School Days

Since we follow, well, no one's schedule but our own, I thought I'd give a little update on how everyone is doing in home school these days.

First, since I mentioned it here before, I should update on the "stay home/go to school" situation. We've decided, for various reasons, to go ahead and keep the boys home for now, and to supplement their home school with Portuguese lessons from an outside tutor, as well as extra-curricular activities if we can find some. The boys are excited about that, as they were not really looking forward to going to school here.

Since we told the boys they'll be staying home, they've both been tackling their school work with a renewed vigor and willingness to do school, and it is really showing in their performance. I've been very proud of them lately, and thought it time I shared on the blog.

Timothy is tackling ever-harder concepts in math and is doing splendidly. Today he mastered, in one lesson, how to multiply fractions, including reducing the fraction before performing the multiplication, and was just cruising along with ease while I dealt with a slightly wet kitchen for a moment. I'm so proud of him for this; math has been, at times, a difficult subject for him.

Caleb is also doing well, and kept trying to listen in on Timmy's lesson today. I finally told him we'd be doing multiplication of fractions soon enough -- another few years ought to get him to that point, silly boy. He sighed heavily at this unfair delay and returned to his assignment, subtraction of one 3-digit number from another. Once he sat down in concentration he breezed through it; Caleb grumbles and complains about math, but he whizzes through it once he sets his mind to it.

The other subjects are going just as well; we're studying world history this year and all really enjoy it.

Zach is beginning a slightly more formal PreK bit of work; on alternate days he sits down with some "readiness skills" workbooks and I have him do a page, according to the directions, and then let him color the pictures as he wishes. The main point for him at this point is just work on following directions and getting him used to the idea of school being a time when he does work I set out for him, not just plays at random at whatever he likes.

The other days he still gets to play; today was an "other" day and he was set up in the kitchen to have water play. He spent about a half hour filling a cup with water, pouring it into a bowl, and back & forth, back & forth. He made quite the mess, but since it was the kitchen and I'd set him there on purpose, no harm done. He was happy, and that's the main thing -- he needs activities like this to get his energy used up in a constructive manner.

In any case, all the boys are doing well, and school is going nicely. We had a nice little break last week, but now it is back to the routine, and really, we couldn't be happier.

Bats!

We have been thoroughly enjoying watching the bats each evening as they visit our 3 hummingbird feeders. It is such a delight to get to see nature up close & personal like this, to be able to study these amazing creatures right outside our windows and out our back door. I am so very grateful for the opportunities we have like this; the boys are beyond thrilled, as well.

Every night around dusk the bats start showing up. At first it is just one or two, and only the occassional "hit" on the hummingbird feeders. After an hour or two, we start to notice pretty frequent activity, when "all" the bats come out and are actively visiting all 3 feeders at once.

At the peak of activity, we think we have about 6 bats; perhaps we have more, but they are so difficult to count, as they are not all out visiting at the same time. The most we've counted at one time, though, is six.

They enjoy two sections of our back yard; the first, and most popular, is around the pool bathroom and the churrasco. There is a small "building" at the back of the porch, and the bats love to fly in circles around that area. They dart into the open bathroom, and dart back out again. We have inspected during the day, hoping to find bats living in the bathroom, but we were disappointed. No bats in the daytime, snoozing in our bathroom.

The other area they like is to swoop down a narrow sidewalk on one side of our house; they swoop down this corridor and light on the hummingbird feeders for a moment before swooping off to someplace else.

During the peak of activity, we have counted a bat hitting a feeder once every 5 seconds or so. See for yourself!

Watch the yellow hummingbird feeder for the action....


P. S. -- The Author is well, and we are heading out of town in the morning for a business trip. See you soon!