Tea Party for Three

This has been quite an interesting week. Trying to fall back into the flow of school and life has led to some frustrating moments on my part ( more on that in a second blog) but, for the most part, we have succeeded in completing a great week in school.

The boys are exactly where I was praying they would be for math and language arts and we even started back into our unity study- the Revolutionary War! The kids and I started off yesterday's lesson with a reenactment of the Boston Tea party. I put war paint on the kids and they silently slipped through the dark waters of the Boston Harbor to get on board of the East India Tea Co. Ship where they happily threw tea and broke holes into the chests, aka boxes, of tea all over the harbor. They chanted, " ....Tell King George we'll pay no taxes!" After that we listened to Yankee Doodle on youtube in a couple different renditions and began to sing along.

This was the ONLY part of the day where Hannah was cooperative with our plans. She is so sweet as we do hand motions to a lot of songs and verses and she follows right along with us :) I laid her down for an early nap as I assumed she was not feeling the best. I was correct. Anyways, after singing Yankee Doodle, the kids and I brewed some tea and poured it into Riah's tea set. Moriah was dressed to impress. The minute I informed her that we would be hosting a tea party, she went upstairs and came back down with a beautiful dress on and high heels. None of the kids enjoyed the taste but at least they were able to discuss if they were a Loyalist vs a Patriot and what we should do about the tea tax.

I read some very good books on the Revolutionary War. One being, an alphabetical approach to learning about the war and the other on Paul Revere's ride. I have so many fun ideas planned for these next few weeks I can hardly contain myself. I only wish I had a working printer as I need to print off the original 13 colonies so the kids and I can color and cut them out and have fun putting them back together in a puzzle format. I will figure something else out! I am praying we get a printer by February so that the kids and I can start notebooking again, as well. Patience.

We will be making feather pens and homemade ink out of walnut shells next week! Yeah! I can't wait. I also netflixed "Liberty Kids". It has some good reinforcements of what we are learning at a very elementary level. The boys enjoy it and Riah keeps telling me when Patrick Henry is coming on to say , " Give me Liberty or give me Death!"

Overalll a great week. We wrapped up our time with Daddy but spending the mid morning at the zoo and lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Of all our kids, Jayden was the one scared of the gorillas! Love that restaurant and so glad Ben could spend the day with us. We sure do love that man :)