What We’ve Accomplished Today…04/08/10

I woke up at 6:10… I’m getting closer J

Kids woke up on time…but we were sidetracked in our own little world of books. We started school at 9:45 –again.

Bible was Matthew 13:31-43. More parables. The parable of the mustard seed was easy enough for them to grasp and talk about but the leaven parable was not quite so much. We have talked about ‘leavening’ agents before (baking powder, yeast) while cooking so I thought they might understand without discussing the meaning before hand. Well, they didn't. I will have to pay more attention next time. It was a cause of discouragement to them because verse 33 was difficult to understand because of the word ‘leaven’. It took a bit of discussing on this verse…and then on attitude…before we could continue with the rest of our reading. The remainder explained the parable of the tares, which we had previously read about on Tuesday so it was something they remembered quickly.

Juice break! Yes, we took a break after one subject… Maybe because it is almost Friday, but the attention spans are waning and the patience is being tried.

We learned more about Shakespeare. Some of the details were downright horrifying for them. They learned that Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (not Ella Enchanted Anne Hathaway!) after she was already pregnant with their first child. But that wasn’t what they were so horrified about: she was 8 years older than he was. If only you could have seen their faces! It was quite amusing to me! Anyway, Shakespeare and Anne had Susanna, their first child, and twins Hamnet and Judith a few years later. Hamnet died, however, when he was 11.

We ended our history of Shakespeare there and tried to recite our lines from the play… Haha…amusing! We have only bits and pieces down still. They suggested we work on Shakespeare at least 3 times a week from now on. I suggested they we practice more in our free time J

Straight to Church History because we are behind and it’s interesting. We are learning about Athanasius. Up to this point we know he wanted to be a minister very badly from early on and his dream was realized by the bishop of Alexandria. We stopped here to get a better understanding of where Alexandria was. We didn't have a world map handy but Lee recalled reading about Alexandria in her Daring Book for Girls. We also have The Usborne Book of World History that has a bit on Alexander the Great. Fox remembered then that his book, The Dangerous Book for Boys, also had some information about Alexander the Great. We were busy looking this up for about 15 minutes before we realized. We then returned to Athanasius. He was ordained by said bishop but this is a point that neither of them recalled. The next part discussed Arius, a disheveled minister who was kind and eloquent. He was admired by many but he outwardly spoke against the bishop of Alexandria saying he was a poor teacher of religion. Being a time and place that was full of people who loved to argue and debate, on things from the height of a house to the debate of man having a soul before or after his birth, the people were very interested in the ‘argument’ of Arius against the bishop and they took sides readily. We put him on our timeline (born 296AD, died 373AD) and discovered that I had written in Cyprian in the wrong place previously. I made him die before he was born…oops… It has since been corrected *sheepish smile*

Then we take a LONG break (library time and lunch). That’s where we are right now. I will update this tonight. J

Updated: Finished with Math, Language Arts, copywork, Science, Foreign Language, Daily News. History for both went by the wayside today. Lee does Life of King Alfred (which she dislikes) and Fox does This Country of Ours. History is scheduled for tomorrow as well so we will pick it up then. I got a call from the local used book store down the street that they had found a copy of The Brendan Voyage for me. I was so happy. It was $7.35...works for me! It's a hardcover with a dust jacket...nice condition. I had an errand to run so we did that before picking up the book and then we went to the University of Wyoming's extension office to pick up some information about 4-H for both the kids. Afterwards we stopped at a friends house to pick up Fox's guitar that they had tuned for us. We don't know much about that sort of thing but we would like to. On the way back home we stopped at the local Radio Shack to get some ice cream, yes, ice cream. My stomach hates me now.

I am so tired right now. Literally, I think if I were to lie on the floor I could sleep. This parenting/homeschooling bit is hard work... :) I am done on the computer for the day....Toodles and see you tomorrow!