Week 1, day 4

Today was the first day of Community Bible Study. I attended a CBS in PA, and I'm really glad to have found one here as well. They have a comprehensive children's program as well as an in-depth adult study. This year I'll be studying the books of 1 and 2 Kings, and the minor prophets whose ministries took place during that time frame. The kids will learn stories from the Old Testament before Christmas, and the New Testament afterwards. In my core group I met another South African who is also homeschooling her kids, though they're a good deal older than P and E. It seemed that my kids settled in well into their classes, and apparently P has learned Psalm 119:11 well enough that she shared it with her class when they were doing their class memory verse.

After lunch, my mother-in-law read to the kids for a good long time while I sorted through my new CBS materials and generally relaxed - very pleasant! My inlaws (with whom we are currently living) had been out of town for a week, so the kids are enjoying having them back. After she was done reading to them, I suggested to P that we make a map of the kids' room. E chose not to participate, and hung out under his grandmother's feet instead. We used graph paper, a ruler, and a pencil, and approximated distances to the nearest foot. I was quite proud of how the map turned out; we included details such as the fish tank and the rocking horse. My aim was to give her a sense of just what a map is, and that it depicts a real place. We then came downstairs and looked on Google Maps at our current neighbourhood. We traced out the path to the lake and the bayou, and then P noticed an odd feature in the drainage channel we walk past on our way to the bayou, in the opposite direction from the way we usually go. We decided to take a walk to check it out.

Like most of our walks, this wasn't a direct A-to-B operation, but P led the way based on her understanding of the map and took E and me directly to the feature we'd been curious about. Clearly, she does have a good concept of what a map is and how to use it. It was a series of concrete blocks, probably designed to catch rushing debris when the channel is flooding. An egret was standing adjacent to it when we arrived, and we watched it fly away. P then threw various debris into the water to see if it floated, and I saw a baby turtle appear for about 3 seconds and then thoroughly vanish. On the way back, we walked around to the far side of the lake and saw the ducks, but didn't stay long.

After our walks and a well-enjoyed popsicle each, I re-read the geography book to them, and described the pictures in one of the volcano books (which was far above their level). So, I suppose one could say that the only subject we covered today was geography, but certainly math was involved in counting how many rulers it took to measure out the wall, and looking at local wildlife certainly counts as science. Besides, P can now write her name using lowercase letters, as she demonstrated on her CBS colouring page. All in all, a thoroughly productive day.