Our night

Mr. 7 is certainly enjoying the banking videos but you need to make sure you have back-up reading material just in case it gets slow. Here was reading through Math by Simon Basher while still keeping an eye on the banking video. He then proceeded to give Nana and Papa a quick banking lesson via Skype so it seems he was paying attention despite the open book.

 
 

While Mr. 7 was enjoying the Khan Academy, Mr. 5 and Mr. 1 were engrossed in their legos. It was quiet until Mr. 5 decided to use the legos as confetti, shouting "Happy New Year" as he threw them up in the air. Mr. 1 thought this was hilarious!

 
 

The Khan Academy

 

Mr. 7 is currently watching all the lessons on banking through the Khan Academy. And Mr. 5 spent a good half hour doing the addition and subtraction math lessons and was disappointed when he had to stop to eat dinner (how mean of me to stop his learning so he can eat). They have problems at the end of each lesson and if you answer the problems correctly you get points. And if you do all the problems right you get more points. The boys love it - they cheer when they get more points and are disappointed if they miss any. Not that these points earn anything other than glory - which seems more than enough for us!

Do you think Mr. 7 will take over our finances after he finishes all the banking lessons? It would definitely free up some of my time...

And a happy new year!

 

More hiking photos

 
 
 
 

Inspecting the world

 
 
 
 

Hiking

We started the new year out at a beautiful 50 degree day which is hard to come by this time of year. Naturally we had to get outside so we headed out for a snowy hike. Everyone was thrilled to be tromping through the snow although we shedded clothes as we went. Only Mr. 7 actually returned to the car in full snow gear and even he had unzipped his coat.

Mr. 1 has been very unsure about tromping around in his snowboots but today he had a great time hiking along (as long as he was holding a hand). The older boys were great explorer and checked out everything along the path with their binoculars and jewelers loops.

 
 
 
 

One of the best moments was listening to Mr. 7 sing The Wheels on the Bus to Mr. 1 in the car but mixing up all the words so the wheels went "waaa, waaa, waaa" and the horn on the bus said "move on back". Mr. 5 thought it was hilarious and so of course Mr. 1 laughed right along. If the big brothers think it's funny, it must be!

Christmas

The big Christmas present this year was the bunk bed surprise. In addition to this we tried to keep additional treasures to a minimum since we have such generous grandparents and aunts and uncles. There were books (of course), new games, exploring equipment, and legos. We got some great new books this year including the amazing Usborne Encyclopedia of World History - we do love books but what do you do with 20-30 new books when all your bookcases were already bursting - there may be a trip to Ikea in our future for more bookcases. Forbidden Island was a hit for Mr. 5 and Mr. 7. They even spent a morning this week designing their own sunken island and then exploring it. Mr. 5 got binoculars and a compass for the trip. For Mr. 7's love of game-making, we found blank cards and plastic sleeves so he can make his own cards for games and then have all the backs the same with the plastic sleeves. We still have hundreds of index cards but this will make for a more polished finish product. All and all, everyone seemed pleased with their presents and there's been some great building and pretending this week.