Fun Day

We had a fun day of school today! Thursdays are always a little different from our normal routine because our daughter G is in a virtual co-op and they meet on Thursday mornings. She wears a headset with a microphone, and participates in a history discussion online with other middle school students studying with Tapestry of Grace Year 4. We love our virtual co-op! While she is busy on the computer for a couple hours, the boys and I do things for school that are okay for our daughter to miss.

This morning I spread out a sheet on the family room floor, got out a bunch of art supplies, and let the boys have at it while I read outloud for over an hour. We are at a really exciting part of a book about the real life missionary to China, Eric Liddell. If you recall, he was a gold medal winner at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, famous for not running his favored-to-win race because it was scheduled on a Sunday. The movie Chariots of Fire was later made about that part of his life. Not only are we at an exciting part of the book, we're also on a mission to finish the book by tomorrow afternoon so we can watch Chariots of Fire for movie night tomorrow!

This was a wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable way to spend the morning.




Our son G drew a picture of what I was reading about. Here Eric Liddell (on bike) and a Chinese companion (pulling cart) are taking an injured Communist soldier back to the hospital at their mission compound. They are traveling through many villages along the way, some of them occupied by opposing armies. It was a dangerous journey and quite riveting for the boys. I love that Tapestry of Grace schedules biographies of real life christian heroes. We all read about Amy Carmichael earlier this year, and most recently Gladys Aylward and now Eric Liddell (who were contemporaries working in different parts of China at the same time). Our daughter also read a biography of Billy Sunday which she really enjoyed. I love, love, love these true accounts of their lives and their testimony of faith in God, and I love sharing them with our children! I love being able to tie in what we are learning about in history with God's story of missions. (can you tell I really love it?!!?!)


After a glorious hour outside having recess and enjoying a beautiful fall day (I power walked around our cul de sac with our daughter while the boys played football in the backyard), we worked on our ocean boxes. We made seals and sea lions out of clay. Here is one that Little Man made all by himself!


Daughter G doesn't have her own ocean box because she is on a different science track than her brothers, but she has fun helping them with theirs!



While we worked we listened to these audio cd's that a friend gave us. Perfect!


The children really wanted to attach their seals with wire so it would appear that they were swimming underwater.



Son L made this one poking its head out of the water!

And here's another one sunning himself on a rock.



We also did math and spelling today, but that was it. A delightful change of pace and a really fun day!