Park Day

After lots of rain recently and even some snow flurries over the weekend, we had a cool but sunny spring day today! So off to our neighborhood park we went after lunch.

The older kids played "Marco Polo", where the person who's it has to close their eyes but can say "Marco" and the others have to respond with "Polo". Then the it person can follow the sound of their voice. None of them were actually able to tag anyone, but they had fun taking turns being Marco! Then the boys thought it would be fun to close their eyes all the way home. They used walking sticks to feel when they were off the sidewalk. I made them open their eyes when we crossed the street. :-)

Little Man was too busy pushing around his shopping cart to play Marco Polo!

We had a GREAT school day today, for which I am supremely thankful!

Our daughter (fifth grade) and I had a wonderful writing time together, learning a new skill.....how to summarize a narrative story. I love, love, love our writing curriculum! It's so well laid out and tells me exactly how to teach things to my kids so I'm not guessing or missing something important. Together we summarized and outlined the fable "The Fox and the Crow" today. It was hard and took lots of time, but was very worthwhile. Tomorrow we will re-write this story using our outline. On Wed we will start summarizing another fable, but she will do a little more of it on her own. I have planned on doing 3 like this, together, and hopefully by next week she will be able to summarize/outline and then re-write a short story all by herself.

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I get to learn so many cool things along with my kids. I love that about homeschooling! Speaking of learning new things, did you know that only about a third of the American colonists supported the idea of independence from Britain? And there were really only a handful of Patriot leaders. They all just happened to be in the right places at the right times, and respond to events in just the right way.....and certain events (like the Boston Tea Party) served to unite the formerly very independent 13 colonies. The set up to the declaration of independence was truly remarkable. The reading we are doing for history just amazes me. Every day I am learning something new.

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Today I read Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride" to the children and they were absolutely riveted. Riveted!! Did you know there were TWO riders that night? Anyone know the name of the second rider? It was thought that in case one of them was captured, there should be two riders to go warn Lexington and Concord that the British were coming. As it turned out, both riders ended up being captured (after Revere successfully warned Lexington) and a third man, who just "happened" to be going home late that night after courting a young lady, on the same road that Revere was riding on, ended up being the one to warn Concord (you can rest easy though, both Revere and the second rider escaped shortly after being captured).

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I am currently reading John Adams by David McCullough, and I tell you what. Those patriot leaders could ORATE! And WRITE! Man oh man, they were so good at it. It stirs liberty in my own breast just reading what they wrote and said. That's a lost art today, isn't it? There's just no comparison to the political campaign speeches we hear snippets of these days. And the love story between John Adams and Abigail Adams.....wow. They were apart for many years of their marriage due to John's government service, and what a blessing for us that nearly 1000 letters they wrote to each other survive to this day.

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I think this is one of the reasons I homeschool, so I can keep learning too! But I'll stop sharing now lest you get bored. :-)