Calligraphy and Chopsticks

The kids and I have been studying ancient China in our history lessons.  "I love history!" William typically exclaims when it is time for us to gather on our school room rug and listen to a story from the history book.  After learning about Chinese calligraphy, the kids practiced making the basic marks:

Some weeks we do our history lesson at the library or outside of the library by the lake.  This past week the kids took their maps of China and made puzzles... then they had to try to unite the Qin dynasty (put the puzzle back together) since Qin united the warring states into the first united China.

The nice thing about working by the pond (other than the fact that we are working by a pond) is that afterwards, we do our exercise time with races and games along a track that circles the water.

Tuesday nights we often eat out before I teach my birth class (90% of the time at Chick-fil-A), since that way the house gets to stay clean!  This week we headed to a local Chinese restaurant.  While cooking an Indian dinner was an amazing experience, going to a restaurant for our cultural dinner this time was quite a bit easier for this tired preggo mama!  Plus the atmosphere was already set ;). The kids loved eating with chopsticks, and like their mama when I was a little girl, they loved the fried wonton chips.

Yum!

We will finish up our lessons on China tomorrow with stories about Confucious, folk tales, and a glance through some other Chinese history books (I LOVE the recommended reading my history curriculum provides... LOVE it).  Then, back to Rome and Ceasar! 

I'm a bit nervous about juggling everything once our new baby gets here in October.  Thankfully William and Vera are responsible, good listeners.  Though it is sometimes challenging to prepare good lessons and keep everyone focused when the younger two boys are at home, I love teaching my older kids at home.  I get such joy teaching them!  So here are a few other glances at school so far this year:

William and Vera loved watching salt melt caves into blocks of ice as we discussed physical properties in science.

Also for science, it was pretty SWEET taking measurements of volume and temperature to make hard candy as we discussed accurate measuring.

We said goodbye to Lea on August 14th as she headed back home to get ready for her senior year in Germany, but before she left she gave the kids an enriching German lesson (William chose to study German using the duolingo app for his "educational computer time" today, Lea!).

We drove up north a few hours to catch the total eclipse, we began hosting a homeschool co-op last week, the kids now have two pet snails we are studying (so now we have both snails and hissing cockroaches in our school room!), the piano is getting tickled each day, and each day feels full and it feels tiring and it feels good.