January Journey of Life.

On a cold dark wintry night - here is the promise I found waiting for me on the way out to a basketball practice. This is one of the things in which the Lord reminds me over and over of how BIG and AMAZING and how precious and colourful His love for me is.

January has brought some interesting out and about activities. We began with visiting the Model Train Expo and staying as long as we could. We saw all kinds of tracks and train sizes and including in that was an amazing Lego display with model trains on it too. See below:

This is a bullet train I think. The mountains behind are all built out of lego too. Last one of the Lego day I promise! Thomas the Tank Engine is sneaking into this one! Incredible patience to build this scene every year!

Our "Heart of Dakota"  homeschooling days are somewhat crazy every day. Getting a pre-teen out of bed is such hard work, whilst the Kindergartener is ready by 8 am all the time. Chores, breakfast and no playtime before school are a hard and fast rule in our home but seem to be broken constantly. Anyone else have this issue or just me? Schedules are kept loosely in our home due to interruptions currently from Doctor's phone calls and Granny Skype 'dates'. I'm so blessed to have Skype and to 'see' my Mum on a regular basis and have our boys read stories to her and get to know her even though they only see her in person every 3 years.


Our Heart of Dakota Kindergarten Bible lesson a few weeks ago was to build a replica of the paralyzed man being put down through the roof to be healed by the Lord - Here is a peak of how excited our boys were to re-enact this!  Oh for just plain old boxes, string and a recycled shoebox! (which served as a fantastic motorcar just a few hours later.

D's final feat for January was a 4D puzzle of London. It involved 2 puzzles one on top of the other, a flat one and then the 4D on top. The puzzle underneath was London in the 1800's before the Fire of London and the one on top is built with buildings and includes the Olympic stadium on far right and one building (not sure what) to be completed this year in London. I would not have the patience to do this stuff. It took 3 weeks and monopolized my living room for that period of time.  Ok it looks crazy as I took the picture upside down! Maybe you can find the London Bridge ! :)

This week we study Chocolate through a Lapbook from In the Hands of a Child. We are learning where cacao is grown and how it has been used since 4000 years ago, to today's world and uses of it. I guess the Lord may/may not have got to taste this wonderful luxury drink! This study is for Pre-K through 2nd grade but fun for older ones to try out and they have a seperate study for older grades on their website. Here is the link for the one we are working on: http://www.handsofachild.com/sweet-chocolate-curriculum.html.

Sure makes you hungry after a day studying all about Chocolate.
Thats it for now folks - have a good rest of your week.
Juls