A Week of Service...

This wasn't a week of math, science, and writing/reading. Instead, it ended up being a week of work and service, which I think was an ideal thing to happen the week before we give thanks for everything we are lucky enough to have.

On Tuesday, the kids helped my mom at the food bank, setting up Thanksgiving food bags for those who need them. The Boy said it was a lot of hard work, but both kids assured me it was worthwhile. They helped cart around flats of cans, boxes of dried goods, bags of fresh produce, and so on, getting everything set up so that the volunteers could all fill bags easily for Sunday's donation slot.

And yesterday, they assisted my sister's class with ice skating. You see, my sister is a teacher for a small class of severely disabled kids (medically fragile), and as part of her approach to teaching, she loves to take them out to enjoy various activities, one of them being ice skating. We are fortunate that the local ice skating rink is willing to set aside some special time for them to enjoy this activity. This time, my kids went, and helped push some of the students around on the ice, getting a free skating session in return...

As you see, many of the students are in wheelchairs, so classroom assistants (and my kids) pushed them around the rink! The students love it. The Boy and The Girl loved it too. They said they genuinely liked hanging out with all these (older) kids, and they'd love to help my sister again. Plus, a student's mom bought everyone lunch from In-n-Out Burger, and my kids almost never get fast food, so that was a bit of a treat for them!

And this morning, my kids are back at the food bank, finishing sorting/moving produce for the Thanksgiving bags. Then, this afternoon, The Girl has her orientation for puppy petting!

While we may have gotten very little book work done this week, I think what my kids have accomplished is just as good and important. And we did get a little schooling done -- we read Andrew Lang's version of the story of Sigurd and Brynhild, as well as East O' the Sun, West O' the Moon for our cultural/geography studies. We read about the Renaissance period and Revolutionary times in Poop Happened, and got through another good chunk of The Marvellous Land of the Snergs. The Boy [re]watched the first episode of Cosmos, and The Girl watched another episode of Life in the Undergrowth. We did math one day (yes, one).

And this weekend, The Girl will help me make Swedish meatballs, a cucumber salad, and an almond cake, to enjoy while we watch The Golden Compass (okay, I know it is not truly a "Scandinavian" film, but it has many aspects of Scandinavian fairy tales and folk lore). The Girl at least, if not all of us, will watch Families of Sweden too. And the kids are ready to settle down to a few days of book work in the upcoming week!