MOBiA & Karate

The Museum of Biblical Art (MOBiA) was where we went with the homeschool group this week.  It's another one of those places I'd never been to or even heard of.  It was really cool.  We looked at a bunch of very old family bibles (from the 18th century) and talked about what families kept in there - such as pressed leaves, locks of hair, important dates, etc.  We saw some fancy covered bibles that salesman went door-to-door with and how families could purchase a nice bible 1 book at a time.  Afterwards, we all made our own books with beautiful fancy covers.  The pages were accordion-style from construction paper and the covers were heavy frame-backing cardstock that we glued foam shapes onto.  Then we covered the whole thing with shiny gold or silver foil paper that molded to the foam shapes underneath.  It did look like a fancy bible cover.

Halloween was fun, as usual.  J had several parties at the dance studio on the weekend and her high school always does Halloween pretty big.  They even open up the dressing and locker rooms 15 minutes before and after school so the kids can get into their costumes when they arrive and out of them when they leave.  After school is a grand Halloween parade/contest in the school's smaller theater.  Always a packed house for that.  W went up to the main avenue with a friend.  At 10 years old I think they've figured out that the stores are easier to hit and they give out cool stuff.

Academics this week included more long division practice in the Flash Kids workbook.  I'm confident W's got that down now.   I might have him do 1 long division problem a day just to keep him on his toes.  All in all we just stuck with math, spelling, and reading this week.  Halloween, B's birthday, my sister's birthday, my niece's Christening this weekend, and the official start of the holiday season has kept all of us a bit distracted this week.  We'll get back on the AO track next week.


Oh, and W finally started taking karate classes (that I've only been promising him for about 2 years).  We found this amazing place with great prices and great teachers.  He took an introductory class on Thursday and absolutely fell in love with it.  I think he was a natural - very strong and sharp and he gave the sensei his full attention.  His 1st official class on Saturday was about an hour and a half long.  W learned punches, blocks, and played a game with round kicks (out of 25 kids, he came in fifth place - not bad for his first class!  Saturday was a combined class.  His usual class will have only about 15 kids in it).  The sensei was impressed.  W will be going 3x a week (we pay for unlimited, though, so we'll go more days when we can).  I am really loving his enthusiasm about it.  I hope it's everything he wants it to be.

And here's 2 pictures of my beautiful 4-month-old niece.  Her Christening was this weekend.

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