Molecules, Atoms and Butterflies...Oh My!!

And mornings like today I am so thankful that we home school. We are able to roll with the punches and go with the flow.

We got a new air conditioning unit put into the house we rent back in July, and someone forgot to schedule the inspection with the city. Since the certificate for inspection expires in a couple of days, the air conditioning company is scrambling. That means we have had several visits for inspections, installations and other things. Today they had to come and install a new CO2 detector and check fire alarms. I was told that no one would need to come in the house today so I was quite taken back when they now needed into each room. We quickly dumped trashes, swept floors and threw some clothes on. (yes we school in our jammies many days). After a couple of visits we found out that we passed all of the inspections and all is well. THANKFULLY!!

So, school started about an hour late today. But the kids were in good moods and very cooperative, so we were able to get a lot done quickly. We started a new devotional to do together in addition to our normal Bible lessons. I really wanted a way to help the kids dig deep into God's word. To do more then just memorize a Bible verse each week and learn popular stories of the Bible. I found a devotion and study guide for the book of Philippians. I thought this would be a good book to start in. Paul had some real struggles, yet he was always praising God. Our past 5 years have been rough, some real challenges, and sometimes I think we let those challenges define us. We dwell on the could haves and might have beens. I want the kids to see that God works everything together for good and that we have so much to be thankful for. I am hoping that reading through this book will help us all focus on God and be thankful even in the trials. To start out on the first day, we read the whole book of Philippians. Throughout the month we will dig deeper into the chapters and really analyze each verse. I am loving the new bible's that we got Blake and Samantha for Christmas, all of the added notes and study guides are nice to read and get to know the background of the verses. 

Here is the lesson we are loosely using: http://www.ourfamilyforhisglory.com/2012/09/philippians-bible-studies-and-family-bible-times/

After Bible we did history. We continued our lesson on different documents that inspired the US Constitution. This lesson has been so eye opening to me. I can not believe that they were dealing with some of the same issues back in the early 1600's as we are today. Learning about different documents, some that I had not heard of before writing this lesson, has really been interesting. The kids are finding it quite boring however, just listening to me talk and taking notes. They will be glad when we are finished.

Since Jim and I know we are raising future soldiers, we want to make sure that the kids all have a solid idea of what being an American is. We want them to be proud that they were born in the USA and know what they possibly may fight for one day. We want them to know about the people that fought before them and not take for granted, even one day, the liberties that they have because of those men and women. 

We read 2 chapters in Swiss Family Robinson before lunch. The kids have enjoyed this book. They always ask to read more chapters. In today's reading a whale was tossed ashore during a storm. The family was able to harvest oil and other parts of the whale to be used on the island. I decided we should learn a little bit more about whales. So I gave each child a different whale to research and each child also got some generic whale things to look up, like communication, life cycle and breaching. They are to research these and be ready to present them to the *class* on Thursday. I have some other fun whale activities that we will do that day. So Thursday is Whale Day in the vanBreemen home. Stay tuned :)

After lunch I continued butterflies with Chloe and Bryce. We learned about the life cycle of the butterfly and made a cute life cycle using different pastas. 

 

After we did the life cycle and some more of our lap book I gave them a treat...gummy butterflies :) 

We also learned about how butterflies pollinate flowers with their probiscus. To demonstrate this I made the kids into *butterflies*. And presented each with a flower and nectar. Ok, maybe not a real flower and nectar, but they still had fun. 

Justin was being silly today and kept saying 'hashtag duck lips', so the kids made duck lips for their picture. 

Today seemed to be a really long day, but we were finished with everything by 2:00, which was good considering we got such a late start, and that mom wasn't feeling well today.