Taking Flight

Ahhh...Butterflies. They are so beautiful, fun to watch and great to learn about in school. My friend Georgia gave us this very cool butterfly kit from Insect Lore where you send the coupon off and they send you live caterpillars. The caterpillars eat the food in the bottom of their container and then soon after they arrive, they make their chrysalises. When they make their chrysalises, you carefully take out the little disk at the top of the container and gently safety pin it to the mesh butterfly habitat.

We got to watch them spin their chrysalises. (That was cool!) We watched them right after they emerged from their chrysalis when they were letting their wings dry. (We missed every one of them actually coming out!) And we watched them starting to fly. This morning, we let them go. It was such a wonderful study.

 Josh with one of butterflies (We had four that worked - one didn't make it out of its chrysalis.)

 Tim was so excited to watch them fly away!

 Sarah with a butterfly too

 Sammy and Anna holding the butterfly

This is a picture of the kiddos with the butterfly habitat (the caterpillars were in their chrysalises here. If you look closely in the bag, you might be able to see them.) They are also each holding a little ceramic butterfly that we made.

The poster to the right of Sarah is "Butterflies of Florida."

"If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come!" 

2 Corinthians 5:17

Preschool Days

Preschool is such a fun age. (OK, so it has it's own set of challenges too, but I do enjoy it overall.) Sammy was so excited about school this week. One day I was about to do something with Josh and Sammy said, "I want to do school." I told him I was about to a time test with Josh and in 5 minutes I would be able to start school with him. He replied, "No, I want to do school RIGHT NOW!" Oh that he would keep that desire for the rest of his school days. :)

Sammy holding his letter pages - (taken from this really cool website Hubbard's Cupboard. http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/) 

 Sammy decorated his "C" with cut up colored pieces of construction paper

Anna loves to tag along

Complaining

"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God, without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine as stars in the universe." Phil. 2:14-15

I think there is reason that God put this verse in the Bible, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through the pen of Paul. It is so easy to read; so hard to follow. Just to dispel any myths about homeschooling, (perfect house, perfect children, perfect mom, perfect dad) in our house we deal with complaining. "I don't want to do math." "Do we have to read that chapter?" "Are we done yet?" "Another writing assignment?" I know, I know... I have read the articles too about how homeschooling creates this environment of kindness and generosity, totally obedient children, and never a complaint uttered. I have found that homeschooling actually creates the opportunity to expose those sins that we deal with day in and day out in sometimes a very uncomfortable way. It causes me to examine my own heart as I am dealing with complaining. Disciplining in LOVE (not harshness). Returning the complaint with a "gentle answer". Making sure Mommy is not complaining. How I wish I was there - that perfect Mother that I sometimes dream about, but in reality I am still same old me.

Yet, even as I am "same old me", I do believe that  "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation.The old has passed away, behold, new things have come." 2 Corinthians 5:17. The other verse I take much comfort from is "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it." Philippians 1:6

You see, while we are in this homeschooling journey, God is working in me and my children. (Just as He does in all of us who are seeking Him, no matter how we school our children.) He is exposing my sins and He is training me, during the time that I am trying to train them. Lord, please give us grace and help us to become more like you. Help us to view our lives through the lens of faith and trust that You are working in all of our hearts during these "growing up" years.

Easing back into school

OK, OK, I know what some of you are thinking. "What? The Mateers are starting school already?" Well, yes, actually we are. We were going a bit stir crazy down here in our apartment with the heat outside and the "nothing to do, Mom"; so we decided to make good use of our time and go ahead and start back to school. Actually, I am looking forward to the schedule that school brings again. We have had 2 1/2 wonderful months off - it really was a super summer overall. Our trip up north was so special and so many memories formed. (But I would not be truthful if I did not admit that I was tired of the bickering when we got back from our trip and we were stuck in the house!) As I said, overall though, a really precious summer. Thank you, Lord!

So, anyway, as I was saying, we started back to school today. This was a fun day - we take our pictures of the first day of school (see below) and the kids decided yesterday they wanted to have a "science party" today. I told them that was a good kick off to school, but they said they were just doing it for fun. :) Sarah was so sweet - she came up with the idea and then also came up with a good idea for Sammy to be able to participate. (She suggested he do something with mixing colors. Then she said, "That's science too, right Mom?" Absolutely it is!)

Here are some pictures of our first day of school.

Josh - going into 5th grade this year - Whoa is he really starting 5th grade this year?!

Studious Sarah - our sweet 4th grader

Tim - our sweet first grader

Woohoo! Sammy is excited about starting Preschool this year!

 Tim sharing about how we get our water in our "science party". He got the idea from A Magic Schoolhouse book "A Trip to the Waterworks" which he has been wanting to read over and over again lately.

 Sarah doing her experiment.

 The mad scientist :)