Multiple Piano Festival

Rebecca has been participating in the Multiple Piano Festival for the past nine years that she has been taking lessons. It makes for a crazy November, but the performances have become part of our holiday traditions. As she played for the last time, I felt nostalgic about these years, watching her go from a little girl to an adult on that stage. She is a beautiful pianist, teacher, friend, and young woman.

Being Brave

Ruth was invited to a birthday party at Loveland Laser Tag. She was so excited to go, and it was fun to watch her experience new things. She is often reserved at first, but she soon got over that and jumped in.

 When she was on the ropes course, I could see her nervousness and caution in taking the next step. But she kept on going, even with her fears. She was brave and persevering. She is sure growing up!

Hexaflexagons

For our opening in school every day, we watch a video about some interesting topic. Today we watched a Vi Hart video about Hexaflexagons. Basically the idea is that you fold a strip of paper into a hexagon, and because of the way it is folded, you can flip it so there are three unique faces to the hexagon. 

 The kids were quite taken with this, and after the pains of figuring out how to actually get it to work, this has produced days of entertainment and learning. Lots of geometry and patience is required!

 There was also a renewed interest in art because to truly see the three different faces, you must color the three faces in unique ways.

The Zoo

 Ruth has been asking to go to the zoo for a long time, and since it was a free day, we decided to go. No one else wanted to go with us, so just the two of us went. Ruth wanted to see the lions, tigers, and penguins. She liked listening to and watching the zookeepers work with the animals. She even talked about being a vet when she grows up!

They had these cool Lego creations of animals throughout the zoo. The picture doesn't do it justice- that's a lion made out of Lego!

Cooking lessons

It is important to me that the kids learn life skills before they leave home. Every week each child is responsible for helping to make dinner (or another meal) with me. This way they are learning cooking skills as well as building a personal cookbook for each of them. 

 Ruth loves to make dumpling soup. She is so happy to help cook, and can do a lot of it on her own.

Joseph made pizza for the first time and got lots of flour all over. I asked him how he could clean it up. "The vacuum!" He thought it was great to vacuum the counter.