The School Year Ends

This year we had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of some homeschool classes called IFamily (Idaho Fathers and Mothers Inspiring Learning in our Youth).  

Our children were involved in debate and logic, guitar, knitting, sewing, Vocal Jazz, Math Alive, Art, Improv, Knights of Freedom, Choir, and Unit Studies classes.  I'm amazed at all that our children were able to improve in - just doing these classes once a week.  What a great opportunity it was.  We're thankful to all the Moms who took time to create amazing classes for their own children, and then invited us to be a part of these classes.

Here's our pictures from the last days of classes. 

 Courtney's Vocal Jazz Group

 Spencer being "knighted" at the end of year banquet in his "Knights of Freedom" class.  In this class they studied some of the great men from history and talked about the qualities that made them great.  Each of the boys chose a personal "dragon" that they needed to "slay" in their life.

Spencer chose "teasing people", because he knows that is a weakness he has.  He made great improvements in this, but was honest and told his teacher that he didn't feel that he had slain the dragon quite yet.  The boys who had slain their dragons got toy dragons.  Each boy was knighted for a personal quality.  Spencer was knighted for his honesty.  I must say that he is such an honest boy, I'm always grateful for that attribute in his life. 

 Courtney and Spencer were in a "Math Alive" class.  This semester they studied the life of Archimedes while doing fun math activities, solving math problems, doing weekly math challenges, along with lots of games, etc.  As an end of year activity, they were each challenged to design a catapult, and bring it to the catapult contest on the last day of the year. 

 Here is Courtney and Spencer's creation.  It was the biggest, and it did throw a tennis ball the farthest.  They had a lot of fun designing and building this with Bob.  I'm so grateful for a husband who is ambitious enough to take on projects like this.  During the construction, Spencer ended up with a huge goose egg when he got whacked on the head with the large metal pole.  Bob was really glad that it was only a goose egg.  It scared him when the catapult broke and it hit Spencer so hard.

Someday I'll remember to take all the pictures that I should - but this time I forgot to take any pictures with my Mom in them.  She was so nice, and decided to come up for the last day of iFamily, so she could support her grandchildren.  They were so excited to have her here for their last day of classes.   Here's Taycie sitting in Grandma's car during the catapult contest (it was freezing!)

 Mallory and Zach got to be part of a children's choir led by Lynn Williams.  She did such a great job with them.  I really wish my computer was downloading my video clips correctly, because the video of this choir concert at a nursing home is so cute.  I'm going to work on it, and try to post it on here.

 Spencer's "improv" class put on a short play:  "Before the Princess and the Pea".  Spencer was a dog in the play. 

 We went to the performance of "Twelfth Night" put on by the iFamily Shakespeare group.  It was amazing!  I was so impressed by the acting, costumes, humor, etc.  It is a huge job to put on one of Shakespeare's plays with young actors and a small budget, but they did a great job.  The play lasted almost three hours, but all my little kiddos and us older ones stayed interested the whole time.  When we saw how long it had lasted, we were really surprised. 

Another Vocal Jazz Performance

I've loved seeing Jace's confidence grow as he found out he is good at debate, public speaking, and logic.  He found a new love - playing the guitar.  His friend Tanner was his teacher, and did a great job of teaching and encouraging him.

I loved seeing Courtney, Spencer, and Mallory working on fun sewing projects - we've had pajama pants, belts, skirts, and aprons all sewn by them.  They love their sewing teacher, Kat. 

Some of Courtney's sewing projects - a skirt (looks so cute on her!), a purse (with pockets inside), and a headband she's currently knitting.

I think it has been so neat to watch Courtney learn how to knit.  It seems that not too many kids learn how knit nowdays.  She likes having something to do when she has to sit in the car or wait somewhere.  She's making one of those cute knitted headbands right now.

I've enjoyed learning about Archimedes and watching Courtney and Spencer's love of Math grow while they worked on their math challenges.  I've felt inspired to make math a lot more fun in our home school.  

I loved hearing the cute songs sung in our home that Mallory and Zach learned in Choir - lots of fun children's songs.  Abby has picked them all up and sings right along with them.  

Mallory, Zach (and Andrew sometimes) were in a "Unit Studies" class where each of the Moms picked a different topic that they wanted to teach for a couple of weeks.  One of the units was about astronomy.  Zach has found a new passionate interest in studying outer space.

I just feel so happy to see how excited he is about learning.  He devours books about Space and is constantly quizzing me about how many moons each planet has, or which planet is the hottest, or the largest.  He watched the space shuttle launch the other day and thought it was so neat.  I love it when my kids learn this way. He decided one day all on his own to make a picture of the Milky Way galaxy out of construction paper.  We bought him some space books for his birthday, and as a result, we've all learned more about space just from him telling us numerous facts that he's read.

A pterodactyl that Spencer made - each piece of it is a collage of things that he thinks are interesting or that he enjoys.  When he pulls the string, the wings flap.

The art class Courtney and Spencer took was excellent.  What fun projects Keri came up with for them!

We were in charge of the teen group this year, and they've had a lot of fun activities - lots of parties, sledding, dances, etc.  We are so grateful for the amazing friends our children have been blessed with.

What a fun year!

More sleep walking

So, last night we heard Andrew in the hallway trying to find his way to the bathroom.  Oh, my deep sleepers - they make our life so entertaining.  Bob leaped out of bed to go help him.  When he opened the door, there was Andrew, using what he must have thought was a toilet...which was really a plastic tote that we keep clean laundry in.  That's what I get for setting it in the hallway I guess.  Sigh.  We were both laughing so hard.  Bob reminded him to flush (our favorite mean joke for our sleepwalkers), so he tried flushing by grabbing all over on the wall, looked up at Bob in a confused way, walked over and gave Bob a hug, said "love you", and went back to bed.  Luckily there were only about 10 pieces of laundry in that tote.  It could have been worse. 

Getting a jumpstart on summer

Today we're finally having warm weather!  We sure weren't having it yet when these little guys decided to fill up the pool with hot tap water.  Notice the snow on the ground.   Brrrrr!