Life on the narrow path ...: Week Five Wrap Up

My blessed life

Whew. What a fun and eventful week we've had! I have to say ~ this week was what home schooling is all about! We managed to fit in a good amount of solid academic stuff, *and* a full day at the zoo with Daddy, *and* a full (and possibly life-changing) day with our home school group, *and* a free day to explore some new-found passions. Let me break that down for you.

Saturday was a pretty typical Saturday around here. The girls did their chores and played and learned. They listened to (and sang) Geography Songs. Both girls read and the Hippie finished reading The Moffats. Both girls made cards. They listened to American History stories. Aside ~ they *love* the Your Story Hour CDs. We have five of the "Heritage of Our Country" ones, but the company makes MANY others. If anyone in the family ever wonders about a good gift, we would *love* to have the "The Bible Comes Alive" series! Okay, back to it. Saturday was finished off with our regular Family Game Night ... Uno this week.

Like Saturday, Sunday was pretty typical. The girls went surfing with Daddy. The Hippie cooked breakfast. The Princess finger-knitted a wrap for Daddy's hair. We all watched football and grilled out and finished the day with some front yard baseball.

We worked hard on Monday and Tuesday with our "lessons":

Family:

Gratitude Journals
Listened to Brahms station on Pandora
Read aloud The Story of Vincent Van Gogh and then looked at 8 of his paintings and played a little game where they guessed the painting by the title I read.
Read aloud the story of Adam and Eve from the JPS Illustrated Children's Bible.
Took two morning walks and practiced mental math on one of them. I created a "number journey" as we walked for them to practice all four basic operations. We also practiced skip counting on that walk.
Read aloud 3 poems and a fable from book two of the original (1920s) My Book House.The fable led us to looking up birds in our field guide.
Read aloud 5 fables from The Aesop for Children ~ each girl narrated a couple of them.

The Hippie:

Finished reading The Moffats and started reading The Saturdays
The Hippie and I read a bit of Ginger Pye together. She copied a paragraph from the book and we talked about changing "y" to "i" and adding "es". We talked about *not* doing that when it is a proper noun. We talked about the apostrophe and showing possession and doing so with a word that already ends in "s".
Finished copying Psalm 1 in cursive
She and I did a picture study lesson together from her Language Lessons book.
After orally narrating a couple of Aesop's Fables to me, she chose one to work with and I chose a paragraph to study for dictation. We talked about quotations and placing other punctuation (commas, periods) before the quotation marks. We talked about indenting to show the beginning of a paragraph. After studying the paragraph, she wrote it from dictation.
She spent about an hour on Khan Academy this week.
We reviewed addition and subtraction orally as well as skip counting.
We completed two chapters in Life of Fred math this week as well.
She listened to the entire CD of Shakespeare's Storybook by Barefoot Books.

The Princess:

She stopped reading The Magic Knot and instead decided to start Charlotte's Web. This will be the biggest book she's read and she is loving it! She is on chapter 4.
She and I had a little cursive lesson. We worked on lower case "e" and "l" until she felt confident with it (on the wipe off board) and then she did a page of them in her cursive workbook.
Wrote her last thank you card (finally) and helped to stamp and address them all and mail them.
She read to me the story of The Elves and the Shoemaker and narrated it. She also read to me from Cinderella for about 10 minutes and narrated what she had read.
The Princess and I had a little lesson on north, south, east and west.
She completed two days' worth of copywork from her Classical Writing book and also wrote out all of the days of the week.
The Princess orally narrated a couple of Aesop's fables to me and drew a picture to represent the story of The Frogs and the Ox.
We completed two chapters of Life of Fred math this week.
She listened to the entire CD of King Arthur and His Knights by Jim Weiss.

Back to the week ...

After two solid "school" days, we finished the week off with lots of LIFE learning. Daddy was off on Wednesday, so we decided to pack a lunch and head out to the zoo. We had a great time (as always) and then met up with our best friend / the girls' "Uncle" at a local restaurant and enjoyed a nice session of Mad Libs. We always end up doing Mad Libs at restaurants. :) Excellent grammar practice!

Thursday may have been a life-changer. It seemed simple enough ~ a one hour session at a gymnastics place. Why not? The girls had never done it before. Even though it was way on the other side of town and it was a little bit costly for only one hour, I went ahead and decided to take them. Wow. I've never seen such excitement and dedication! They both *loved* it. I mean LOVED it! They immediately proclaimed that they *really* wanted to start gymnastics ... like, NOW! We've never done lessons. We do HOME ... and our home school group. That's it. But, this is for REAL. It truly is *ALL* that the Princess has talked about since we left. After the gymnastics session (and a lovely afternoon at the park with our friends), we headed to the library. What section did they go to? You guessed it ~ gymnastics. They each checked out books on gymnastics. And, yesterday, after her chores, the Princess put on a leotard and spent her free time with her new gymnastics books and a yoga mat, doing whatever this little book told her to do ~ stretches, various moves, the works. She's *FORE REAL*. She fully expects to be going next week!

Anyhoo, that was Thursday. We were out *all*day*long! Gymnastics, park, grocery, library, another grocery store. Needless to say, we were pooped. So, yesterday was a bit of a free day. The Princess spent the day learning about gymnastics. The Hippie read lots of books about India (myths, fairy tales, fables) and Brahms. The Princess finger-knitted a friendship bracelet for her new "best friend" (the little girl who takes gymnastics and is amazing!). The Princess then amazed me by reading directions and figuring out on her own how to make bracelets from a kit she got for her birthday. She proceeded to make 3 bracelets ~ one for her new best friend, one for her sister and one for herself. She listened to Brahm's Symphony No. 1 and she learned to use chop sticks. An eventful day for a little girl! :-) We ended the day outside doing ... gymnastics.

I think that about covers it. Today ... free. I hear musical instruments going. I believe a bracelet has already been made. Some reading has gone down. And, they're currently in the craft room. We'll see where the day leads. The only thing I know is that it is headed for Family Game Night and we have plans to go to Uncle Scott's tomorrow for football and manicotti. Next week? Should be three days of academic lessons, one day attending our local Symphony Orchestra and one day touring a farm. Should be fun. What do you have planned?

I'll leave you with some pictures from the week.

Breakfast ... always reading

Daddy had to work late, so I surprised them with a restaurant just for THEM!

Signing the bill

Making dragons with Fiddle Stix

Rocky

Knitting and football ... our relaxing Sundays

I was actually taking a picture of the Jaguars "Glug" (the creature on the left), but it just so happens I also got a picture of the only time this season that the Jaguars have been winning ... didn't last long.

Making a wrap for Daddy

Ready for the day ...

Van Gogh

Reading aloud to Momma

Her "desk" ... on Momma's bed

School ... outside

Gratitude

Learning cursive

Gratitude

Poor dog :)

Century plant

Notice the dressed up monkeys on her back ... I *love* how my girls still play with stuff like that and take "somebody" with them wherever we go ... complete with clothes and jackets and everything.