For the last little over a month, we've been really busy, as we moved and have had a lot of other things with which to contend. And I'd not updated for nearly a month before that. We now own a house on 18 acres, and it's great! Before we packed up most of the books:
**William**
~Our Christian Heritage: We read about the Liberty Bell, and to learn more we read the book The Story of the Liberty Bell put out by Children's Press. We also read about the Statue of Liberty, and then I read to William the book The Story of the Statue of Liberty put out by Children's Press. I then pointed out where Our Christian Heritage had stated that people would see the statue and start praying to God to thank Him for bringing them to the US so that they could have liberty. The statue is a heathen idol, and God alone brings liberty. He doesn't want us to use statues to pray to Him. So, I then showed William on the Internet some pictures done from descriptions of the Colossus of Rhodes and showed him how they compared to "Lady Liberty." I explained that they were both idols representing the sun god Apollo.
~Complete Curriculum for Grade 1: We also worked in that book in the reading and math sections.
We finished the Social Skills book. We will soon start on the other book I bought on etiquette and good manners.
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--So, now we are over halfway through the Psalms. We're in the 80s. We still read a Proverb daily. I now usually make Trusten sit beside William on the floor while I read it to both of them. I remind them of the Ten Commandments.
--We started back in the science book on plants. Last week William learned the four organs of a flowering plant: roots, stem, leaves, and flower. And although we'll go over it again in a later lesson, I went ahead and told him the various parts of a flower and their functions. We picked several different flowers in our yard and on the side of one of our hills. We identified the parts on the flowers. We'll be identifying our local plants, especially those on our 18 acres, this summer, with the help of guide books. We're always identifying birds, plants, insects, rocks, etc. We really enjoy this as a way of life.
--William worked on some pages in the Complete Curriculum book in the reading section--a Reading Roundup, so we'll start Unit 5 this week. He also did a review page in the math section, and we also got out his abacus for help. The next lesson starts subtraction, and he's not ready to move on from addition, so I'll be getting out another one of our workbooks so that he can practice more on addition. We'll also be using the abacus and anything else that aids him.
**Trusten**
--I also have not worked on the alphabet or anything else much with Trusten over the last month. I will start back on that this week. He has taken picture books off the shelves and laid on his belly on the floor to look at them, so he's definitely interested in such things, to an extent. He is nearly 2. I was hoping he'd know his alphabet, colors, and numbers to 10 by his birthday, but I didn't really anticipate the happenings of the last month and half, either. BUT, I'm happy to report that he's nearly potty-trained for daytime. He also throws less tantrums. He has not thrown a bowl, saucer, or thrown anything at a glass, breaking them in several weeks. He has broken one bowl since we moved, and it was an accident. He's also gone several weeks w/o a forehead injury. I'm so happy about that! He and William play together more and more. He still loves to talk. He's VERY spirited. At least now the spirit is more positive, rather than mostly negative. Praise God!
**Nathan**
I'm happy to report that Nathan took and PASSED his Arkansas Contractor's License exam. That license will allow him to "legally" bid bigger, higher-paying jobs than the HVAC license does. His goal is to soon get where he can spend a lot more time at home and have his main helper (was his partner when he was in a partnership) and good friend be a supervisor over a crew. Of course, the trick is to find hardworking, quality-striving, ethical individuals. But, that's Nathan's goal so that he does not have to go do much of the physical work himself and yet still bring in money. He'll make the decisions and just go check to see whether everything is going as instructed. And he'll have more time around here! We both plan to be out of debt soon, including the house (in less than five years). He wants to build a cistern for the house we live in, since the well water is bad (though we have a filter coming for temporary solution). But, his long-term goal is to either build an earthen home on the ten acres we own free and clear (part of the 18 acres we have) or to increase the value of our property, sell it, and build an earthen home on another property. He has lots of great ideas.
**Tara**
I had started reading a book Attracting Butterflies & Hummingbirds to Your Backyard before we moved. I'd like to soon continue it. I'm already thrilled with the number of birds and butterflies we have here. It's awesome! But, I want William and myself to be able to plant some flowers around the yard to not only attract MORE beautiful creatures, but to also beautify the property with the flowers themselves. Oh! We do already have some wonderful trees and flowering bushes here, as well as some wildflowers. I love it! And I'm loving learning more about the plants here.
I've learned more about biblical things and am taking notes to write about them.
I'm out of time for now. I'm going to try to get back to updating this twice a week. I'm still working on getting back on a normal schedule, and we still have a lot of different things with which we're dealing right now. I'm trying not to be overwhelmed. :-)
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