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

We've come to the end of another week. This week was a little quieter and yet, I still feel like it went by too fast. I was watching the Princess play dots with Daddy last night at our favorite little outdoor "restaurant" (you know, our carport ... where our sweet daughter serves us and we enjoy "Italian Restaurant" music and a red-checkered table cloth and wine and bread). I was struck by her "smallness". I mean, she is growing up. She is changing ... changing significantly every day, actually. She is not the same little girl today that she was six months ago. But, I was still struck by her tiny hands and her precious little features. I was struck by how adorable she still is.

In that moment, I began to feel the need once more to slow down. To savor. I'm afraid I've been so caught up in our school plans and implementation and our schedule and fitting it all in that I've forgotten just how quickly this is all going to go by. I've forgotten (for the millionth time) that, though my babies are ready for more work, they are still just by babies. They are still only barely-9 and 10 years old. They may be ready for more, but do they need more? Or, do we have the time to slow down and savor?

I believe we have the time. And, if that's the case, then I need to slow it down and make sure we don't miss this phase.

They still cuddle up with me as I read aloud to them.
They still cuddle up with me to do math together.
They still want me to sit side-by-side with them and work through their English lessons.

...

They still want and need me.

Soon enough they will be able to (and want to) take on their education on their own.
Soon enough they will be so ready for more that they will leave me in their dust.
Soon enough they will only need me for emotional and spiritual encouragement.

I must slow this train down and relish in their "littleness" for as long as I can.

Period.

Okay. Glad I got that off my chest. Thanks for listening. Now, on to what all we learned this week. It was a good one!

Morning Bible Time:
We have established a pretty good "breakfast & Bible" routine. We start by taking prayer requests from everyone and then bowing our heads and praying. Some of the things the girls have prayed for this week were the homeless, the family across the street (they recently lost a loved one), that Daddy has a good day at work, a lovely school day, that we have a good year all around, a good holiday season, help us to be good people, keep Daddy safe, that Daddy will get home in time to skate board with them, that we'd have a lovely HAP day and hungry people in Africa. Yesterday the Hippie took the requests and then said the prayer. I can't tell you how much I love this time with them.

After our prayer, we've been reading stories from our children's Bible. We've also started reading the Proverb of the Day ... basically, whatever the date is (15th, 16th, 17th, etc.), we look up that Proverb and read it (there are exactly 31 Proverbs, so it is perfect). I read it aloud and they follow along in their own Bibles. Then, I ask each of them to give me a gist of what they got out of it. It's really special to see their little minds soaking up the Word of God! In addition to prayer, Bible story and the Proverb of the Day, we usually work on our scripture memory (this week we learned Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:27), write in our Gratitude Journals and then sing our hymn. We are currently learning Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and we love it. I found a video on YouTube of Mumford and Sons singing it. Can you say beautiful? We sing it every morning. But, it is so catchy, I find all three of us singing it all throughout the day. There really is nothing better than that!

Music:
In addition to singing and learning our hymn, we are listening to A Feather on the Breath of God each day. It is beautiful Medieval music ... Gothic voices, hymns and chants. If we're not listening to that CD, we turn on Gregorian Chant on Pandora.

Memory:
In addition to our scripture memory, we are also working on memorizing the poem, "The Mist and All" by Dixie Wilson.

Reading Aloud:
This week we read aloud the following (in addition to our Bible stories and Proverbs):

Jack and the Beanstalk from 100 Classic Stories
Brer Rabbit from 100 Classic Stories
Snow White and Rose Red from My Book House
The Magician's Nephew from the Chronicles of Narnia, chapters 4-5
Megan's Year: An Irish Traveler's Story by Gloria Whelan
Hansel & Gretel from The World's Best Fairy Tales

Latin:
We started Latin this week. We started with the word "nauta" and learned that it means "sailor". We talked about nautical and astronaut and how those English words relate. We also talked about how in Latin, there is no word for "a, an or the". That was difficult for them to comprehend. We learned that "sum" means "I am", but when I first asked them what "Sum nauta." meant, they kept trying to say "I am sailor" ... they could not comprehend (at first) that they had to add the "a" even though it wasn't there. But, eventually they got it. Over and over, "Sum nauta" was translated correctly as "I am a sailor". I had also checked out a little Latin reader from the library that has the Latin words for animals in it. So, we practiced saying "I am a dog" and "I am a cat" ... that was fun.

Honestly, although we had some success with that first lesson, we've decided to switch to Prima Latina next week. The Hippie and I are both pretty excited about that. I happened to have the entire set here (along with five student books ... the lady I bought it from must have had a lot of children). The resource we used this week was just a book and I have no experience with Latin, so I was not sure I was pronouncing things correctly. We had to go to the mp3 listings that the author provided, but it was ... well, boring. I spent that afternoon watching the first two lessons of the Prima Latina DVD and really examining the teacher and student books and I'm sold. I think we will enjoy that much more. And, hey, I have enough student books that even Momma will "do her work". :)

Living Geography:
I believe this is the girls' favorite subject this year. We decided to learn about Europe simply because we are all obsessed with Europe after getting to go last year. The girls cry ... we want to be there so badly it hurts sometimes. So, what better continent to study this year? By the end of the year, we will all be able to label an entire blank map of Europe correctly. We had begun last week by reviewing the continents, oceans, directions, the equator and hemispheres. This week we actually got down to business. We started by looking at a map of Europe that was labeled with only the following countries: England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. We learned that England, Wales & Scotland make up Great Britain and that politically speaking, those countries plus Northern Ireland make up the United Kingdom. We studied the map and then the girls each got a blank map of Europe and labeled each of those countries and colored them in. We did all of this while listening to some beautiful Traditional European music. The girls absolutely *loved* this activity. And, seriously. They can learn stuff in two seconds flat. If you ask them right now to show you where those countries are, they can show you with no problem at all. It will be really impressive when they can label each and every country in Europe!

We also spent a little more time with Ireland on another day. I read to them the book Megan's Year: An Irish Traveler's Story. It was excellent. After we read that book, I pulled up the most beautiful hour-long video on YouTube. It was called "Visions of Europe - Ireland". Look it up ... watch it ... the scenery is amazing and you learn a lot about the history and legends of Ireland. I was so proud to see the Hippie blurting out stuff she already knew before the narrator could say it!

We also got to enjoy some cheese from the area. It just so happened that when we went to the store last week, there was a store worker set up with a sample stand. When we walked up, he started to say something about "aged cheddar and fresh baked baguette" ... I told him he had me at "aged cheddar". Anyway, we all tried a sample, loved it and he showed us where it was in the specialty case, letting us know it was on sale. Turned out, it was imported from the United Kingdom. Since we knew that we would be starting there, we bought it. After we did our mapping activity, we noticed that the wrapper on the cheese actually said "Isle of Man", which we learned from our map was an island between Ireland and Great Britain. Excellent ... and boy is it ever tasty!

Math:
We are really growing to love Life of Fred. I am seeing its depth ... as long as I sit and do each chapter with each girl and take the time to teach the concepts that come up, I think it is excellent. The Hippie and I worked through five chapters this week. The Hippie also worked on her math facts at Xtra math two times. The Princess and I worked through three chapters this week, but we finished the first book! She was excited about that.

As a family, we had an impromptu lesson on Roman Numerals that came out of a question the Princess asked. She is reading Charlotte's Web at the moment and the chapters are numbered with Roman Numerals. She wanted to know what chapter she was on, so I explained how they work from 1 to 10.

We also played a game yesterday called "Free the Bird" to practice subtraction facts. They had a blast. Momma won three times and the Princess won once. Poor Hippie. :(

History:
Each of the girls is reading a different book about the Vikings. The Hippie read three chapters of Viking Tales and narrated each one to me orally. She also read a bit of Famous Men of the Middle Ages and narrated to me about the gods of the Teutons. The Princess read three chapters of Viking Adventure and narrated each one of those to me orally as well. They also watched How to Train Your Dragon this week. :) It's not exactly "history", but it *is* about Vikings. And, they love it. {smile}

Writing, Language & Literature:
The Princess read to me the Aesop's fable "Belling the Cat" and narrated it orally. She drew a beautiful (and detailed) picture to illustrate the fable as well. She is really a great artist! In addition to the fable, she also read aloud to me Hans in Luck (and narrated it) and two poems by Christina Rossetti. For writing this week, she spent the week copying the following from The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter:

One autumn when the nuts were ripe, and the leaves on the hazel bushes were golden and green - Nutkin and Twinkleberry and all the other little squirrels came out of the wood, and down to the edge of the lake.

That may not look long to you, but when you are a child and you are doing your very best to spell each word correctly, to use capital and lower case letters correctly, to place punctuation in the right places and to write in your very best handwriting, it takes time. We used a timer and she worked on it for 10 minutes each day. It took her three days, but it is beautiful and accurate. That's what matters.

From that passage, we also learned some of the different ways we can make a word plural. We talked about adding "s", adding "es" (to words ending in "sh") and changing an "f" to a "v" and adding es.

The Princess practiced her cursive three days this week. She also learned four new letters in cursive (all lowercase) ~ "i", "r", "h" and "f".

As for literature, I'm not sure where she was at the beginning of the week, but she is now on chapter 10 in Charlotte's Web.

The Hippie spent the week reading Thimble Summer. She had started reading Half Magic before, but decided she was bored and didn't want to finish reading it. It's not that the book is boring, but she had already listened to it on audio before and realized this week that she really didn't feel like wasting the time reading it if she already knew what was going to happen. So, Thimble Summer it is. She is on chapter five.

As for writing, the Hippie practiced all of her letters one more time in cursive and then began copying Genesis 1:1-5 in cursive. She also read an Aesop's fable and did a written narration of it. She chose "The Dog and the Oyster". In her English studies this week, she read the story The Stone in the Road and learned (well, she already knew, but you get the idea) that the word "I" is always written with a capital letter. She also copied the following quote:

True worth is in being, not seeming;
   In doing each day that goes by
Some little good; not in the dreaming
     Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
     And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
   And nothing so royal as truth.

~ Alice Cary

I also discovered on Tuesday that the Hippie had chosen to sit and listen to our hymn, verse-by-verse, pausing along the way ... and she copied the entire song. She chose to do copywork ... and not just 2 lines in a day, but an entire song, word by word. I was so proud of her!

Extras:
There's not a whole lot to report here for a change. We had a beautiful afternoon park day with our Home School Group on Thursday. I think those are favorites ~ the kids get to run free and play and the moms get to hang out and talk. The girls and I did go on one morning walk this week. Oh, and as happens every year, the Ibis have returned. We did go to Uncle Scott's last Sunday for football (so, Monday was a free day again) and we will be watching a "twilight movie under the stars" this evening in our community park, but I think that might be about it. We're looking forward to a fairly peaceful day here otherwise ... and more football tomorrow. I have to say, I must have forgotten about my camera for most of the week. I only have a few pictures. But, the week was full. How was your week?

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