Outside School

Josiah had a good start to his week.  He went to get the mail for us and discovered a package for himself. He had won a writing contest and they had mailed his prize.  We had totally forgotten about sending it in, but he had submitted a story to a magazine about his favorite book.  The reason he had entered it in the first place was because he wanted the prize: 365 Things to Paint and Draw.  

We finished the digestive system in science this week.  One of the end-of-unit projects was to write a comic showing a piece of food going through the digestive system.  They were too eager to oblige.  Caroline's bum cracked me up the most.  For whatever reason they chose to dress as ninjas that day, hence the head coverings.  (And I apologize in advance for Josiah's spelling.  It is a constant battle around here.  He actually has the capability of spelling much better, but simply chooses not to.)  I, for one, am so happy to move on from digestion.  It gets way too much air time around this house.  

The kids have started their language lessons again.  It is just a free website so they are by no means formal, but it is good exposure.  They have been working on Spanish, but as the week progressed, Josiah decided he wanted to broaden his horizons.  He continued his lessons in Spanish, but started lessons in German and Russian as well.  He mentioned that Russian was really hard.  I imagine it had much to do with the fact that they use the Cyrillic alphabet, something he has never dealt with before.  I thought of all the Russian phrases Todd taught me before we went to Russia many, many years ago.  Privet = Hello.  Do svidaniya = Good bye.  Sok mul'tifruktovyy pozhaluysta = Juice multifruit please.  Ya ne yem myaso. = I don't eat meat.  And most importantly: Voda bez gaza = Water, no gas.  They were very fond of their bubbly water over there.  

CC was memorable this week.  We had to do school outside because there were several COVID cases among people who went to church there.  Since we did not have any contact with the congregants, we were not worried about exposure in that respect, but decided it would be best not to stay all day inside the building.  So we hauled out tables and chairs and set up four different classroom areas.  I think overall we went into the day with expectations of fun and adventure.  The temperature was perfect, it was sunny but with enough clouds in the sky that we weren't roasting.  Each class found shade (and moved their tables as the morning went on to follow that shade).  But it also ended up being a windy day and it felt like we were constantly chasing papers everywhere.  Seeing what other classes were doing proved to be a distraction to the kids as well.  It did not necessarily flow as well as we anticipated, but the kids still took it in stride.  In Caroline's class, the kids played a broom ball relay race for their review game.  It was going well (especially for Caroline whose team kept winning), until the Texas fire ants reared their ugly heads.  Typically you can easily spot their giant mounds above the earth so you know where to avoid stepping.  However, one colony had not built their nest up and attacked Caroline's classmate.  It's a scary thing for kids, though it seems to be a right of passage down here.  The boy's shoes were covered in ants so we quickly took off both shoes and socks and got any off his feet.  They have very painful bites which later become very itchy (much itchier than mosquito bites).  One bit my pinky finger as I was cleaning off his shoes and socks and it is still swollen and itchy four days later.  They are no joke.  Poor kid.  

Josiah asked to edit Caroline's class.  He did a little more than cover eyes.

Josiah and Henry had a combined afternoon Essentials class outside.  It was taught by Josiah's tutor and Henry really enjoyed it.  She's a great tutor and had very funny sentences for the kids to parse.  The boys were also happy to move on from a unit of formal writing to the most fun unit: writing from pictures.  Basically they are given three pictures (Henry got Peanuts, Josiah got Calvin and Hobbes).  The pictures tell a story, but the word are left out.  They have to write a three paragraph paper about the pictures - one paragraph per picture.  Because they get to come up with the story and be creative, the boys love it.  

The kids turned in their shoebox gifts at Awana this week.  

Josiah surprised Todd and I by asking for a haircut.  We were ecstatic.  I don't mind longer hair if it is properly taken care of.  I told Josiah I didn't want to just go into the salon with no plan, so I had him look at pictures of haircuts.  This is what he chose:  

This is the before and after.  (Henry wanted a haircut, too.)

Josiah said his didn't look like the picture and he thinks he'll grow it out again.  Henry said his cut was his favorite cut.  

Benson is a happier dog now that we put the carpet back in the living room.  We had rolled it up when we got him because I really didn't want him using the bathroom on it.  He's trustworthy now, so we introduced it back.  He is loving the many soft areas and has slept on every inch of it.      

Today, Todd took the boys to the store to buy another headset so they could talk to each other while they played video games.  What they had been doing for months now is yelling from the upstairs playroom to the downstairs computer.  Hey, I'm going over here; Let's shoot this guy; etc.  We thought with the head sets they could talk to each other.  However, they were so used to yelling/talking loudly that they just continued on at the same volume.  Henry thought that since he could not hear his own voice in the headset that we couldn't hear him either.  He was playing at the computer downstairs and Todd overheard him tell Josiah, "This is great.  We can talk to each other and Daddy can't hear us."  What? What?!!??  Yes he can!  

We're all looking forward to our Thanksgiving Break.  Hallelujah!  However, we'll have to get through Josiah's orthodontist appointment on Monday first, eat some humble pie there as I'm sure we'll get a talking to about all the fallen-off brackets.  Then we can enjoy the week.