Tuesday, March 23

The start of another new school week. We have been listening to Grimm's Fairy Tales whenever we drive somewhere lately. The kids love stories on CD or tape. I like them because they encourage children to use their imaginations so much more then television.

We had a busy, but productive day. We read Psalm 20:3-5 for our Daily Devotion and prayed for the leaders of our country and the people who protect us.

In Health we began learning about our teeth, which is partly review from previous years and also some new information. We discussed how we use our teeth, (eating, talking, nice smiles), the purpose of each kind of tooth (biting, tearing, chewing), primary and secondary teeth, said the alphabet slowly while thinking about how our tongue and teeth help us make each letter sound, read the books "How Many Teeth," "The Missing Tooth," and "Rabbit's Loose Tooth." The kids got to eat fruit roll-ups for a snack to see how they need to use all their teeth to eat. I also stressed the importance of taking care of their "baby teeth" even though they fall out because they help determine the health and how well their "permanent" teeth grow into place.

Writing: We used a creative writing prompt; "If you could prepare one meal for your family what would it be and how would you make it?" Both Faith and Seth got to make up a story while I wrote it down for them. Even though they are not actually practicing their handwriting I think it is important for them to practice making up stories that have a beginning, middle and end and also how to answer a question and follow direction.

Math: Faith did a review page on the "ones" and "tens" columns. I like that our curriculum reviews previous material in between new material, especially since she struggled a bit at first to understand how many are supposed to go in the "tens" place.

Geography: The kids were given a coloring sheet with decorative carp to color with the names of each color written in English and Japanese.

Faith, Seth and Anna ate orange slices for a snack and played outside for awhile before Seth and I left for Head Start. I was a parent volunteer for the class's trip to the circus. Loren helped Faith with her Reading and Spelling after lunch.

At chore time the kids played outside riding bikes, running around and Faith decided to "spring clean" their playhouse. Seth helped feed calves and Faith helped make biscuits from scratch to go along with supper. The recipe is called "Cowboy Biscuits," but we call them "Faith's Blue Ribbon Biscuits" after she won first place at the county fair last summer.