We spent 3 weeks studying the character trait of Honor to include the culture of Japan.  Boy7 really liked learning about samurais while the girls enjoyed making maps and dressing in "kimonos".  I had a minor mutiny with the Japanese dishes I made.  We were blessed to be able to pray for a missionary family in Japan and talked a great deal about Buddhism and Shintoism and how it differs from Christianity.  The only bummer about that is that Girl4 started to announce that when she dies, she wants to come back as an ant!  Apparently, I hadn't been as thorough as I thought in my discussion of reincarnation.  So, I explained it again and now she says she wants to be an ant when she goes to heaven!  Maybe it's time for Daddy to talk to her...

We are now studying the character trait of Orderliness and Animal Classification.  So far, the kids are pretty disappointed as we've been spending a lot of time on invertebrates while Boy7 wants to study mice and Girl8 wants to study horses.  Jessica Hulcy, creator of the curriculum, encouraged us to pray that God would provide us the different specimens we would need if we couldn't afford to pay for science class quality specimens.  I was hesitant to pray for this as I wasn't sure what would show up in my bathroom, but in the name of my child's education I began praying.  Within a day, Boy2 dragged me over to see a beautful moth that had died near our sliding glass door.  I bagged him up.  The next day, dh found a spider and was quite surprised when I told him not to squish it, but to put it in a snack bag with a cotton ball of rubbing alcohol.   Another spider has built a web and has been catching bugs outside out front window - and I'm going to let it stay there for a little while longer.

Last week, we were discussing the group Annelida including earthworms.  After reading to them from a library book about earthworms, I sent them outside to try to find some that we could study.  Since it was a pretty cold day, I really didn't know if they would find any and if they did, I expected them to find the small worms I had remembered from my youth in the suburbs of Los Angeles.  Nothing prepared me for this:

They kept digging and found lots more including a nest with about 20 baby earthworms!  Here is a picture of all of my budding scientists with Boy7 holding his prize on a stick - the only one willing to do the task - so good to have a man around!  I decided that it wasn't quite necessary to dissect them even though we had lots of specimens - have to save something for high school biology (or for Dad to do), right?

The next day, we went on a "field trip" to the grocery store where the seafood guy showed us mussels, clams, oysters, crabs and lobsters.  Hoping to find some tadpoles and frogs next week, but after that I think I need to pray that God would stop giving me specimens as it's freaking me out!

Blessings!

-J