreign history. Science is his favorite subject and he has begun to really excel in math. He is very responsible and can take care of himself for the most part. I supervise how he cooks his foods. He has graduated from making toast to being able to make his own ramen noodles and hot dogs. His next endeavor is to be able to do eggs by himself, though I think that will be a while from now.
Can you believe that in only a few short months, this 4 foot 4 inch tall child will be 9 years old? The time surely flies. He is halfway to adulthood!
Funny that I was reading through THL and there was a discussion on our personal philosophies for educating our children at home.
I had to sit and think hard about it for a few minutes. I mean I know all the reasons WHY but I have never tried to pair them down to one succinct statement.
I have discovered that it all comes down to this:
Matthew 6:33 Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.
Without the knowledge of God, the repentance of the heart, and truly knowing how to communicate with the Holy One, there is no wisdom. There is no hope, no life, no light, outside the realm of knowing God and Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Save a soul today, save the world tomorrow. You never know what will happen once a person’s life is fully yielded to the living God.
The Bible says that the fear of God is only the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10a). THE most important thing we can EVER teach our children is how to walk uprightly in the footsteps of Jesus.
I was thinking of having an end of the year party for Taz this year. He has had a phenomenally successful learning experience this year. He is getting ready to get into division! His handwriting has improved to the point of legible cursive writing. He has read a ton of books. His scientific mind has come up with some cool experiments. We went on some lovely field trips. He has made sure that he has plenty of physical activity. I am so proud of his accomplishments this year! Sending in our evaluation and quarterly report on the 30th and that will mark the end of our school year.
SO at long last I felt that we were ready to really do this. I got my son to pray with me and we went over the logo and he chose the verse. I wanted it to be a memory for him, that he got a chance to shape the way he learns and grows. This is what we came up with:
April 25, 2011 – 10:34 am
His follow up to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid involved him reading the Big Nate series, which is similar, but not wholly the same as its predecessor. He just finished the third book this morning. I am sure he would have been done them a long time ago, but he is so taken by the DOAWK series that he keeps going back to re-read the books. I believe he has just completed his second time through the first 4 books, but I have to either buy or borrow the purple book for him to finish the series again.
My son and I painted these this morning for the cabinets his father built in his room.
We are working our way through the Fiesta! series of books about the world. So far, we have been to Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia. Now we are on China. I was going to do a D country, but he LOVES China so I figured we would do his favorite things for now. His Ti-Ti helped me find China-centric stories in a series called “Historical Tales”. He is already engulfed in them.
I was able to find this fantastic book series divided by grade levels. I borrowed it from the library, then decided it would be worth buying so I did. The book is What your third grader needs to know. I also purchased the next book in the series, so we are totally covered.
Problem: scheduling. There is a lot to cover. Some things are easy, but others are not. I hate making him learn things he isn’t interested in, so I am trying to make sure that I keep the learning relevant to his interests. For instance, we can study haiku to cover poetry right now. We can study geography through China, history of China, and social & cultural studies also through China. If I can continue to keep things unit centric, I think we will be just fine.
