Henry finally picked up his summer reading trophy from the library. He read four very long books this summer, The Mysterious Benedict Society series. He needed twenty books to get the trophy and he filled in the remaining slots mostly with Encyclopedia Browns. The kids get a lot of their reading in at bedtime. They ask why their bedtime is so early 8:00/8:30, yet they all read til 9:45 most nights. We know because they like to come downstairs to check on us.
Josiah earned his third stripe in jiu-jitsu this week. The kids like to earn their stripes on separate days because Todd will take them out for Smoothie King for every stripe earned. Whether they earned the stripe or not, all three get a smoothie. So there is incentive to triple their smoothie goodness.
This was a big week for Henry and Caroline as they started school full time and CC. 5th and 3rd grades! We didn't get the official first day of school photos, but we did get a first day of school picture. Apparently Caroline was doing her math out loud. Hence, the noise-cancelling headphones.
In CC, it just worked out that Henry is in a class of all boys (nine of them) and Caroline is in a class of all girls (eight in her class). I think they are happy with their classes. They both have new-to-them tutors, which is a good change. Henry's first presentation was on The Mysterious Benedict Society. Just the first book. He's said that each book will get its own week. Caroline brought in her karaoke machine for her first presentation. She liked showing the kids the voice changer. It has robot voice, chipmunk, boy voice, girl voice, radio voice, and regular. When Henry got to his afternoon Essentials class, he remarked, "This is all so familiar." Ahh, relief. They do the same program for three years in a row, but each year they get a bit more in depth with the grammar material. His writing portion goes along with our CC Cycle 1, which is Ancient History this year. So all his papers will be on some sort of ancient historical figure/event.
Josiah had a good day in Challenge, but the long days are exhausting to him. He lays down for the whole car ride home. He is spent! This week he handed me a progress report from his director. She went through all the subjects and evaluated his level of participation. Fortunately, he's a participator. Check! For math, the kids are often at different levels, so each week they bring in one problem to solve. They go to the board and either ask for help solving it or they teach the class how to solve it. Josiah was able to go up this past week and he took the role of teacher very seriously. He'd ask his class a question about the next step in solving it, then he'd call on the kids based on their clothing, "Yes, you, young man in the fish shirt." He had fun, maybe too much fun. He also has to write a short report in science each week. This past week, he wrote about the planet Mars. To keep up their presentation skills from Foundations, they present these papers to their class each week as well. In cartography, he has learned how to draw Canada for the past two weeks. He has to draw it freehand from memory, as well as label the provinces and capitals. By the end of the semester or the year (not sure), he has to draw the whole world freehand from memory and label every country, capital, as well as all the U.S. states (and maybe capitals?). It's a lot, but I love that he learns geography. So far he's got Canada in the bag.
Josiah is doing his Latin tutoring on Fridays. This week, we drove Josiah and his friend to the tutoring. On the drive home, Caroline took the opportunity to verbalize her curiosities about houses. "Is that a big house? Is that a big backyard? Is that a big house? Is that a big backyard?" It was a 45 minute drive home. We passed lots of houses and lots of backyards. For the record, most neighborhoods around here have bigger houses on smaller plots of land. So there was a lot of, "Yes, big house. No, small yard." For 45 minutes.
Caroline had asked me if the kids could switch places Friday night. Not the switching where the kids are the parents and the parents are the kids. But she wanted the kids to be able to stay up and watch TV while the parents went to bed at 8pm. So I clarified it with her:
You want us to go to bed at 8:00 p.m.?
-Yes.
And we cannot come downstairs?
-Yes.
And you cannot disturb us?
-Yes.
Uh, that sounds fine with me.
So they did. I actually had a meeting that night, but was shooed off to bed as soon as I got home. Todd and I fell asleep with them still downstairs. We knew what we had in store for us on Saturday. Crankiness. We couldn't even ask them what time they went to bed without them arguing about the exact minute they went upstairs. Certain children had a heftier helping of crankiness than others. However, due to said crankiness and not speaking so nicely and certain kids pushing certain other ones, we decided to make things even more pleasant by making it a Clean the House Day. Keep those hands and bodies busy in different parts of the house. If they weren't in the same room together there could be no pushing/dirty looks/mean words under their breath/etc.
Todd finished Saturday evening with a movie night. He found a movie about a summer camp for kids that did magic. After they watched the movie, they were all gung-ho to do magic tricks. So they had a 15 minute pow-wow and then came back with their tricks. Caroline disappeared behind a falling blanket and Josiah appeared in her place. Josiah made a plastic rat turn into a stuffed animal using the falling blanket trick as well. Henry tried his hand at cards.
Todd's office had a picnic on campus this evening. He said they were "encouraged" to attend. Any opportunity for someone else to make dinner is a welcome opportunity for me. They had hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings, chips, and giant cookies. The kids got their food and then picked the most antisocial spot to eat at. They just saw tall chairs and a bar. But the bar faced a wall that they could not see over, so we just stared at a wall while we ate. (No complaining from me.) The provost came over and talked to Todd for a long time so the kids and I skipped outside to the games. After playing long enough to get sweaty, we saw HBU's mascot and got a photo with her. It is Kiza III, a Siberian Husky, which is the craziest mascot for Houston, TX. There is a small group of students who take care of Kiza, called the Mushers. The dog lives with them in the dorm. She definitely smelled our dog on the kids. She licked Henry's hand a lot and sniffed Josiah's shorts like crazy. Caroline was impressed with the softness of her fur. Free food. Free entertainment. Not a bad way to close out the weekend.
Enjoying the wall:
Josiah dressed for the occasion in all his HBU regalia:
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