Austin (3rd grade), Lindsey (1st grade), and Reece (just turned four last week) had a great first day of school. It started with "Circle Time" where we are studying the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Today's question asked: What is Man's Primary Purpose? All week we will discuss our purpose to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
After Circle Time we went through the typical subjects: Math, English, Spelling, Handwriting, along with copy work and narration.
For History they are studying 1600-1850, the early modern times. In their main History spine today they learned about Charles V and his quest to become the Holy Roman Emperor. Their map work also went along with this part in History. There are nine extra books on reserve, at the Library, to supplement this chapter for the week.
Austin and Lindsey learned the Latin alphabet and vowel sounds. They learned that Oremus means: "Let us pray". They also learned five latin vocabulary words: ambulo, via, Deus, toga, and luna.
All three kids did Music Ace on the computer where they reviewed the bass clef, treble clef and practiced matching pitches.
Chemistry experiments start up next week for Austin and Lindsey. Art classes, gym classes and Awana start up in September as we ease into the school year.
Reece knows all of his letter sounds so is now starting his phonics book and blending letters together. Next week he will start Saxon Kindergarten Math.
Austin and Lindsey did separate Spanish lessons and all three had a stack of read-aloud books until Mommy's voice got too tired.
Since we don't do homework, there is time to do some scripture memory and then outside baseball fun with Daddy.
We feel so blessed to have these kids and look forward to a great school year!
In Chemistry, recently, we did experiments with lemon juice, vinegar, milk, baking soda, and water. We had fun discovering that vinegar and lemon juice are similar kinds of molecules and that milk and baking soda are not similar. Also, even though lemon juice and vinegar are not identical, they behave in similar ways because they are similar kinds of molecules. As you can imagine, History and Science are some of our favorite subjects around here.
In history lessons, recently, we learned that sumo wrestling allowed Japanese warriors to fight without blades or bloodshed. So, of course, we had to try out our own 'sumo wrestling'. 
We made a "dohyo" ring with colored paper representing the pillars in the North, South, East and West. Lindsey wore her hair in the "mage" sumo hair style. Austin and Lindsey marched into the circle, squatted and clapped once (called a chirichozu ritual). Then they did the "shiko" ritual of exaggerated foot stamping. After that they drank water to purify themselves and tossed a handful of salt into the ring. They did a "glare-off" and then lunged at each other (called a shikiri). The kids had a memorable history lesson and we parents were glad that we only saw one neighbor on this Saturday morning.
A couple of weekends ago the family went to the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville, NC. It is a drive thru safari with over 750 animals from 6 continents. You can take your car, but we chose to take the horse drawn wagon thru the 3.5 mile safari. It was worth riding in the wagon, plus it saves your car from getting animal slobber all over it. The kid's favorite animals were the giraffe and the zebras. We also enjoyed a picnic lunch and playing at their playground.
Lindsey feeding the giraffe.
Petting the zebras that came up to our wagon to be fed.
Getting the parrot to say "hello".
Austin, while speaking to his Grandma on the phone on the way to the beach said "Some kids go to school on Fridays, but we go to the beach."
