Every day since last Friday (Feb. 19), Big Brother has finished up his "regular" school work by about noon and has spent the rest of the afternoon with other activities.
Last Friday was a super busy day! We worked together all morning on school work and laundry. Then my mother came by to sit with Little Brother for the afternoon while Big Brother and I went out together.
Our first stop was the horse barn where Big Brother takes his riding lessons. He is so comfortable in the saddle, and his teacher is really proud of his riding skills. I was happy to watch him ride and snap some good pictures. After his ride he brushed the horse, and then he insisted on getting in the pen for awhile with his teacher's pig! He loves animals so much. I am glad he is able to interact with animals regularly this way even though we are unable to have our own at this time.
Since he also had a 4-H homeschool club meeting that afternoon, we decided to make a mother-son date of it and go out for lunch together. So we had a nice little lunch at McDonald's. :)
At this 4-H meeting, the homeschool club was filling drawstring backpacks with necessities and toys for children entering foster care. Big Brother and I had gone shopping earlier in the week, and he had picked out some simple board books, preschool puzzles, Play-Doh, some balls, a soft blanket, socks, and markers. My mom had also donated several items like toothbrushes and nightlights. Big Brother helped sort these and all the other donated items out on tables and helped with deciding which items should go in each backpack. He was able to personally fill a backpack for a 7-8 year old boy.
During the meeting, the county 4-H agent announced the county 4-H Demonstration Contest coming up next week. She encouraged Big Brother to participate even though he is a Cloverbud and would not be able to advance past the county level. So much of this week has been spent helping him prepare his demonstration. More about that in a bit...
After the business of the 4-H meeting was finished and the backpacks were all filled, the club members finished out their meeting time with some fun games. Big Brother loved learning to play a silly game called "Statues." Most of the members of this club are a bit older than Big Brother, but I was VERY impressed with how the teenagers in the club really went out of their way to befriend Big Brother and make sure he had fun, too.
Following the club meeting, we picked up Little Brother and Daddy at home, went out to the library, out to supper, and made a quick grocery run before finally coming home where I literally crashed on the couch! Phew!!
Over the weekend we had several fun things going on. The weather was nice, and we took the boys out to play in the backyard. Our neighbor on the little farm behind us introduced the boys to some cows. Little Brother especially enjoyed that as he loves all things cow
right now.
Sunday after church we were invited over to some friends' house for lunch, and the boys had fun playing with friends close their ages. Big Brother especially had fun playing LEGOs with several other boys.
Sunday night, much to Little Brother's delight, we attended a Gospel singing nearby featuring one of our favorite local Southern Gospel quartets. Little Brother has a huge love for music and singing, and he was totally engrossed for the entire 2 hour service...totally unusual for a 22 month old!
Tuesday night, Big Brother attended his first 4-H Cloverbuds meeting. Cloverbuds is a special club for 5-8 year old 4-H members. The club leader is a sweet older lady who has a grandson in the club. They ate a snack, opened the meeting with pledges (both U.S. and 4-H), played a game to learn about recycling, and used fabric crayons to make their own 4-H t-shirts. Big Brother had a blast!
Our county 4-H has created a butterfly garden in the county seat, and now all the 4-H clubs are collecting plastic lids to be recycled into a nice park bench for the garden. 400 lbs of plastic is needed to complete this project! The clubs are having a little contest among themselves to see who can collect the most plastic. This week, Big Brother and I set up a little "recycling corner" in our kitchen to remind us to drop in our usable plastic lids. Such a simple and educational community project!
Every afternoon this week has been spent preparing Big Brother's 4-H demonstration! He has chosen to demonstrate how to do speed cup stacking. This is an activity he enjoys with our homeschool co-op, and he will be showing exactly how to stack the cups in 3 different official patterns. He has to have posters as visual aids for his demonstration, and he has enjoyed getting to use the computer to make them.
He is pretty nervous because he has obviously never done a demonstration before. But the skills he is practicing like organizing his thoughts, creating visual aids, and speaking in front of an audience will serve him well as he grows up.
Since he is just a Cloverbud, the contest itself is not the focus. This is really to help him to learn how to give a demonstration and to prepare him for more serious 4-H competitions when he is a bit older. We are looking forward to giving him a special reward next week for his bravery and for doing his best on this project! He has really put a lot of work into it for being so young.
Another neat thing I want to quickly share is about Big Brother's new pen-pal! As part of Love for the Elderly's Senior Buddy Program, he has been connected with an elderly lady who lives in an assisted living facility in another state. They are writing letters regularly back and forth, and it has been so nice. I encourage you to check out Love for the Elderly!
So, yes we have had a really busy week around here! Right now we are looking forward to a 3-day weekend as my husband has Monday off from work. We are planning a little family fun day for Monday! I love how homeschooling offers us so many wonderful opportunities and so much freedom to pursue activities that we love!
I hope you have enjoyed this little window into our lives this week!
Linking Up: Weekly Wrap Up
That does sound like a busy week! Good luck with the presentation!
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