Learning By The Way

Toby and I had a wonderful trip to San Antonio. We had a minor crisis on the way out the door (as it should be) in Samuel leaning on a window and breaking it.

But we arrived at the airport in plenty of time to catch our plane, even with deciding at the last minute that we’d need to check a bag. Peoria airport has free WiFi and so being early there never bothers me.

While on the plane I taught Toby how they fly. He doesn’t remember all of it but he knows that somehow the air pushes up on the bottom of the wing and that the wing has to be shaped a certain way for it to work. That’s probably better than most people who get on the plane–but we marvel that God created a world that works like this.

We flew over so much and Toby got a window seat on all four planes there and back. He slept through one–but I’ll get to that in a moment. It was neat seeing Toby marvel at the little things I am used to when I fly. The wonder (see my post here on the topic) in his eyes was amazing to me. I was so glad to get to take him.

I almost always let the children pick which math page they wish to do from one of the many workbooks we have. Sometimes they pick something easy, sometimes they want challenge. Today Samuel must have wanted something different, because he brought me a workbook opened to the page on finding prime factors. “How do you do this?” he asked. So we did factor trees, and dabbled in exponents. He manipulated the numbers easily, though I don’t think he has built a full picture of what we were doing. I am confident the full picture will come with more practice., as he easily grasped many of the concepts.

Elsie was enjoying her subtraction page so much that she continued to do it while I brushed her hair! Usually she insists on a storybook during hair brushing.

Moriah completed her math page. Toby did not. I heard from James when they landed in Chicago, and Toby was able to sleep during the flight. A good thing, since they got up at 4:30! We’ll be heading out to pick him up at the Peoria airport in a few minutes. And there will be much rejoicing!!! The house seemed so much emptier with one child missing.

Yes, I am a little behind in my record keeping. Let me explain. No, that will take to long. Let me sum up.

Friday we went to the library. It was exhausting, but good.

Friday night was game night at the church. The children had a wonderful time and never realized they were building valuable problem solving and social skills.

Saturday, we made our trip to Barnes and Noble for the children to pick out their free book in the B&N reading program. This was Elsie’s first time participating. The program is for readers only, and I believe this was her motivation to gird up the loins of her mind, get to work, and start reading. She was very excited. The 3 older children have earned 2 free books each (the max allowed in the program). Elsie has earned her first, and will now work on reading 8 more books so she can get the other.

This Sabbath day was a fellowship dinner after worship, always a lovely time. In the afternoon, I read two biographies on Davy Crockett to the children.

Monday, James and Toby left for San Antonio. They arrived safely, and Toby’s briefcase is packed with many interesting things to do during meeting and airport layover times (including an interesting looking biography of Jim Bowie)

I am eager to hear about their adventures today!

Back at the ranch, the day has started out slowly, but Samuel and Moriah are finally working on their math pages. After that, we will choose their poems to practice for Poetry night.

This was a rather verbose summing up, wasn’t it?

Yesterday we found out that Daddy has to go to San Antonio on Monday. It is a trip where he can take one of the children with him, as he has one meeting only a couple hours in length, at a child friendly place. Hurrah! What a special treat. It is Toby’s turn to go. Thankfully, tomorrow is library day. For we will surely want to do some reading on Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, in case they get to go to some museums (maybe even the Alamo!).

We had a lovely time at our friend’s house. We ate and talked and walked. I went out in the field and enjoyed the purple coneflowers, native wildflowers that they have reintroduced.

Our hostess dug up a chocolate mint plant from her garden and gave it to me. I’ve put it in a planter on our front step, and am very much hoping it makes it. A touch of fresh mint has so many uses!

The children discovered some ripe blackberries and blackcaps, and joyously devoured them, unmindful of thorns and poison ivy. Moriah took her new notebook on our little walk, and sketched the blackberry bush.

Postscript: To everyone’s relief, we did not have to use the plantain leaves.

The three older children all did multiplication for their math this morning. Moriah had an exciting experience wherein she discovered a pattern in the answers for the 8 times tables. By adding the numerals of the answer together, the numbers decline from 8 to 4, and then again from 12 to 8. She is trying to wrap her mind around this, and visibly thrilled with the intricacies of life that are out there to discover.

Moriah has had two ballet classes this week, one a makeup class for the one she missed while we were traveling last week. (Samuel was a trifle confused as to why she was taking a makeup class when she doesn’t even wear makeup, but I think we cleared that up adequately). Her wonderful ballet teacher left abruptly 4 weeks ago, and since then there have been a series of substitutes, a different one every week. The one this week gave out stickers, a practice much more commonly seen in the Pre Dance classes, not in Ballet 2! It is interesting that the sticker exhorts (nay commands!) one to protect one’s voice. The full impact of the sticker cannot be enjoyed fully online however, as in real life it is a scratch and sniff sticker which smells like strawberries. Sometimes life is surreal.

I think we will be tranferring Moriah to a different Ballet 2 class which has a different wonderful teacher and which will give her some continuity. Though she probably won’t get commanding strawberry scratch and sniff stickers.

We are heading out to a friends house for lunch. They live on a piece of property, so the children are looking forward to having some room to run around with fellow little people. And of course, visit the chickens and geese. Moriah is preparing by gathering an envelope full of broad leaf plantain leaves from the back yard. She learned from Aunt Donna during our recent visit, that these can be chewed and placed on wasp or bee stings to alleviate pain and swelling. It never hurts to be prepared.

Some thought it was a chocolate chip cookie, others that it was a film reel. But that strange sign after “Dear second” in the blog post two down, I have on good authority, is an orange. They note was from “Mastor Orange” to his second in command. Doesn’t it all make sense now?

The three older children completed their math pages as usual. Toby’s had premultiplication grouping concepts, Samuel did 3 digit subtraction, with plenty of borrowing needed. Elsie completed a phonics page focusing on initial sounds.