Happy New Year! From the Sauve Family

Another Year is Dawning

Another year is dawning: Dear Father, let it be,
In working or in waiting, Another year with Thee;
Another year of progress, Another year of Praise,
Another year of proving, Thy presence all the days.

Another year of mercies, Of faithfulness and grace;
Another year of gladness In the shining of Thy face;
Another year of leaning Upon Thy loving breast;
Another year of trusting, Of quiet, happy rest.

Another year of service, Of witness for Thy love;
Another year of training For holier work above.
Another year is dawning: Dear Father, let it be,
On earth or else in heaven, Another year for Thee.

By: Frances Ridley Havergal and Samuel S. Wesley

Year-end Educational Grande Finale!

Years ago we decided that since we homeschool we have the liberty to start and end our school year when we want. Since our calendar year ends in December, why not our school year. It works well for record keeping and for ordering new books; we now can write year 2005 instead of 2004-2005 and no back-orders. This week we decided to end up our year in a little different way; we would use fun games to review a different subject each day. Adding to the fun, the whole family joins in, even the three that have "graduated."

We will be posting each day to share the fun we had on that day's subject.

(Please ignore the date at the top of this post. We just did that so it would remain at the top through out this week's postings. Thanks! :-)

Definictionary Revealed!

We have posted the answers to the word defining game! Thanks to all who participated and shared their thoughtful answers!

Friday: History/Geography

Today we played Global Pursuit, a game where you have to really know your facts about geography and history! Lets just say that we didn't really know them all! Anyways we had fun, and even though we weren't able to finish the whole game I think we learned a little more about our world than we knew before.

Winter Workout

During these colder winter months, we have resorted to indoor activities to keep us fit, and to get our blood moving. Jump roping, mini trampoline, and stair- climbing, as well as the use of a treadmill, and stationary bike, ( left to us by our Grandfather) occupies a ten minute space of time between studies (or academic games) three mornings a week. We usually have one person at each "station" rotating every 2 min with Mom at command with a stopwatch.

How high and how fast can YOU jump-rope? 

How much longer do we have to do this? (Mister dramatic himself!) 

Nutritional Knowledge ... and Silly Scribbles!

Sorry this is late, the Nutritional fieldtrip took longer than expected, and time got away from us in the afternoon. Hmm, maybe it was all that cheese...(see below;)

Thursday was scheduled to be our Writing Workshop Day, but the writing aspect was pushed to the background for most of the day as we all took an eagerly awaited fieldtrip. Where, you ask? Why, to our favorite all-around health food store within a reasonable distance - Whole Foods in Ann Arbor! Nutrition has always been an important factor to our family, with Whole Wheat flour and honey as the main sweetener being a household rule from day one. At Whole Foods you can find just about anything that is, or has been classified in the "alternative health" category from organic veggies and meats to 'healthy' chocolates and ice cream! For the un-initiated (and even for some of us old time "health freaks" ;) it can be rather overwhelming at first! But we slowly wound our way through the aisles of healthy products, making a special stop at everyone's favorite corner - the Bulk Section!;) One other highlight of Whole Foods is their generous sample stops, especially the exotic cheeses! From Australian Cheddar to Cave-Aged Colby, we tried them all, including an especially flavorful specimen labeled "Drunken Goat Cheese"! Finally, our taste-buds, and our pocketbooks, were maxed out, and we took our purchases home to slowly savor until our next trip to Whole Foods.

We attempted to get back into the writing spirit later that afternoon, by starting one of those "Popcorn Stories"(for lack of a better name), where one person starts the story and then others add a paragraph at a time until it is completed. We have done these before and they have turned out quite hilariously as you can imagine! For some reason however, this time the plot was very slow in starting, and after several attempts to revive it, we abandoned the story. Perhaps we will try again some day and if it turns out, we will be sure to let you see the results!:)

Wednesday: Spectacular Spelling

"Joshua, spell 'Invariably.'" "Invariably, I-n-v-a-r-i-a-b-l-y, Invariably." "Correct!"
Ah yes, a Spelling Bee. Enjoyed by many, hated by many also. Our family tends to enjoy them, especially when Mom makes the rule that you get to make three mistakes before you are out. :-)
A grand scale Spelling Bee was scheduled for the first activity on our Spelling day. Mom had spent the past few evenings going through our copies of McGuffy readers, copying down spelling words for each of us children. (Us older ones sure got some toughies!)

Below are a couple pictures, as well as write-ups on the rest of the day's activities, including an exciting fast paced game of "Team Spelling Bee Relay." Enjoy!

Mom gives us all the rules before we start . . . .  

. . . and here we all are waiting for our turns! (I think Joshua is having to much fun:-) 

You sure have to be quick on your feet to play this next spelling game! First Mom divided the family into two teams, (Dad, FaithAnn, Josh, and Josiah vs. Charity, Grace, John and Christianna) and lined the two teams up at either end of the Living room/Library. In the middle of the rooms, were two dry erase boards. The point of the game was to finish spelling the word given before the other team did(and to spell it accurately). Each team member could only put on one letter at a time, and if someone before you put the wrong letter on, you could correct it, but that was the end of your turn, you had to hand the marker to the next person in line. Mom was the officiator, and gave us the words to spell.

You should try it some time, it sure is an aweful lot of fun! :-)

Whew! Look at those speedy spellers go! John and Josiah in mid-pen-stroke.

Definictionary!

Have you ever played Definictionary? It sure is a lot of fun! :-) Mom came up with this tricky sounding game to help us stretch our "defining" skills. Here's how it goes . . . .

Each person gets a Dictionary and a piece of paper and a pencil. (If you don't have enough Dictionaries, just take turns.) Now you are to look through the Dictionary, (quickly) and find a strange sounding word that you don't know the meaning of (and that you think no one else knows either). Write down that word, (and its pronunciation if you need it) and four definitions for it. One of the definitions is the correct one, and the other three you make up. Try to make them really interesting. :-) Once you have finished, read the word and spell it for everyone, then proceed to give out the definitions. Everyone has to write down which definition they think is the correct one (A, B, C, or D). After everyone has decided, you reveal the true definition!

Below are all the words we came up with. See if you can guess the correct definitions. Post your choices in "comments" and on Saturday, we'll reveal the answers. You're not allowed to use your Dictionaries!! :-)

Poniard

A. A pond that is in a yard

B. A wetland that covers about a yard or more

C. A slender dagger

D. A fruit that grows on the Islands of Hawaii

Pollenger

A. A collector of pollen

B. A type of cloth

C. Brush wood

D Someone who studies trees

Recusancy

A. Scarceness

B. Hitting the mark

C. Nonconformity

D. Disorder

Crystalitis

A. Inflammation of the eye

B. Infection caused by a cut made by crystal

C. Disease of the Spleen

D. A Fungus that grows on crystals

Pyorrhea

A. An outlying part, suburb of an object

B. Infection of the gums and tooth sockets

C. A round white fungus

D. A physical disorder caused by emotional disturbance

Scintillate -

A. To Work together at a distance

B. Small watercraft used in Ethiopia

C. To flash or sparkle brilliantly

D. To write something with a sharp pencil like object

Tuesday: Living Literature

This morning, right after our family devotions, we all sat around the living room couch, and enjoyed a story hour. Each of us Children, including the "Graduated Girls," had chosen a favorite short story from one of the many Literature books we own, and we all took a turn reading them out loud. Selections ranged from, simple stories about performing birds, to a chapter from "Pride and Prejudice." Faith Ann's choice was a touching story about how Beethoven came to write his famous Moonlight Sonata, and Grace got us all laughing with the humorous story of "The Night the Bed Fell."

Mom is very thankful that we all have such a love for reading. But of course the 'Best of Books' should always be at the top of our list. God chose to use words to give us His law, they are a powerful form of communication. Unfortunately many writers choose to use them in an ungodly way. So we must always be careful of what we are reading.

Josiah entertained us all with a story from the McGuffey reader.  

Christianna reading her story, "Yes, Your Honesty." 

Next we played the game of "Authors." It is a card game that plays kind of like 'Go Fish.' There are 13 different Authors. Each of the four cards for a certain author, had a different book or poem on it. You have to collect all four "books" to have that author on your "bookshelf". If a person doesn't have the "book" you asked for, you have to go to the "Library", and pick a "book".
(Sorry if that is kind of confusing, maybe the following pictures will help a little)
The Authors ranged from classic poets like Henry W. Longfellow and Alfred,Lord Tennyson, to fictional writers like Washington Irving and Robert Louis Stevenson. Josiah cleared out the "Library" with a whopping 4 sets to his "bookshelf!"

Here we are playing "Authors." Josiah already has two sets on his "bookshelf!" 

Here is a peek at Grace's cards. Shhh, don't tell! :-) 

Monday: Mathematical Madness!

Quick! What is 5+2x7-4÷9+4= ? O.K. How about 7x8+4÷10x7-2÷8= ? Got it?
That might have seemed relatively easy, but try it with someone rattling them off to you out loud, and see if you can keep up. That was just one of the fun, yet educational things we did today, the Mathematics Day in our Educational week. It started off with a rousing game of "Quinto". (For anyone who is not familiar with the game, it is somewhat like "Scrabble", except that instead of letters, you have numbers, and instead of making words, you are making sums.) We teamed up in pairs, John & Christianna, Charity & Josiah, Grace & Joshua, and Dad and Faith Ann. (Mom was busy preparing for the next game.) All the sums created had to be a multiple of 8. The largest sum was made by the team of Grace & Joshua, and was a whopping 104! (yes, it is a multiple of 8, you do the math:-) They ended up being the game winners, but everyone had a lot of fun, and we are now all great at multiples of 8!

Next, we played a quick game of Dice Math. Mom taped numbers to the sides of Faith's juggling squares to create extra large Dice. Then as we sat in a circle, she tossed them onto the floor, calling out either, "Addition, Subtraction, or Multiplication" Whoever said the answer first, took a turn tossing the dice. A quick simple game to enhance our speedy mathematic skills.

Finally, we played the quick thinking game first mentioned, with each of us taking a turn to make a list of numbers and read them off to each other. John came up with quite a doozy! Here it is for your enjoyment. :-) 2+7x3+3x3÷2+20-17+2x2÷4÷5x7-2= ?

Below are some pictures of us playing Quinto.

Quinto! We don't play with Roman Numerals though. But I think that would be fun! 

Here we all are around the game board. John obviously is thinking very hard. :-) 

The Board. This is pretty near the end of the game.  

When 90 miles separate the family...

For a while now Joshua and his friend Shawn have been wanting to get together and go hunting since Josh has never had the opportunity to before. Therefore this past weekend was decided upon for the adventure and soon after noon on Friday, Dad, Josh, Charity and Christianna embarked on the 2 hour drive up to Eddy Acres (the latter two were going to spend time with Mrs. Eddy and Theresa) just outside of Lapeer. Their time up there turned out to be spent doing many different things other than just hunting, such as baking(and of course eating), paper snow flake making, sledding and hopefully somewhere in there, sleeping! The ones remaining in Riverview, managed to conduct their time (hopefully wisely) by going sledding on the nearby sledding hill,(appropriately dubbed 'Mount Trashmore' due to the fact that 'the other side of the mountain' is used as a dump), visiting with friends, watching a movie, and then on Saturday before the 'other half' returned, going to Kinghaven Manor Senior home for a time of singing and ministry.
Oh yes, we were also able to fit in the making of our traditional family snow slide off our back deck!! You will have to see it to really understand all that is put into this annual project and experience out for yourself just how steep and fast it is, and also *CRINGE* just how short our backyard really is!!!!

Just for your enjoyment I have posted the following picture from both sides, so you can get a glimpse of what takes place when the Sauve family is separated by 90 miles! Enjoy!!
Also check out the Eddy's Blog for more high lights from the adventure up in Lapeer! www.eddyacres.blogspot.com

Friday morning we all woke up to around 6 inches of snow covering the downriver and northern areas of Michigan. Praise the Lord He was watching over us, as late Saturday afternoon our family was once again back together!

Working on the slide. Due to the fact that our new snow tube was larger than our old one, we had to make this years slide a little wider. 

What a fun ride!!  

The masked man. 

Airborn!!  

 

The Hunters!!! Shawn and Josh waited and waited and... well... waited! They never were able to get anything but I'm sure they will tell you that they still had a lot of fun! 

The view from the top! Dispite the haze on the horizon, you could still just barely see the outlines of downtown Detroit and possibly Canada! 

Well, I guess there can be a couple different ways to go down, though what a time trying to get out!!! 

What a hill!!! It really should be considered a mountain! Here Faith, our friend Joshua Mills, Josiah and Jacob try to return up the slope as Grace takes pictures from the top. 

Chilly winds and slick slopes resulted in not too many successful runs for John on his snowboard. Hopefully there will be more opportunities throughtout this season to conquer that hill!