Today was our first day of school at Lorene Park Academy, our homeschool. About a month ago, I decided to start early this year. It helps me to feel a little ahead of the game AND it means that come February when we are all completely sick of doing school, we can take a mid-winter break and escape to Sunriver. In addition to all these facts, everyone here was super jazzed to start school, so we did!
I spent the better part of the weekend organizing and cleaning our school room, which is also our playroom. Erik spent the time working on the garage. It seems that these two areas of our home are most often ignored while simultaneously acting as dumping grounds for miscellaneous junk. Erik made progress on the garage, and I was able to almost completely finish the playroom/school room. Everything was ready to go by about 7:30 pm last night. That's some sort of record for me. I was in bed asleep by 8:55 pm. This did mean that I was wide awake at 4:15 am, but that just gave me great quiet time this morning in preparation for the day.
Here's what the school room looked like last night when I finished.
Pencils sharpened. New supplies organized. I love First Day of School Eve!
Our traditional first day welcome sign.
The Green Square of Learning. No toys in the green square during school time. Of course there are jump ropes and kazoos in those green pouches, but those are school tools. :-)
The boys were equally excited for our first day, but blessedly, they slept later than I did. The first sounds came from Paul around 6:35 am, but he was perfectly content to pop an audio book into his CD player and listen until 7 am when he is allowed out. It's my sanity, folks. The coffee needs to kick in and the alone time with Jesus needs to happen or our day simply turns to goo. I will say this, it took me a few mornings to not wig out at the adult male voice emanating from my five-year-old's room. It's Stephen Fry reading A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh. Not the voice I'm accustomed to hearing at 6:45 am. I digress.
Paul was the first one out, so I took his picture first in front of our welcome door. We will be studying dinosaurs later this year, so I couldn't resist decorating with them now. The boys may never pick up on the way I theme these things, but I enjoy it!
Paul couldn't stop pointing at this dinosaur. It's his favorite. He is also SUPER excited to be doing kindergarten this year. Can you tell?
Luke came out shortly after Paul. His picture came next.
I couldn't get a normal smile out of Luke. He's starting to get a little wise to the fact that mom is posing these pictures for her own purposes. Oh dear.
And finally the teacher with her students:
I didn't plan the blue theme or the nautical theme, but I LOVE it!
After a breakfast of cereal and more cereal, we began our school day with Family Worship Time. There aren't any pictures of that, but we sat on the playroom couch, read a Bible story, sang a hymn and then prayed as a family. It was awesome. Yes, Paul was wiggly and neither of the kids wanted to pray. I don't care. Hearing my oldest boy singing the chorus of my favorite hymn was such a great way to start our school day together.
Then it was time to hit the books! We moved to the school table where the boys checked out all their first day of school goodies. Newly sharpened pencils and new Crayola markers were among the favorite items, but that's only because they hadn't noticed the jump ropes yet. This quarter both boys are going to learn to jump rope. It might take Paul a little longer, but he sure is cute when he tries. Pictures to follow.
Our first subject was handwriting and copy work. While Paul does handwriting, Luke does copy work. He simply copies down a sentence from a book we've been reading. Simple. I know. It's part of this curriculum that I love called Writing With Ease by Peace Hill Press. It's based on the classical model of education. He learns to write by copying good sentences first. Then he narrates sentences to me. This lasts all year this year. Eventually he will write his own sentences down. Anyway, it was fun to watch him embrace the new subject of writing, even in this very small way. (The English Major Mommy is super excited to be teaching writing again!!!)
I love this picture. The boys are checking out their new jump ropes and kazoos while I smile at the love of my life, who is taking the picture.
Part of our homeschooling philosophy is that we ease into school each year. This means that we only do one seat work subject this week. We will add one each week until we are doing all four seat work subjects after a month of school. This means that once we finished handwriting and copy work today, we were done with seat work! Recess!
Both boys wanted to try out their jump ropes and their kazoos before we went on our special recess field trip today. Here are some blurry pictures!
It's blurry, but that kid is so happy. The handles of the jump ropes have Captain America on them. So cool.
He's working hard, folks.
Once we had all jumped for about fifteen minutes, we headed for the donut shop. Yep. I always try to add something special to our first day. The boys have been begging to go to this donut shop for months. It's right by our house, and we drive by it all the time. The first day of school is the perfect day for this because it only comes once a year!
Donuts on the First Day of School. New Tradition. I like it.
After donuts, we headed home and did science, history, and literature. These are all subjects that Mommy reads to the boys. They love these subjects and had no problem setting aside jump ropes and kazoos to learn about chimpanzees in science, the beginning of the fall of Rome in history and the first chapter of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It's going to be a great year. :-)
After the amazing level of busy last week, it was a huge blessing to get in the van on Friday and drive to Sunriver. We have enjoyed some great time together as a family, and I have even escaped for some biking time alone. Today I did the Wildlife Loop that takes you along the river, past the airport and then back in through the Village Mall. It was stunning and awesome. And quiet. That was my favorite part.
Luke and I also did a little bit of riding together. Paul was unable to ride much this trip. His balance bike is on its last legs. And he was really scared on the alley cat thing that attaches to a grown up bike. So Mommy and Luke biked while Daddy and Paul came in the van. We biked to Fort Rock Park one afternoon. We biked to the Marina another afternoon. Luke is totally cool on the bike paths here. I love it. Next summer, I'm taking him to the cool foot bridge. We can play Pooh Sticks. If you don't know what that is, I'm sad for you.
And now some pictures.
The boys collect license plates. Paul spotted this one at the Marina. Not sure why he made this face though.
Happy boys playing in the river. We found this gorgeous spot and the boys threw rocks, mud, and sticks for about an hour.
The parents watched from the shady bench. Perfect! Except my hair. Helmet hair. Not so perfect.
They decided to make it "like the ocean." They got soaked, but nobody cared. We stripped them down and loaded them in the van. I love having boys.
We brought our Kiwi Crate. It is a very cool gift Luke got that has a different craft delivered to our house each month. They made safari jeeps and animals.
Working hard.
Luke's new jammies. They are covered in bicycles and say "Pedal to the Metal." We all love them.
Daddy and Paul snuggling and giggling on the deck after dinner.
Each morning, Paul woke up early. I gave him dry Cheerios and he sat in Grandpa's chair and read while eating. Very Bangsund, kid.
He understands what this cabin is all about now. Eating your favorite foods and reading your favorite books.
The boys love flying their little gliders in the meadow area outside the cabin. Paul is testing the wind. Erik taught him how to do this. It is very serious business.
I can't remember what Paul is explaining here, but I love that Luke is listening to his little brother blather on and on.
Both Luke and Paul earned some cash from Grandma and Grandpa by cleaning up some of the pine cones around the cabin. This was NOT work for them. It took less than ten minutes to fill this bag. In fact, while we pack up tomorrow morning, they want to do more. Sure, kids.
Luke caught his first butterfly this afternoon!
Not a posed shot. This is how he looks at stuff that fascinates him.
Totally a posed shot, but that smile is 100% genuine.
I have not been able to get any pictures at the new SHARC (Sunriver Homeowners Association Recreation Center), so I'll just tell you about it. It's a pretty amazing place, more like a water park than anything else. The boys aren't old enough to do some of the stuff, but they do not care. The stuff they are big enough for, they love. They float the Lazy River in tubes, wade into the super cool beach like indoor and outdoor pools, and even tried the summer tubing hill. For the record, Paul hated it and Luke LOVED it; however, at dinner tonight when Luke said it was his favorite thing about the trip, Paul said it was his favorite, too. So there you have it.
We head home tomorrow. I feel excited to get back, organize the school shelves and start school on Monday! I'm also jazzed to get in contact with Living Water and see where we are at with the online giving. Perhaps a well in Haiti is happening sometime before the end of 2012.
We celebrated Luke's 7th birthday on Thursday. So many fun and exciting things happened. The day began early because on your birthday you can come out of your room before Morning 7. Around 6:30 am, Luke came out and began building his birthday train.
The Birthday Boy with his Birthday Business: A gift from Mommy and Daddy, the Birthday Train box, his Clean Water for Haiti jar, and a card from some neighbors.
After putting together his train, Luke next wanted to open the card from some neighbors. This was Mommy's moment to cry. He ripped open that card and when a $20 bill fell to the floor, Luke immediately got excited to put it in the jar. They had indicated in the card what it was for, but he hadn't read that yet. Luke has stopped assuming that money given to him is for him. It's a sweet lesson that my son is teaching me.
He's so excited to put money in this jar. I think we might always have a jar like this in our house.
Luke then opened a present from Mommy and Daddy. Luke loves detective books. We purchased him a detective handbook a few months back, and it was a BIG hit. The next hour was spent closely examining as many pages as possible.
Focused on some serious detective business.
Shortly after all this fun, around 7:30 am, our first guests arrived. Okay, I agreed to watch two of our birthday guests for the entire day because the rest of the family needed to be at the county fair all day. It worked out beautifully. These two peeps, a ten year old boy and a seven year old girl, proceeded to keep Luke and Paul entertained while I managed last minute party preparations. Lovely.
They also brought $41 of their own money for the jar. How cool is that?
Although it was completely eclipsed by the awesomeness of the Clean Water for Haiti project, Luke's birthday party had a detective theme. He had asked for that a few months ago before starting the jar and I just decided to do both! No, they didn't really mesh together well, but not one party attendee seemed to mind.
So the first thing we did was read a Nate the Great book to the whole crew of 8 kids and 7 adults. I had a reason for this. I needed to fill some time and I needed the kids to understand why we were having pancakes for lunch. In every book, Nate the Great eats pancakes in the middle of the case. They help him think. And they taste good.
After the book, the mystery began. I lost the number 7 candle for the cake! Oh no! Never fear, each kid got a detective kit (white envelope with notepad, pen, flashlight, magnifying glass, etc.) and they were ready to solve the case! I won't include all the details, but clues were found, the kids ended up walking all the way around our block on the hottest day of the year, pancakes were eaten, and the candle was found!
Detectives on the case!
Solving this mystery is hard work! We need pancakes.
Putting the clues together on the floor after pancakes. Look! Each clue has one purple letter. Maybe they spell something...O...V...E...N...OVEN!!
Grandma got the picture of Luke finding the candle in the oven. I'll add it to the post when I get it from her. Until then, just imagine adorableness. :-)
After solving the mystery, we were able to put the candle on the cake and sing Happy Birthday.
I made that cake myself. Those who know me understand what a HUGE deal that is. I'm not crafty or bakey. That's not a word. Anyway...the Lord Jesus Christ had His hand all over this birthday, and He gave me the courage to try this. He used my good friend Liza in big ways to accomplish this. Thanks for the cake decorating tools, the recipe, the google search, AND the support, Liza! Jesus used you to help me make Luke's cake extra special.
And now for the reason why I believe the Lord blessed this birthday party. After the cake, we all headed to the living room. Dave (Grandpa) shot video of what took place. Thanks, Dave. I wouldn't have thought to video this, but I'm so grateful we have it forever. This was my favorite part of the day.
The final results of this epic day can be enjoyed here.
Luke has been consistently praying for the Haitian people to have clean water. He heard about their need at Sunday School about six months ago, and it has stuck with him. Luke is celebrating his 7th birthday next week on Thursday, August 16th, and he wants to give clean water to Haiti for his birthday.
Dear Friends, will you prayerfully consider donating something, anything, to Living Water International in honor of Luke's 7th birthday? Living Water International has created a link especially for folks who want to give. You can also make checks payable to Living Water International and send them our way.
Every time Luke earns money around the house, he puts some of it in this jar. He's collected cans from the neighbors and redeemed them for the jar. We even included a request in his birthday party invitation for folks to bring a donation rather than a gift.
As parents our greatest desire is that our boys understand who Jesus Christ is AND that they can be used by Him in this broken, hurting world to accomplish His purposes and bring Him glory. The "Clean Water for Haiti" jar on our kitchen counter has become an awesome opportunity not just for Luke, but for our entire family, to experience these truths. To sponsor a well in Haiti will cost $3,000. We have $207.16 so far. Will you join us?
