Week 25: Finishing Our Time in India!

This week we were back to school, after having a nice week off for Spring Break. We didn't go anywhere, we just kept it simple and coordinated our break with my husband's Spring Break...this is one of the things I love about homeschooling, that our schedule is totally flexible! He took them to Chicago one day during the break so that I could get ready for a speaking trip to the West Coast, and we also took the boys to an indoor playplace for a fun morning. Harry and Ron were by far the biggest kids, since all the other children their size were at school, but all three had a great time nonetheless.

This week we began focusing on China, but I don't have any photos from those activities yet. We also finished up a few activities related to our recent focus on India, so I'll share those here. First of all, in conjunction with India we studied mountains, since some of the most notable mountains and mountain regions are in or near India (think Everest!) The boys had fun building a model of a mountain and trying to show different ecosystem layers present on one mountain:

They also tried their hand at stone-inlay Indian art...

Harry created his in the shape of India, to remind him to pray for the Indian people.

By the way, all the art projects we do come from a fun book called Global Art. I do not come up with any art ideas on my own, as I am completely inept at art myself! But all three boys truly enjoy when we do the hands-on and creative activities. So I'm grateful for our curriculum that directs us in this area!

Meanwhile, as we are now in the home stretch (!) with only 11 more official weeks left in our curriculum, I am both excited by what we have accomplished and sobered by "what we have left undone." I am considering having Harry take a standardized test this summer to see how we are doing in relation to other children his age, just to give me some guideposts as to where we might need to focus more attention next year. I have contacted Kolbe Academy for more information on their testing service and we'll see how that goes.

As for Ron, this weekend is a big week for him as he turns 6! Kindergarten has been very simple and straightforward for him this year. But he has made great strides in his cursive, his reading, and has started Singapore Math 1A in the past couple of weeks. He is also a GeoPuzzle World expert and has demonstrated a love for maps and geography, which we would not have discovered without our emphasis in world cultures and countries this year. So although on one hand I haven't felt as though I've really put as much time into helping him this year, he has still managed to learn and grow in a number of areas, and I'm thankful for that! Next year will be an interesting switch for Ron to being a 1st grader with a longer school day...hopefully we will all survive!

And as for Dobby, he is demonstrating an interest in reading and has a number of words under his belt so far, such as: God, Bible, milk, pizza, cat, dog, cow, and pillow. Random list, but fun to see his literacy growing! He loves to play with letters, do "work" when the older boys are doing school, and paint whenever I let him!

That's all for this week! Thanks for stopping by...hoping to have more outdoor photos soon with the weather starting to hint at spring!