Sunday, November 13, 2016

"Mumma, I like writing"

Yes, you read that title right. Daniel came up to me the other day and said "Mumma I like writing."

Way to melt a mother of Dyslexic's heart.

Of course, this is what he had just written:


But hey, it's a start.

Maxwell has continued with cursive and now he's starting to write it even during Barton:


And Maxwell's math is finally starting to get tricky. He's having to figure out the areas of trapezoids by using a formula and the areas of all kinds of things by splitting them up into trapezoids, triangles, and parallelograms.


It's fascinating how they teach formulas. They make the child discover what the formula is by them selves. I can't explain it, you'll just have to look:


For history this week we learned about WWI. I was not ready to learn about WWI because of the french stuff I taught at the beginning of the year, but I decided to skip ahead and then go back to where I was, because I wanted my teaching of WWI to coincide with Remembrance day.

We Read an AWESOME book:



It's a "You Choose" book where there are three story lines and over 20 endings. Hyrum LOVED it. He was so proud that he didn't die. (Maxwell died, and Daniel's lungs got damaged from poisoned gas.)

I thought this book was an excellent time to teach the three perspectives of writing (First, Second, and Third) because it's written in Second perspective by using "You did this, You thought that." After that, Hyrum started calling it the "Number Two Book" and carried it everywhere he went.

When we went to a picnic with family, a couple teenagers picked it up and intently began reading. All of the sudden you would hear "Oh Man, I died!!"

Hyrum found out that I have five more of these type of books, but I told him he would just have to wait until we learn those subjects.  Hehehe, I love it when my kids love learning!

Anyway, Sidney did Remembrance day justice. With a parade, a flyover, and a memorial service.


I went through more emotions then usual because of our study of WWI. I went through each stanza of "Flander's Fields" with my boys, explaining it, and when we got to the part where it says "take up our quarrel with the foe," Daniel said "But why? WWI was so pointless."  In my heart I agreed with him. I told him how often there are wars with good causes and that we need to stand up to bullies, but really I thought, war is just so pointless.

I also finally told them about my mom's father. He lied about his age so he could join WWI. Look how little he looks:


I told them how the war broke his brain and that when he came back, he was a horrible man. My boys didn't really understand. Grandma T is their favourite person. How could her Papa be bad? Daniel, with big eyes said "You mean sometimes he was rude?" Oh sweet innocent boy. I wish you could stay so innocent.

Well, we also continue to have fun here in our oceanfront house. Here's us during one of our mid-day breaks:


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