April 11th - April 17th

Saturday we spent the morning playing games. In the evening we had a cupcake delivery from Grandma and Grandpa, who dropped them off on the porch, then stepped away and said hello from a distance. We introduced the kids to the Jetsons movie, watching half this evening.

Easter Sunday we worshipped as a family. We sang hymns that remind us of the atonement of Christ, spoke of his death, resurrection, and ministry after resurrection, and one child asked to bear his testimony of Christ. Once church was finished, before everyone scattered, we gathered for a family photo. After dinner we finished watching the Jetsons movie.

Monday we had to pick up some people's usual monthly prescriptions. I wish we could get them all coordinated to the same week, but so far, no luck. Homeschool went well. We are in the last few lessons of math for most kids, so it is fun extra topics that Math U See saves for the end of year. For example, Mason's (Beta level) this week is working on ordinal numbers (first, second, etc) using days of the week and months of the year, while also working with tally marks. Joseph and Emma's Algebra 1 has them working with unit multipliers to do extended conversions (ex: taking a quantity in gallons and converting to cups, which involves going from gallons to quarts to pints to cups). They write it out like you see in Chemistry, which is great so they are familiar with it when we do chemistry.

Tuesday was a smooth and easy day. My favorite kind! Kids worked through school work. I helped as needed. We finished the Feline family portion of our The Good and the Beautiful Mammals study in science today, then saw the Cincinnati Zoo share a live video with their Serval cat - very cool! In the evening we gathered the family to play General Conference Jeopardy together. It was so sweet to hear the things kids remembered from Conference, and hilarious as people debated answers, cheered, or despaired as the game went on.

Wednesday in group lessons we had history. Today we moved into the 1930s and the Great Depression. It was a great topic that also has some relevance to current events. We had discussion about how the economy, stock market, bank system, and more are interconnected. The kids had so many questions and if I didn't know the answer, we looked it up. This is pretty normal for our homeschooling life. The kids have some crazy or amazing question and we go on an adventure to find the answer. The rest of school was pretty normal. Math, language arts, biology, and so on.

Thursday's highlight was finishing The Good and the Beautiful History 2. We learned about the Dust Bowl. The kids were fascinated by the photographs and stories of actual people who lived through it. We also talked about Esperanza Rising, a book we read a while back as part of our Homeschool Book Club. It is set in this time period and follows a migrant family. For our very last bit of history we flipped through the maps and images book for History 2 and reviewed our entire year. Kids shared the things they remembered about each topic. Here are just a few of the things we covered in History 2:

•  Ancient Greece
• Alexander the Great
• Bucephalus
• Ancient China: Dynasties, religion, art, daily life
• Gengis and Kublai Khan
• Ancient India
• Vikings
• Marco Polo
• Christopher Columbus
• Explorers: Cabot, Balboa, Vespucci, Magellan, 
• Pre-Colombian American peoples
• Conquistadors
• Each of the American colonies
• Henry Hudson
• Ben Franklin
• The Constitution 
• Presidents
• Education in Early America
• Noah Webster
• William McGuffey
• Henry Ford
• WWI: Causes, Effects, Weapons, Ad Campaigns,Trenches, Technology
• Roaring 20s
• Great Depression and Dust Bowl

We really loved our second year with The Good and the Beautiful History. It is so fun to go from Creation to the 1900s every year because of the variety. The courses are really good about using stories, reviews, and the timeline to take year 1 items and put them in context of the things we learn as we go through year 2. There are 4 years total. We're moving into History 3 in the fall.

Thursday was also Daddy's birthday. Rebekah and I baked him a cake while he was at work, and everyone sang and celebrated with him in the evening.

Friday was bird central. Different kids were enthralled by the birdfeeder on and off all day. Mason called kids over to see a downy woodpecker. Caleb called kids over to see some blue jays. Rebekah loves the European starlings, and there is a flock visiting our feeder frequently. We saw a cardinal today.

It is Friday afternoon and I'm going to publish this post and go spend a few minutes in a quiet corner reading a book while the kids play.