God Bless Mexico!

Today, we finished up our visit to Mexico in our home school geography curriculum. Historian and his assistant cocinera (me) made tortillas with seasoned ground beef, tomatoes, lettuce, shredded queso fresco, salsa, and sour cream.  To complete the meal, he also served tortilla chips, Mexican rice, and refried beans. The table was decorated with colorful dishes, a Mexican flag, tissue paper flowers, and a map of Mexico on the wall behind us.



These yarn paintings, created by Lizard and Butterfly, were inspired by the beautiful yarn creations of the Huichol Indians of the Pacific coast of Mexico.
Click here to find out more about this art.

We finished our fiesta by watching our favorite dancing dog video, a dog dancing the merengue.

Next week, we head north, crossing the border as we enter Canada! Au revoir!

God Bless the U.S.A.

In celebration of completing our study of the U.S.A., using a home school geography curriculum, we feasted on an all-American lunch today.


We decorated the table with flag bandannas, a flag stuck in an apple, a country-themed lemonade pitcher and, of course, a baseball!

While I gave him spelling words this morning, Historian baked this apple pie.
One of our goals for Historian this year is to have him do all the cooking for
our country feasts. He has great promise as a cook.

No celebration would be complete without a guest. Nana kindly agreed to fill that need.
The menu consisted of cheeseburgers, potato chips, a medley of strawberries and blueberries, lemonade, and homemade apple pie.



Historian's full cheek and smile should let you know just how good the apple pie tasted.



Last week, the girls made apple dolls as part of our study of the U.S.A.

Tomorrow, we travel to Mexico. Adios amigos!

First Week of School 2012-2013

The first week of the 2012-2013 school year for the Smith family is completed and, for the most part, we are calling it a success. All three kids are doing an intensive study of geography and, more importantly, God's heart for the people of the world. Unlike last year's first day of school, no one had tubes sticking out of their body and no one cried (although one almost did).

For science, the girls were learning about habitats. They created a one-yard-square front yard habitat with pencils and string.

Their assignment was to record all their observations about the habitat. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anything alive in our habitat aside from grass and weeds.

Well... that simply wouldn't do. So we called Hank over to fill our habitat.  

Each of the kids drew a rough representation of the continents on a clementine.



  

By carefully peeling the clementine and flattening it out, they were able to observe the distortion that is caused by taking a spherical earth and representing it on a flat map. Then of course, they had to "eat the earth."

On the second day of school, Butterfly decided she wished to wear a uniform to school.
This red polo dress is one of her "uniforms."
She also insisted on giving me one of her nickles each day for lunch money.



If Lizard looks a wee bit sleepy here, it is because we are trying something new this year: getting up by alarm clock and starting school at 8 a.m. sharp. While none of the Smiths are by nature early risers, this early (for us) and consistent start to the school day has been transformational. By getting four solid hours of school done before the "interruption" of lunch, we are finishing much earlier and much happier.

The girls made John 3:16 posters. See if you can spot a photo
of the three Smith kids about three years ago.

We ended our first school week with a celebratory dinner at Kabuto's Japanese Steakhouse. The kids really enjoyed the table-side entertainment. We all gasped as our chef set the entire hibachi surface in flames, clapped at the skilled knife work and laughed at his jokes. Thinking back to last year's first week of school, I am so thankful that this trip to Kabuto's was the most dramatic event of our first school week for 2012-2013. God has been so faithful and kind to us. We are truly blessed.