Library

One of our favorite places is the library and we manage to visit every week. Once we come home it might as well be Christmas the way the kids act with new books to read. I love watching them enjoy books! I also love that I can make lunch with less distractions while they pour over the new stack of books! :)

This week was a special trip to the library. I had promised the boys that once we completed a certain level of our phonics and reading instruction in our language arts, they could have their own library cards! Well, both boys are doing great and earned their very own library cards. They had so much fun picking out their own books to read!

Note which child chose the book about animals and which one chose the book about monster trucks!

More school updates

Okay, I am not even going to promise this will be quick! Those of you who continue to read our school updates are real troopers!

We recently finished up our Little House in the Big Woods book. All of the kids were sad to finish it. We will eventually read through the rest I hope, but are taking a break to read a few other books.

This picture is of afternoon story time. After naps we like to read our chapter books while enjoying a snack. A whole apple is the kids all time favorite snack. What is it about not having it cut up that they like so much? :)

 One of our favorite activities for this book was making our own homemade butter! We just put cream into a clean plastic bottle with a few metal bolts to add friction. Then we shook and acted silly until we had made fresh butter.

After shaking up our butter, we enjoyed a treat of homemade butter and maple syrup on bread, like Laura and Mary enjoyed!

Can I just share how much I love our All About Spelling program? It is realy painles and simple to teech. The boys are fenominal spellars! I realy can not speek highly enuf about this program. ;-p

Gracie was begging me to do more school with her and has started learning her letters. She is having a blast with her learning too! (Jacob likes to be a part of everything too and is quick to point out A's in books! :))

I am not really working on writing with Gracie yet. I think that is better suited for later on, but she is drawing A's on everything and loves to practice her "writing."

I think this may be one of my favorite pictures. Luke loves reading to his younger siblings. His younger siblings love having him read to them too! (P.S I always wanted a big brother, so I love seeing how comfortable Gracie is with her big brothers.)

In art we were working on learning to mix colors. The watercolor crayons are saved for Luke and Ben, but Gracie and Jacob loved the finger paint version of the lesson.

Here is another art project, learning to draw lines and shapes from a real item in front of you. The boys want to practice this all the time lately.

Our TOG studies have dealt mostly with Biblical history this month. We have studied Joshua through Saul. We have also learned about the neighbors of the Israelites. In one book we had discussed the Israelites' custom of washing feet. Luke and Ben remembered the account of Jesus washing the disciples' feet too. So, we decided to let them have a chance to serve each other in this way.

 

When we were reading the account of the Israelites' victory over Jericho, Luke was visibly upset. He asked why God would kill all those people in Jericho. He said, "How could they hear about God and choose to believe Him if they were dead?" Tough question! We talked about God's plan for the Israelites, and Daddy reminded him of the story we had learned about Rahab. The people did hear and have a chance to believe, but only Rahab believed. She and her family were saved as a result. Such deep questions from such a little one! I am so glad that we have the opportunity to ask these deep questions, to search our Bible for the answers, and to discuss them as a family. I've seen these kinds of questions and discussions come up time and time again this year. I know there are a lot of great curriculum out there, but we really love Tapestry of Grace for our family.

This month in science, we have taken on a month-long project of charting what the moon looks like! We have studied the Earth's moon and have loved searching for it every day/night. Thankfully Apologia's course website had a link to a site which helped Mommy cheat and figure out what time of day the moon would rise and set each day! I also found a site which shows you a picture of the moon for that day which was helpful on the cloudy days and bad weather!

One Saturday I was going to work and saw the moon out in the AM. I sent Jeff a text and asked him to bundle the kids up (it was 20 degrees out) and take them outside to see the moon. I got a text later that said "no moon, we are all freezing now...." Ahh, the sacrifices we make for scientific inquiry!

One neat experiment this month was to make our own telescope. Pretty cool, but with strict instructions not to point it at the sun!

One really great item we have for school is a markable map. One side folds out to be a map of the States, the other side is of the world. Anytime we learn a new geographical item, we add it to our map. Last week when the meteorite crashed in Russia, I let the boys see the pictures on the internet. They were pretty excited that it was something we had recently learned about in science. Although, tender hearted Luke was more worried about the people that got hurt. We pulled out our map and added Russia to our map.

Why not wait?

During the summer of 2006 God placed on our hearts the desire to adopt prior to adding to our family through biological children. We had begun to talk about starting a family when we went to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. During the concert Chapman shared his family's adoption story. Jeff and I had discussed adoption in the past, and felt it would one day be a part of our family. That night on the way home from the concert, Jeff mentioned to me that he felt God calling us to adopt first.

Occasionally during the long adoption process we would receive well meaning questions that generally asked why not wait until after we had a few birth children first before we adopted? In part, our answer was that we just felt called to adopt. We wanted our future children to know just how much they were wanted and waited for.

While we felt God was calling our family to adopt first, the answer to that question has become so much more clear recently. We received news last week that our adoption agency has closed its doors and is filing for bankruptcy. Several other agencies are closing as well, due to the increased difficulty of maintaining adoption programs in the face of international red tape, politics and corruption that places children needing homes into a position of political pawns. I can only imagine how hard this news is on all of those waiting families that were in the middle of adoptions. We know of several families that are trying to adopt, and it just seems like there are increased roadblocks everywhere! Of course God is great, and He loves the orphans; He has not forgotten them!

This news just makes us breathe a sigh of relief as we fold our two oldest sons into our arms in gratitude that we did not wait! God knew exactly what our family make up needed to be!

More Random Photos

Here are just some more random photos for you to enjoy!

Yes, Jacob is trying to nurse this doll, and is fiercely protecting him at the same time!

Look at our sweet girl's growing pony tail! If only she would keep it in for more than 5 seconds!

Just a cute picture of our five spending time together.

Grandpa and Grandma Morgan were able to visit recently.

Awhile ago I found these cool "potato sacks" for the kids to play with. I had forgotten about them until Grandpa and Grandma were here for their visit. The kids loved them!

Luke and Ben's #1 Cheerleader is Gracie!

I think this just may be my all time favorite picture of Gracie and Caleb so far!

Just hanging around before bedtime......

4 months!

Caleb is 4 months old! Caleb is just such a joy, it is hard to convey in words. Hopefully the picture montage will do justice to this sweet little guy.

This month:

Caleb is now wearing all  3-6 month, and 6 month clothes. We are trying to finish off a box of size 2 diapers, then he is ready for size 3! I was desperately trying to hold off on 6 month clothes since all of the 6 mo hand-me-downs of Jacob's are summer clothes. He is long though, so I finally had to break down and buy a few cold weather outfits in 6 mo size since we will still have cold weather for several more weeks.

Caleb must be teething, cause he is attacking anything he can get his hands on with his gums! (No actual sightings of teeth yet!) He loves his Sophie giraffe teether he got for Christmas.
He is desperate to turn over. He has done it a few times, with a little bit of help from siblings! :) He is doing a great job holding his head up.

Caleb is loosing most of his newborn hair. Poor Caleb has two "cowlicks" in the back of his head (thanks to Daddy's genes), so he usually has a bit of a mohowk now, which of course is still cute cause it is Caleb's! :)

It's official, Caleb's eyes have turned a deep, deep olive green color- matching his Daddy's eyes.
Caleb can blow "raspberries" now....so cute!

Caleb is sleeping less during the day and is much more active. He still naps several times a day, and is a fantastic sleeper at night (usually at least 7-8 hour stretches).

Caleb does not like when Mommy works. None of us do, but Daddy does a great job with all five when I do work.

Caleb's giggles, smiles, and laughs are a highlight to all of his older siblings (who still love to fight over who's turn it is to hold him).  As you can tell by the pictures, his big sister is pretty persistent in her desire to hold her baby brother.

4 month stats: 15 pounds 3 ounces, 24 3/4 inches long!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Happy Birthday Ben!!

Today our Ben turned 6!!!! Thank you Lord for this fun, silly, and energetic son. Thank you for allowing us to see You at work in his life!

For his special one-on-one time with Mommy and Daddy, Ben has picked breakfast at IHOP! So we will be enjoying his favorite food, pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.

School Update

I am going to try to keep my school update a bit more brief this week, but no promises! Just for laughs, here is PE on a home school budget: Costco style boxes turned over to be hurdles in our living room! It is a favorite activity around here when it is cold out!

 Over the last two weeks we have been learning about the difference of "shape" (2D) and "form" (3D) in art class. Here they are cutting out shapes to make shape collage pictures.

Jacob wanted to make a train of course, his favorite!

In science we have been learning about the third planet from the sun, Earth. We even were able to make our own compass after learning about the Earth's magnetosphere.

Math continues to be our most difficult subject. Both boys are plugging along and slowly but surely learning their math facts! (As a side note, we really do enjoy Math U See as a math program, it is just not Luke and Ben's favorite subject in general, or Mommy's for that matter!)

We actually hit our 100th day of school this week! To celebrate we counted 100 chocolate chips to make into cookies!

Over the last few weeks I have noticed a marked jump in reading ability in both boys, but especially with Luke. I feel like there are two major stages in learning to read. The first is the huge jump between knowing the letter sounds, and actually blending them to make words. They can know the letter sounds for months or years before this leap to blending "clicks". The next jump seems to be when they actually take off and realize they can read, and want to try out reading everything they can get their hands on.

I have been patiently waiting for this second "jump" to occur, and it seems to be starting with Luke. His younger siblings have noticed too, because they are constantly bringing their big brother books saying, "Luke, read it please!"

One really special aspect of this jump in reading is that both boys have found their favorite book to read, the Bible. I come downstairs many days to see the boys pouring over their own Bibles, writing down special verses they find and want to share with me! It is such an encouragement to me! (We have easy reader Bibles as well as Toddler Bibles which they love to read to their siblings. When they read on their own it is from their complete Bibles, which is the HCSB version.)

Here is a short clip of Ben reading from God's Word. Love it!!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Over the last two weeks we have been studying Ancient Greece. It is kind of hilarious to hear 1st graders analyzing Greek myths. We also have had some pretty intense Trojan War battles using Lincoln Logs as swords around the Morgan house.

Of course we had to try out some Greek food for our study. Chicken kabobs, pita bread, hummus, and cucumber salad were all enjoyed. (Although our salad was not authentic because we learned that tomatoes were a New World food, and would not have been around in Ancient Greece.)

One of our activities had us make our own model of a Trojan horse.

I overheard Luke and Ben discussing who was going to be King Priam and who was going to be Odysseus when they were playing the other day! :) The boys LOVE the story of the Trojan War!!

The idea with Tapestry of Grace is to introduce age appropriate versions of classics like the Odyssey and Iliad, so that when they are older it is familiar to them and not so overwhelming to read and study the full versions. (Daddy wishes he would have had a bit more exposure in this way to better prepare him for his philosophy degree.)

This week we also started a new read aloud, just for fun. We have all been enjoying Little House in the Big Woods. The boys beg to keep reading every night. It is a good thing there are several books in the series for us to eventually enjoy!

There are tons of project and activity ideas online to go with this book. I am trying to pick out a few I know the kids will enjoy. This week we did some fireside painting, which used finger paint and marbles. They rolled the marbles in the paint to give our fire pictures some fun flames in honor of the cozy fires and bedtime stories Laura and Mary enjoy with their Pa!

Until our next update....
(Okay, so I lied. I just can't make these posts short, there is too much fun learning going on!)