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.