Week in Review

Finally tried using my mom's i-phone, but still trying to figure out how to edit without my old computer settings. Bear with me. :)

So, how is your summer going? Are you doing "summer school" or just plain relaxing? We've had a great week as far as school is concerned, but we've had some tough stuff going on around here the past couple of days (sick, almost dying kitty). Let me share with you some of the stuff we did before things got tough around here.

GOD:

Since I think everything flows best when we put God first, let me share with you how we put God first this week. We started a new habit of having me do any God-related reading while the girls ate breakfast, instead of as a "school subject" later in the day. This week we read the next two chapters in The Child's Story Bible. We read about how God parted the seas to let the Israelites through and then crashed them down onto the Egyptians. We also read about how the Israelites began to doubt Moses again and complain about water and food. In response, God provided them with a beautiful Oasis of palm trees and water. He also provided them with "manna from heaven" ~ He provided them with bread that tasted like little honey cakes, and He provided it every day but the Sabbath.  As part of her school subjects, the Hippie drew pictures for both stories (the parting of the seas and the manna from heaven). She also copied a verse from the first story.

We also read the next chapter in our Wisdom and the Millers book. This one was about telling the truth and about how telling a lie makes everything worse. This is a lesson the girls have been hearing since they were old enough to understand English. They've always known that if they tell the truth about something they've done, they will get in less trouble, but if they tell a lie (about anything really), that that is the worst thing they could possibly do and that they will get in much more trouble for lying than they would have had they just told the truth. This chapter illustrated the same lessons we've been instilling in them for years.

Per the Princess's request, we continued in our DePaola's Book of Bible Stories this week with the story of Cain and Abel. Of course, the girls already knew this story, but the Princess likes having these short stories to call her own and to narrate from.

READING ALOUD:

I read the story of The Laziest Man to the girls this week and The Princess narrated it beautifully. She also drew a picture from it and copied a verse from it.

In addition to our fairy tale, I read one chapter of Trumpet of the Swan to the girls and the story "Romeo and Juliet" from Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit. We also enjoyed a few audio/picture books this week. These were lovely stories! We heard The Little House and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, both by Virgina Lee Burton. We also listened to When Cats Go Wrong by Norm Hacking.

SKILLS SUBJECTS:

The Hippie completed three days of copywork, three lessons of cursive and three lessons in her language lessons book this week. She completed two lessons in math and read quite a bit in the book she is loving right now about the girl on the Titanic. She also read 9 chapters in A Lion to Guard Us (the fictional story of the family coming to Jamestown in the New World) and narrated each one to me.

The Princess completed three days of copywork, five lessons in her language book and did quite a bit of reading as well. She read aloud to me a couple of Mother Goose Rhymes, Three Little Kittens (a favorite) and Little Topknot. She also read silently to herself for at least 15 minutes each day, reading from various cat books she has as well as working her way through a "real" chapter book called Kitten Crowd. She's in chapter two. At her level, she can only do about a page or two at a time, so it will take some time, but she is determined. For her math this week, we played some games. She did a puzzle on the first day, we played a game called "Star Count" (deals with multiplication) on the second day and she played war with her sister on the third day.

FUN STUFF:

I remembered that the library has a lot of stuff that goes on in the summer and looked up the calendar for our closest branch. Sheesh ~ we could go every day if we felt so inclined. There really is something almost every day. Anyway, we attended a puppet show there on Wednesday. It' was called "Tessa's Tree" and was the story of a little tree with big dreams who learned to appreciate the best within herself thanks to the help of a little girl who loved her. We spent some time hanging out at the library, reading and exploring after the show.

We listened to classical music every day this week. I love that my girls have such a love for it that they now choose to put in a CD of Beethoven when they are cleaning!

We also had a fun pool day with our homeschool group. Just good old fashioned fun and fellowship ... in the sun and water.


And, the girls worked on something for Daddy for Father's Day. The Princess painted a picture and I believe the Hippie sewed a pillow. I'll leave you with a few pictures from the week. I'm really not liking the quality of the pictures or the editing, but I'll share them nonetheless. Hope you're having a wonderful summer.


Until next time,


~ Irie Momma