School Days

I really regret not documenting more of last year's school work, because it's so much fun to go back and see what we were doing at any given time. So, although this may only be interesting to Darren, myself, and my mother, I'm going to be making more of an effort to record our favorite parts of our school days! Yesterday we continued with Ants and the letter A. We sculpted A's and ants out of Play Doh (for about two minutes, until it was decided that minotaurs were much more interesting and fun to create!)

We all love our Magic School Bus books, so to supplement our reading, I typed up a little matching worksheet for Dylan to see how much he remembered from The Magic School Bus Gets Ants in its Pants. He was so excited; it's exactly the sort of thing he's always doing for Caitlyn! (Of course, now he wants to create an entire series of worksheets...which might not be a bad thing...)

To honor the memorial of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta today, I selected a few lovely quotes from Mother Teresa: In My Own Words and wrote them, with white crayon, on white construction paper. Then we painted over them with water colors, revealing Mother Teresa's messages of love. They turned out quite lovely, but didn't photograph too well. We really enjoyed it, and I have to credit Dylan for the clever idea. A few days ago, he created a similar "Magic Paint" book for Caitlyn using this technique. I would never have thought of it on my own!

"We have been created to love and be loved."


"Love is the product of every season."


"Good works are links that form a chain of love."


"Love and faith go hand in hand."

I had really been looking forward to sharing this beautiful coloring page with my children; unfortunately for them, their technologically challenged mommy could not get the printer to cooperate and thus, those lovely pages were cut off time and again until finally I resorted to creating my own with an image found through Google. (I embellished with text, but still wished for the lovely work of Charlotte. Sniff! Maybe next time.) Dylan was looking at the cover photo of The Joy in Loving as his coloring guide, and after reading a few pages, has decided he'd like to read the entire book. :)

Last night, I'd just also like to note, was the first time in months that I actually had dinner started when Darren got home. Two loads of laundry had been done, too, and the dishwasher had been run. I was wearing a skirt and make-up! It's amazing how the start of a new school year has so motivated me to stay on a regular schedule. Let's see how long it lasts. ;)