Our fingers are blue...

Today was the first day of blueberry picking season that was not covered in a HEAT ADVISORY, so we took advantage of the weather early this morning!

Usually we struggle to get one gallon before the kids get too cranky, but the crop is wonderful this year, and we easily picked TWO, and ate our fill, besides! I just LOVE this tradition, and look forward to it all winter and spring!

We'll freeze one for smoothies and yogurt and pancakes, and inhale the other by the weekend!

2 thumbs up from Isaac!

Saturday night Isaac crept out of his bedroom and came and whispered in my ear, "I really like our new curriculum, Mom..." and I tried not to cry!

He was very skeptical, that young man, but has really enjoyed our school time more and more each day as he sees that it is consistently good. I think he has been waiting all week for the fun and interesting things to stop, and the torture to begin! I even added in his formal grammar study(Preparing to Build), and he was SO pleasantly surprised by the doable, short lessons. He immediately realized it was something he could do well, and quickly, too. He is doing formal literature study(Drawn into the Heart of Reading, otherwise known as DITHOR) as well!! Next week we will add math back into our routine, and the following week we will add formal handwriting practice. Finished in 1 and 1/2 hours today!

Alyza loves her pink school (Little Hands to Heaven), and is all about the letter 'A' this week! She has discovered collages, and I'm afraid she won't complete another full sentence or meal until she has covered the entire house in pieces of construction paper artwork! She cuts everything out of magazines, sunday ads, and grocery fliers! Perfectly, too! Such girliness!

oooooh...TKD update!

Isaac attended TNT's Taekwondo Summer Rank Advancement Camp, and in one week of intense, 4 1/2 hour training days he graduated from brown belt to RED BELT!! Isaac is currently training towards his Red/Black Belt, and with hard work will be graduating to that rank in August.

Congratulations, Isaac!! Hard work pays off!

Summer School

It is flat out TOO HOT to do anything else, so we have started up school!

We are just 3 days into our new curriculum(Heart of Dakota), and are really enjoying our school time.

It is just the right blend of reading and activities, although it will be next week before I'm organized enough to add in our math and Isaac's formal grammar work. I have both of them and need to lay out the scheduling for each subject.

The boys enjoyed geography playing "twister" with the continents we taped to the floor, making currents in the bathtub with medicine droppers for paper boat shapes, and for science today we learned about sea creature's blubber with a little vegetable shortening on their hands and a sink full of ice water.

Alyza is learning all about the letter "A", and how God created everything... She is very enthusiastic, and the fingerplays and songs we are learning are PERFECT for her learning style and personality. Trystan is reading like a hurricane, devouring everything I give him. Isaac is enjoying himself despite his preconceptions, and really likes his biography on Amelia Earhart he selected. Overall, a great start!

We still have plenty of time for playing in the hose and eating popsicles, too, those other required summer courses! Yesterday the kids were sprayed by firemen at the library park, and went through fire obstacle courses... quite a hit!

Other than that, the house is a bit of a wreck, and we are all getting a workout killing flies! SUMMER!

Learning something new today...

Today we went to the library and signed up for the summer reading program, and checked out armloads of books, too. We picked out books on tadpoles, frogs, toads, dragonflies, and fun summer projects. Trystan picked out a stack of readers as big as his head... the librarian was very impressed with his ambition!! Isaac had a hard time selecting a book, and finally settled on Old Yeller... I read that book the summer after third grade, too.

We spent time at the park right outside the library with friends we ran into while we were there. We checked out all the baby fish in the lake, the goslings, and a critter we thought was a crawdad. Trystan fell in the water, so we had to stay until he stopped dripping! We spotted a few dragonflies, too, while the kids were all trying to catch minnows with their hands.

When we got home we were reading book after book (after cooling off!) and discovered the little critter in the shallow water we thought was a crawdad was actually a dragonfly nymph!! We learned alot and will study them more in depth in the next few weeks. So fun and exciting!!