Well there went February.
It boasted an amazing visit from Poppy and CC, the end of winter vacation, and the prep for another school semester.
I will certainly blog about the grandparents' visit, it was one for the books, ever eventful (with some craziness), we did some new things and mostly enjoyed the old things (talking, playing, eating, repeat). But let's jump into some notable events that led us into March:
Gabrielle Starts School
Gabrielle started Chinese Kindergarten in xiao ban. She has been begging to go to school and we had planned to have her start as long as they let her in. The school was gracious enough to give her a spot half way through the year. She did not cry a wink. Which made me cry :).
She is a big girl now. And her siblings LOVE that she is in school. She loves to talk, so it is always interesting to hear her detail her day.
I also started 'tot school' a little with her. She is hilarious and hard headed. Which makes her a little hard to teach. But we are going slow. She gets some things fast, but really struggles with her colors. She can group no problem but naming them...so far she has mastered pink, black and...that is about it. Seriously, she doesn't know it is a red room, she just knows her clothes match her table and the walls. It's a start.
Gymnastics Class
We do community with some pretty special ex-pats that live in our neighborhood. We get the benefit of sharing extended family that comes to visit. They fell in love with Uncle Herschel, they call Poppy and CC their Poppy and CC too, and this is reciprocal! When Aunt Nella came to town, our girls got to participate in some amazing gymnastics classes. Aunt Nella really knew her stuff, having been an incredible gymnast herself and having taught at the college level. We were so impressed and thankful. I took a gazillion notes and now really know how to hone in certain skills for their improvement.
History Studies:
This year I ditched Story of the World as my core and just used it to supplement The CC sentences. For certain topics I spent an extra week or 2. The kids are made to give history reports each week, usually in different mediums (speech, interview, video, play, character study). This has been so fun. We had just finished the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement when Poppy and CC were here, so they got a full report!
We are now on WWI, I found great videos on line, used all my encyclopedias and we are reading aloud 'The Singing Tree' to go along. We did a trench warfare activity which could be the coolest mom thing I have done. We had rules, we built trenches, we raided, we had 'mortars' (socks). They LOVED this. But in all of our studies they learned that there was absolutely nothing fun about this war.
Up next is WWII, which just gets worse.
Shakespeare:
During the school break in January we started learning Shakespeare. They have been introduced to him in various ways through biographies, and wonderful illustrated books. They already knew the story of 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' pretty well, so this was the next step. Using the book 'How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare' we are memorizing some great stuff. We are on our third passage, where I get to teach our kids more about cuss words and Shakespeare's brilliant ability to sculpt and play with language. They mostly like to dramatize these scenes, which makes it hilarious. Even Gabrielle nailed the first soliloquy we studied. And we are learning through all of our studies...'Lord, what fools these mortals be' !
Flag Raising:
The coolest part of Kindergarten is the morning dance routines for warm up. The music and kungfu moves were awesome.
