The Backyard Olympics

School is going great this year. It is like night and day from last year. Not that last year was bad but it was difficult. Landon started having trouble with reading, and writing. Yes, 2 out of 4 of our subjects. We took him to an OT (Occupational Therapist) and they were really able to help him. Not only did they help him but he is doing amazing now. We are doing 5 times the learning that we were able to do last year. It was all worth it. He was in therapy for 11 months. He got glasses which have really helped in the reading category, he had his tonsils and adenoids taken out which has taken care of the drooling/snoring/can't breath category, and the therapy has dramatically helped his handwriting. He can now write with both hands and loves to color and write me notes. Here are some of my favorites. "I an a good reden cid. Mi nam iz Landon." Translation "I am a good reading kid. My name is Landon." My other favorite... "We hav 6 pepl in r feulmi" We have 6 people in our family.

Some fun things we have done so far this year in school...

Make Play dough and pretend to write in Cuneiform (Ancient Mesopotamian writing)

Tuesday Creek days (We meet some friends at a park every Tuesday with a creek. The the kids get to play with their buddies in the creek. It might not sound educational but... they have learned about irrigation, crawdads or as the kids called it "a lobster", and bridges.)

Making maps of Ancient Israel and Mesopotamia and charting the routs of Abraham, Jonah, the Captivity into Babylon, Daniel and his 3 amigos, and Queen Ester.

Group school day at the Blake house. We learned about the Olympics. (Jason and Landon came up with this one evening when he was watching the kids) Outside the kids were able to compete different events that you could do in your own back yard. Set up boards in an oval with a starting line. They can compete in the 400m, 800 m (2 laps) 1600 (4 laps). You can also do a relay with it with a stick. They love this. Who doesn't love running in circles over boards. OK. Next they can do the pole vault. Set up a 2 buckets with a plastic tube. Get a blanket and lay it down and then put on top of it a couch cushion. You can cover it with a sheet to protect it. Finally you need a PVC pipe or some long stick. The kids would run with the pipe down the runway, stick it into the ground, leap over the plastic tube onto the couch cushion while throwing the stick behind them so as not to fault. What fun they had.

We threw the shot put with a heavy ball, the javelin with the plastic tube, and the discus with a Frisbee.

Finally for the girls we cut pieces of ribbon and played classical music while they danced with hula hoops to the rhythmic gymnastics. It was hilarious.

Then inside they all made up their own country name and designed their own flag. Landon's was Dino with a great dinosaur picture. Kelly's was American stars. Next they cut out and colored their own Olympic medals.

The Bible lesson was on 1 Cor. 9-24-27. Encouraging them to "run in such a way as to get the prize." We also talked about wanting to earn a heavenly prize that will last for eternity.

Finally we had the closing ceremony where each kid was announced with there name, their country's name, (Flag flying proudly) and were presented with a medal. You would have thought it was a real gold medal with the amount of pride that they wore them. It was a fun school day to say the least. I hope you try it. It would make a fun summer birthday party too.

We are also doing 2 curriculums simultaneously and are really enjoying them both. The first is Heart of Wisdom which is similar to a classical learning style but it is taught with a Hebrew/Christian mindset instead of a Greek mindset. The second is the online Charlotte Mason curriculum from amblesideonline.org. This has provided some of our most favorite reading selections. We are all enjoying these stories which are rich in character, morals, creativity and vocabulary. Well, that is how school is going for now. It has been a long time since my last post but things have been busy.