Happy Birthday!

Miss M celebrated her 8th birthday this week!  And boy did we celebrate!  Family came last weekend after her horse show to eat birthday cake.  On her birthday, Grandma and Grandpa R met us for dinner out after dance lessons, and then two days later, Grandma and Grandpa R drove with us two hours to see live Magic Tree House characters!  It has been an awesome birthday week!!!  


I want to share some of the birthday activities we did for Miss M's big day.  She (and her brother) had a blast, and we got some learning squeezed in, too!  I borrowed some fabulous ideas from The Nature of Grace!


When she woke up, Miss M found I had put up pink crepe paper around the house and 8 pink balloons in her bed.  When she got to the school room, she had 8 more balloons taped to her chair.  She had new spelling words in 6 of the balloons, so she and Mr. J took turns popping the balloons to find the words.  

After she was finished with her spelling words, we spent some time doing birthday candle math.  She put 8 candles on the cake, and she practiced fractions (3/8 of the candles were blue, etc.)  Mr. J thought it looked like so much fun that he needed his own cake for practice.

After math, Miss M worked on a birthday thumbprint book.  It turned out well, and she had so much fun creating it.  

My next post will hopefully have pictures of our meeting with Jack and Annie from The Magic Treehouse series!!!

Flight

This week, we began studying animals that fly.  We learned about air pressure and the mechanics of flight.  Miss M used two straws and a cup of water to create an air pressure difference, and she got a kick out of seeing the water spurt out the top of the straw.  

Next, Miss M and Dad tested different homemade gliders to find out which style would fly the farthest.  Mr. J even enjoyed testing out the gliders in the backyard. 

Hands

I haven't posted in a while for two reasons.  The first reason is that Miss M had her tonsils and adenoids removed a few weeks ago, and things have been crazy around her during her recovery.  (She is finally almost back to normal, and we had our first full school day today...yippee!)  The second reason is that I just haven't felt like I had anything useful or important to say.  Winter is bleak and boring (especially with no snow here in the mid west.)  School seems bleak and boring.  I know this can be a common feeling among homeschoolers in February.  (I know when I was in a "real" school setting, we got the same cabin fever feelings.)

But today as we were finally doing school, an inspiration came to me, and I knew I finally had something to share.  I was watching my two beautiful children as they worked and played, and I really focused in on their hands.  My little ones were working so hard with their hands today.  Miss M was busy writing a story about having her tonsils removed.  Mr. J was very busy playing with his construction set.  I thought about how different their hands are.  Not in terms of appearance, but in terms of how they use their hands.

Miss M's hands are happy when they are creating, dancing, acting, painting, hugging, and helping.  Her hands are happiest when they are touching an animal's fur.  Mr. J's hands are happy when they are sorting, classifying, moving, building, exploring, and organizing.  His hands are happiest when they are overflowing with construction vehicles. Our creator knew what he was doing when he created these precious little hands.

Thinking of hands reminded me of JJ Heller's song "Your Hands."  It is one of my all-time favorite songs, and a wonderful reminder that even during the bleak winter months, even when I feel like I'm not doing a great job at the whole mom thing, even on my most stressful days, God is holding me in His hands.  And that is enough. Every single day.