Grade 3 - Week 11

Week 11 - Our last week in Brazil!

This week got off to a bad start as we took Monday off to watch a friend's kids.  By Monday night, her kids were sick and by Thursday, our girls were sick.  So we only got in two good days of school (Tuesday and Wednesday).   Thankfully the girls recovered quickly and Scott and I did not get it.  The downside is we missed dad's 90th birthday party.  We all were very disappointed.

We continued to work on our dioramas.  This is a slow process for the girls.  But it is fun and they like the finished product.  Our Animals this week in Science are the Toucan, Wooley Monkey, and the Sloth. 

We made a little yellow airplane to go with our Read aloud - Nate Saint.  He was a missionary and pilot for Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF).   This week we reached the end where he is killed.  But his death as well as the three other missionaries with him were instrumentatal in eventually teaching the people who killed him about Jesus.  So this is what we focused on. 

So we finished most of our math, science, bible, and geography this week but are behind in the not so fun things:  phonics, reading comprehension, language arts, spelling, and vocabulary.  Oh well, next week can be catch-up.

On a side note, the girls had their swimming evaluations this week.  They swam 48 laps (down and back) within an hour.  Each lap is about 40 yards.  Altogether this was over a mile.  They did really well but were starving when they were done.  They can to the free style, butterfly, breast stroke, and backstroke.  They are cointinuing to work on improving technique and speed.  Foss Swim school is excellent, al beit a bit pricey.  But, they have been swimming about 3 and 1/2 years and are far more advanced than I am.  They will be repeating this level again but will also be swimming on the swim team one day a week, starting in January.  They are in the top level now with the exception of the swim team.  While you can swim competitively with the swim team, you can also just go to the practices.  We have decided that we do not want our children to be on competitive teams at this age.  If they want to compete in a sport, when they are older, that will be fine but we just don't want to push it.  Just let them play and have fun is our philosophy.  Swimming twice a week for an hour is great exercise for them.