Relaxing at Mom's house

 Zalmi was chilling at Gramma's house watching Paw Patrol.

 Here's my view of the kids playing their devices "together".

 Ok. So not together, but in the same room.

 Zalmi had a blast roaming around in the wide open spaces.

 The children had fun doing a new cast at the Children's Museum.

 Zalmi loved crawling for a few minutes in the toddler room, but he thinks he's 12 years old, so the fun wore off quickly.

 Tzipi made a great meteorologist!

 Here they are running a business.

 Zalmi is getting busy with all the hands-on fun.

 Climbers gotta climb!

 Grab nose0 (glad he wasn't real).

 Zee at the Planetarium with Jar Jar Binks and sister trolling the pic. We watched a show on the Google Lunar X Prize. It's a great concept. We're looking into their Ocean X Prize project. Click Here to Learn more!

Here's Gramma and her three beebs. Miss her already!

Busy bees

We had a good solid month of learning and then came the trip to Dallas. Learning doesn't stop, but the structured learning becomes more fluid and less tangible. We did the April Dallas trip in two days. Then we came back and it was Passover. We have some fun local events to look forward to:

April 26th and 27th is the Lubbock Gem and Mineral Show
April 29th is Game day at the Groves Branch Library
May 3rd is Dino Day at Museum of Texas Tech

Zee is working on his Mitzvah Project for his Bar Mitzvah in January. I'm so proud of him and can hardly wait until he gets up to give his speech. My future Toastmaster is extremely talented when it comes to public speaking. He's also been given the opportunity to get back into drama when he enters 7th grade. I know he'll be great at that. We found this great math assessment program with Khan Academy and he diligently works on it to fill gaps in his education every day (caught him doing it on Sunday too). :-) He's fascinated with physics and his creative writing has been full of brilliant new ideas. He's been learning computer coding and still loves doing stop motion with his Legos.

Tzipi is doing a great job with her reading. Her teacher has been so diligent with her and Tzipi has remembered everything she has been taught. I catch her reading to Zalmi and she's eager to help make lists for me. I can't give her enough math work. If she had her way she would do nothing but math. I fear one day she'll be better at math than I am and I'll have to find a new teacher for her. But G-d has provided her a teacher due to the dyslexia/dysgraphia so I know He's got math covered too.

 She loves watching old black and white movies with her Daddy. Avi calls them historical documents (shout out to Galaxy Quest) and they truly do give you a glimpse into places and people that we would not know about otherwise. The other day he was watching a movie from the 30's and a woman was eating potato chips from a brown paper bag. I was amazed that they ate potato chips back then. I figured that was a 50's invention. She said she couldn't eat popcorn but she loved chips.

Zalmi is showing good signs of wanting to potty train. I just need to get some cloth training pants and a potty seat ring to fit on our toilet and we'll be ready to start the learning. YAY! He comes to me when he's dirty and tells me when he's too wet for comfort. Zee was about his age when he showed interest and was trained before he was 2. Then Zee trained Tzipi.

 He clearly understands when you ask him a question and will answer with a yes or no. He loves cars. I mean LOVES them. He races with his dad and makes his cars kiss each other. It is the cutest thing ever. He definitely gets frustrated when you don't understand what he needs and pitches typical toddler fits. But they never last very long and he's a pretty happy boy for the most part.

We go to PE at Tech twice a week and its been a great adventure. The kids have made great new friends and are learning new things all the time. It hasn't been so great for Zalmi because he thinks its cool to hit people because during free play all the kids take the opportunity to whack each other with pool noodles. I wear myself out chasing Zalmi but it's so important for the kids to have this opportunity.

Well it's almost time to get dinner started for Shabbat. I'm looking forward to a peace-filled weekend.

Here are the highlights from what I haven't blogged about...

Homeschooling Update

We are dealing with some kind of virus. It doesn't seem to be too bad. Just a common cold. But school must go on. I'm dreaming of the days when I could just stay asleep in bed and dream the day away. My children are playing Star Wars, the dog is barking at them and the baby is crawling around being the "rancor". We did some math, we read Proverbs for the day lead by discussion and I read a book with my froggy voice. We'll see if we get anything else done.

Our Weather Unit

 We studied weather in Science and have been taking photos to journal our progress. It's been a very fun unit!

 Zee is using a bike to display wind speeds.

 Here's a cirrus cloud.

 Here's Tzipi playing with electricity and getting to play with fire!

 The National Weather Service exhibit at the Science Spectrum is spread throughout the museum. If you don't pay attention, you'll miss it.

 Cumulus clouds.

 The Science Spectrum.

 Zee had a blast giving the seven day forecast at the children's museum. (Yay for little brothers)

He would make a great meteorologist. I wish that I'd thought to record this with video. He's very funny.

2nd Day

 Here's our second day of school at the nicer library, Godeke. It used to be a Barnes and Nobles.

 Here are various plans from architects showing plans for a new library branch on 75th and Slide! (You heard it here folks!)

 I can't figure out why this photo is sideways. I didn't take it sideways. It's Zee working on his cloud work. We are learning the latin words that label the cloud formations.

I know it's hard to see, but Tzipi is here with her tutor Mrs. Siron working on her reading. Woohoo!

Today was awesome!

First Day of School

 We didn't get to start school on the 26th of August like the other kids in Lubbock as we had to go to Dallas for a follow up (post op) appointment.

 So we started on September 3rd. Pinecone decided to say hi before we left. (like always)

 The kids were fascinated by a moth that held on for our trip to the library. He was a very furry fellow!

 Zee was situated at his own table doing ratios in math, learning about the medieval times and learning about weather forecasting.

 Here I am helping him with his English assignment (that made absolutely no sense). Common Core is for commoners.

 Tzipi was doing math at her table showing her rad math skills, Before, Between, and After.

 Then came lunch and PE: Swimming. Ah yeah!

Nice pool on a warm day.