Changes ahead–But Good
Sorry I have not posted much this spring. The kids all did well and finished their school year the end of May.
We have already started our Fall semester since we want to get a jump on the school year. We will be returning to the states for a few months. We will be arriving in the US on Aug 16th. We have a little bit of traveling to do in the Fall so we started the school year early so we will not be so pressed to do school while traveling. We are all really excited to see friends and family after 4 busy years.
I will be making some changes in my blog because we will be making some changes in our ministry and our location. I am not sure what I am free to say right now so I will just say change is ahead for us. This will technically be the last post for “Homeschooling in the Amazon” because will not be coming back to serve here in the Amazon region of Brazil. I will either change the name of this blog or I may change to a different blog. I am still in the thinking stage.
Here is a picture of Joshua and Sarah doing an experiment in their Apologia Astronomy lesson.
We enjoyed this experiment very much. They could not wait to sample the melted chocolate 
I hope to get a chance to update some while we are in the states but at this time I am not sure how long it will be until we have internet.
Happy Homeschooling!
Family Calendar
When my oldest daughter was in Kindergarten I made a calendar to help her learn to keep track of days weeks and months. Joshua was been asking when will we do this when is so and so´s birthday etc. for way too long. So last month I decided to make a new calendar , since we left the other one behind in the states. I had my older two daughters help be get everything together and pronto! We have a calendar
Of course we had to make hearts for February, because that is what we had on our original calendar.
Then we got ready for March with the bumble bees that I brought with us from the states, just in case we wanted to make a calendar.
With a little bit of double sided sticky tape and velcro we are ready for the months ahead. Rebekah has already said that we need Easter eggs for April but Rachel is voting for rain drops. We will have to see.
Happy Homeschooling!
Getting a taste of snow
Since we do not have snow here I thought I would do a lapbook of The Snowy Day with Joshua. He saw snow when he was only 2 years old but he does not remember anything about it. We had fun reading the book and then putting the lapbook together. Here are some pictures from our snowy day in the Amazon.
It was so hot that morning that Joshua had already taken off his shirt.
Abigail got in on the action too! (notice she had taken off her shirt also! Even though we were talking about snow it did not cool us off much
Finally we got it all put together
This lapbook can be found at http://www.homeschoolshare.com/b4_resources_snowy_day.php. We had a lot of fun putting it all together.
Joshua finished Kindergarten at Brasilian School
This last December Joshua finished the Kindergarten program at the Brazilian School he has been attending. We decided that after he completed this year that we would keep him home and start teaching him in English. After pondering and praying about this we decided that it was better for him to learn to read in English before Portuguese. He did very well in school making all “B”s which stands for Bom, or Good and “MB” which stands for Muito Bom of Very Good. He has expanded his vocabulary in Portuguese and speaks very well. Now for the challenge of learning to read in English (that will be a later post)
The day that we put my Mom on the plane to return to the US, I also had to take Joshua to the doctor. He had a fever was coughing and having a some chest congestion. We were given a prescription for several medicines to take along with a breathing treatment 3 times a day. It was the next day, Wednesday, that I realized it was Joshua’s last week of school. Joel went by and talked to the teacher and discovered that he was having a ceremony the next day for all the children finishing Kindergarten.
The only thing we were told was that he needed to wear church clothes. After not being at school most of the week before because of our family celebrating American Thanksgiving he had been out of school for a full week . So he did not remember what he should expect before we got there.
If you know my husband very well you know he HATES any type of graduation ceremony. He would not have gone to his College Graduation if I had not pushed him, since we had church and family members coming to watch him graduate. Since I knew he would not go I went and took Abigail with me. But I was surprise at the great job of the organizing and planning of the teachers for this event.
The phrase says, “The world is a great watercolor in which the major artist is the Lord.”
As you see all of the seats in the front are empty. There were two Kindergarten classes. Each of the teachers called the children up individually. She told about their favorite foods, their favorite game to play, their best friend at school, what they like best about school. Some of the children ran down the red carpet and others were slow as turtles. I was glad that Joshua was somewhere in between.
First he had to wait in line for his turn.
Now it is Joshua’s turn and he is getting last minute instructions.
He was not really excited about his 5 minutes of fame.
But in the end he did give me a smile or two. This was also the first day he had not had a fever in several days also. Here is Joshua with his friend Matteus.
Afterwards they had a Christmas party with their classmates and their families. Over all it was a great time and a great experience. Now Joshua is asking us if Abigail will go to school there. Well we have not ruled that out for her Kindergarten year.
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My mom´s visit
We had a great time in November visiting with my Mom.� We had to make the most of the 17 days she was with us.
We took her to see some of the sites here in Belem.� We also had to get some shopping done because she wanted to have Christmas with us before she headed back on the last day of November.
The best part was just having her here, letting her meet our Brazilian and American friends and showing her what our life is like living in another country.� We took my Mom by boat (her first boat ride ever) over to the island of Cotijuba.� There are no cars on the island.� There are these tracker drawn trems (kind of like at amusement parks) and horse drawn carriages.� We wanted her to see the way� that many of the families on the river live.
We took her to one of the communities that Joel is doing ministry. This community sits right on the river.� As the tide of the river changes through the day water rises up under these wooded sidewalks.� The community next to this is called Terra Firme , which means firm land. This community does not currently have an organized group of believers.
We also took her to eat some regional food that is served on a sidewalk next to a busy street.� We all had fun introducing Granny to some new foods. She was very brave and tried everything that was offered her.� She enjoyed all the fresh fruits most of all.
Because I wanted the kids to spend as much time as possible with her we canceled school for two of the weeks she was here, which also included the week of Thanksgiving.� But we did make a few field trips to local places of� interest. We along with a couple of friends went to the Bosque which is like a botanical gardens but almost all of the plants and animals are from Brasil.
Then after Thanksgiving we celebrated Rebekah�s birthday a couple of weeks early. Then last but not least we celebrated an early Christmas with Family. This was very special.� It had been two years since Joel�s mom was here with us for Christmas.
My dad was always the one with the camera in our family but Granny did a good job getting everything on film. We are so glad that she had a wonderful First trip to Brasil and we are glad that she is already talking about returning.
I know this is not much about schooling but it was the highlight of my year.� I�ve had a lot of disappointments in 2010 but the Lord allowed it to end on a wonderful note.
Charlotte