That's a Lot of Wives

Awana Leader: What is a midwife?

Lilly: When a man has 20 wives, the one in the middle is the midwife.

I'm so glad Rachel is helping in Sparks this year, otherwise I might not have heard that! By the way, I'd read the same exact story to the kids that morning -from Exodus 1. In my eagerness to get the point of compassion across, I skipped the vocabulary lesson! Oh well, the laugh has been well worth it!

Grandma Helen is teaching Lilly how to embroidory. She loves it, she picks it up for a few days and then lets it set for a week. Grandma comes home soon, so we should try to finish the monkey's shirt tomorrow. I'm getting pretty good at threading a needle again! Maybe I'll even try my hand, come Christmas vacation.

A Place for Everything or Total Schoolroom Makeover

Thanks to an organizing friend (a professional)- our school room saw a total makeover this weekend. I didn't take before pictures, but trust me - it was bad! I was at the point of not wanting to school in our school room. I'm looking forward to it tomorrow!

A place for everything and everything in it's place. I'm not a hoarder, but I'm a disorganized messie. I'm hoping by labeling all my areas in the school room that I will stick to putting things back where they belong. The kids too??

My teaching table. Wade made this for me my second year of homeschooling. I do love it! I can still fit three children around it if I need to, but normally the school room is reserved for one on one time with mom. I added the laptop so I don't have to leave the room to lesson plan anymore. I hate lesson planning - but it was kind of fun tonight!

Each child has a shelf of their school books. I'm sorry to say this was the messiest spot before, and the easiest to clean up. My mom gave me the shelf dividers. Each child will be assigned the task of labeling their area and rewarded for keeping it neat! I will credit Rachel for keeping her spot neat all year long. It was easier for her because of the amount of books she has!

We saved the closet for last. I was able to part with things and organize everything else. My mom worked on this last year and really did a good job. She set up the pencil color crayon area. However, without a label to keep me accountable - I quickly fell into my sloppy habit of quick cleanups and stuffing things in the most convenient place.

This area will hopefully be used as a reading nook, or a comfy place to wait for mom to be available.

Looking forward to school tomorrow! We have our 4-day writing class this week, so the school room won't have a lot of use! However, the week after is full speed ahead!

Coffee Cake and Pippi

This hand written invitation says, "You are invited to a coffey (coffee) party in the kitchen at 1:00

Garret is currently doing a Pippi Longstocking Literature Study. He usually works on vocabulary, spelling, grammar, story writing - but today I had something different in mind. You see, Pippi was invited to a coffee party at the home of her two friends.

We had our own coffee party (more like -coffee cake party!)

I read the chapter to the rest of the family while they dined on coffee cake by Garret, and hot cocoa with French vanilla creamer!

I didn't realize we had closed eyes, but maybe this is the picture Pippi would have picked to show if she had been with us.

Mapping the Dead Sea

I actually did a suggested project in our History book. The kids themselves asked me to post this!

We are using Mystery of History, Volume II. The Early Church and the Middle Ages. I love the book, I love the author!

This week in History we studied events happening around the Dead Sea. You can see our pin marks. Blue is Jerusalem.

1) White: Masada - A.D. 66-73. Herod the Great lived at Masada when he was a young boy. Later in life he remodeled it and turned it into an unbelievable stronghold. During the First Jewish revolt, a group of Zealots made their escape to Masada. Unfortunately, the Romans made their way up to Masada by building a dirt mound. After using battering rams to break down the walls the Romans entered and found very few Jews alive. The Zealots took their own lives in order to prevent Roman captivity.

2) Yellow: The Dead Sea Scrolls - written by a Jewish sect called the Essenes. These are the very words of our Old Testament Scriptures. They were discovered in Qumran in 1947 by a shepherd boy.

3) Red: Bar-Kokhba - A.D. 135. Bar-Kokhba was once thought to be a legend. But the leader of the Second Jewish Revolt was discovered to be a real person in 1961. Proof was found in a canyon named Nahal Hever. Letters written by Bar-Kokhba to his generals were found in remarkable condition (this attributed to the dry air near the Dead Sea).

Lilly and I made this map.

Bret did this one, and Garret made our flags!

Sad for me, Rachel missed out on this. She is in high school and is doing her own study of World History this year.

Bible Time in the Orchard

Most of our school mornings start off with a short Bible reading and prayer. It helps me focus on what is most important in our home school.

A couple of weeks ago, Garret had a great idea. We did our Bible time in the orchard. Wade was home that day so he to read to us. Then we worked on our memory work. I Corinthians 13.

I felt like we were camping and didn't really want it to end. But it was a school day for us and work day for Wade. So we wrapped up our special time in prayer, thanking God for His many blessings and Bible time in our orchard was at the top of the list!