52 Books in 52 Weeks

I love to read, but I readily admit that I usually choose to read "easy" books.  I love Amish fiction because it is easy, quick, and the stories and characters lead me to reflect on my own walk with God.  I don't usually choose to read intellectually challenging literature, because I read for relaxation instead of stimulation most of the time.  However, as 2012 comes to a close and we get ready to ring in 2013, I want to challenge myself to put more effort into choosing quality literature, and learning new things in the next year.  So, I have decided to join a group with the goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks.  In addition to that goal, I will also be participating in the 5/5/5 challenge - read 5 books from each of 5 categories or 5 genres.  The genres are fiction, autobiography, history, drama, and poetry.  I have my first book, Pride and Prejudice, and I'm ready to start tomorrow!  Click on the picture on my sidebar to read more about the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

It's been a few weeks since I have done a report.  Time seems to pass so quickly.  Things have been a little crazy around our house, as K's work schedule has been changed around quite a bit.  We started our Jesse tree devotionals on December 1st.  This is the second  year for us to do a Jesse tree, and the boys really enjoy it.  Since we are studying ancient times in history this year, it is also reviewing the Bible history we have learned.

We made our annual visit to the Christmas tree farm to pick out our tree, and Ethan enjoyed petting the goats. 

This week we studied the early Greeks in history.  We heard the story of the Odyssey and learned about other Greek myths.  We learned about the early Olympics.

  In science, we learned that the air is a mixture of gases and did a couple of demonstrations to determine some of the gases in the air.  We figured out that there must be oxygen in air, because a flame needs oxygen to burn and when we covered a lit candle with an inverted jar, the flame went out.  We also saw that water was drawn into the jar when the oxygen was depleted.  The boys also got a kick out of our demonstration on carbon dioxide.  We combined baking soda and vinegar, producing carbon dioxide, and the boys loved "pouring" the carbon dioxide onto a candle to extinguish the flame.  This led into a discussion of fire extinguishers and general fire safety.

Isaac is learning multiplication facts for 2 and 3, and Ethan is learning about picture graphs in math.  I am trying to come up with something fun for us to tally and graph over the break...maybe the different kinds of Christmas cookies we make? 

Both of the boys have been reading like crazy.  We made 2 trips to the library this week.  Recently, Isaac has read Little House on the Prairie,  Mr. Popper's Penguins, and Charlotte's Web.  Ethan has loved reading the My First Little House books.  We went to the library's story time on Wednesday. We heard a story about elves, made an elf ornament, and got an elf coloring page to bring home.

We are looking forward to some fun Christmas plans next week!