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

Wow. Just, wow. We have had quite a week. And, honestly, I don't really have time to write about it. So, this will primarily be some bullet points and lots of pictures.

The week started when Daddy got home from work on Saturday evening ... and, he showed up with two puppies. Someone had dumped them near his shop, and he couldn't just leave them there. So, I spent Saturday night and Sunday morning researching the bjeebers out of no-kill rescues and getting the word out. Lots of stress for me. But, the girls enjoyed the time with the puppies. And, luckily, learned quickly that our adult dogs are great .. the puppies chewed on everything, jumped all over you and one of them peed on you whenever you petted him. Lovely. {smile}

In the midst of all of the puppiness, we also managed to squeeze in a "restaurant" on Saturday night ... outside. I love it when we can get outside!

After dealing with puppies all morning, we headed over to Uncle Scott's on Sunday evening for some manicotti and football. That had us getting home at close to 11:00 at night, so needless to say, Monday was a wash. Momma cleaned and the girls enjoyed some PBS about machines and black bears, played dress up and read. Other than that, the day was pretty free.

Tuesday is when the fun *really* began. We worked so hard on school on Tuesday and Wednesday. I mean really hard. We got a lot accomplished and it felt fantastic. Let me break that down for you.

Family:

* This week we listened to A Feather on the Breath of God for our music study ~ medieval music, sequences and hymns, Gothic voices ... very pretty. We listened to it every day.
* Gratitude Journals
* Morning walks
* Looked up Hamelin, Germany (after reading The Pied Piper of Hamelin) online; mapped how far it was from Nanu's house; noticed that Bremen is nearby (Bremen Town Musicians); also discovered there is a Brothers Grimm museum on the way from Nanu's house to Hamelin ... all very cool!
* Watched a little 7 minute Disney version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin from 1933 (after we read the book).
* Started learning the hymn "There is a Happy Land" ... we love this and have listened to it a zillion times.
* Memorized Genesis 1:1 ... looked that up in the Bible ... that led to The Princess grabbing her NKJV Bible and looking up Genesis 6:14 (Make thee an ark out of gopher wood ... she knew it from the movie Evan Almighty) and reading it aloud to us ... that led to the Hippie asking if she could read aloud to us the whole story of Noah from the King James Bible ... couldn't say no to that, so she read aloud from Gen 5:28-Gen 7:24.
* We also started our geography study for the year. We will be mapping the countries of Europe (and getting to know some of the culture and people as well). We started by just reviewing continents, oceans, directions, the equator, hemispheres and the compass rose. The girls each colored maps of the world and drew their own compass rose on them. Of course, we listened to beautiful traditional European music the entire time.

* Read Aloud:

A Child's Prayer (from the Book of Virtues)
Kindness to Animals (from the Book of Virtues)
Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning
The Owl (a poem by Tennyson ... in My Book House)
The Owl's Answer to Tommy (by Juliana Ewing ... in My Book House)
Daily Strength for Daily Needs
Leif the Lucky by D'Aulaire (about 12 pages)
Rapunzel

The Princess:

Completed a matching activity in her cursive book (matching cursive words and letters to their print counterparts).
Learned how to write "a" and "d" in cursive
Read to me the story of Cinderella and narrated it orally
Read to me the story of Hans in Luck and narrated it orally
Completed 2 chapters of Life of Fred math
Studied the picture "Snap the Whip" by Winslow Homer with me
Studied the poem Solomon Grundy ... recited the poem (she memorized it prior)
Studied the word "married" and completed some prepared dictation on the poem Solomon Grundy
Read 3 chapters of Viking Adventure and orally narrated each
Completed some spelling copywork
Completed a stretching video
Read several chapters of Charlotte's Web

The Hippie:

Transcribed a paragraph from an Aesop's fable in cursive
Colored a picture for her Aesop transcription
Completed two days of Xtra Math
Read silently the Celtic Fairy Tale "The Fate of the Children of Lir" and orally narrated it to me.
Completed 3 chapters of Life of Fred math
Studied with me: the use of word play, punctuation, quotes and the words, "business", "couldn't", "happily" and "catch" ... all from a passage from Ginger Pye
Wrote 1/2 of the passage form dictation
Read the first two parts of the book Viking Tales by Jeannie Hall (The Baby and The Tooth-Thrall) and narrated each to me orally
Read silently the book Getting to Know Brahms by Mike Venezia
Practiced typing for about 30 minutes
Read several chapters of Half Magic

So, all of that was on Tuesday and Wednesday. That, as well as a game of Street Hockey with the neighbor boy and *millions* of handstands. They have been practicing handstands and walk-overs every chance they've gotten.

Then, on Thursday, we headed to the Jacksonville Fire Museum with our homeschool group. We learned a lot about our local history. It really was fascinating, but again, I'm short on time. Just check out the pictures. {smile} ... After the museum, we played in the park, had our picnic lunch with Daddy, stopped at the store and then headed to the library for a while. An all-day thing.

As if we hadn't done enough, we got up on Friday morning and got dressed up to head out to the Symphony. The girls and I went to our first show of the season and enjoyed everything from a West Side Story set to the Hoedown by Copland (think Winn Dixie commercial), a Big Bands set, a beautiful violin solo of the finale from Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn, the Armed Forces Salute, Les Toreadors from Carmen Suite No. 1, Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's, another amazing violin solo of the theme from Schindler's list, selections from Phantom of the Opera and finally a set from Pirates of the Caribbean. It was beautiful ... as always.

Last night at dinner we found ourselves around the table for an extra twenty minutes as the girls took turns reading aloud to us from the Bible. The Princess read from her NKJV Bible and the Hippie read from our King James Bible ... they each read Psalm 1, Psalm 23, the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer and the 10 Commandments. Then, they took turns trying to recite the 10 Commandments from memory. Good stuff.

Finally, our beaches library had an event today where we got to experience India. It was a perfect little homeschool family's dream ... we had traditional Indian food, we all did some Hatha Yoga, we watched some Bollywood Classical Dance, the girls learned a few of the moves and got to try the dancing to the music, we learned about the geography of the country, the girls got their hands painted with henna and we all got dressed up in traditional Indian wear. It was fantastic.

And, now, we are finally home and ready to relax ... at 4:30pm on Saturday ... Daddy will be getting off soon and then we'll make our homemade pizzas and have our Family Game Night ... and start it all over again tomorrow. I believe we are headed to Uncle Scott's for football again.

How was *your* week? I'll leave you with pictures from our week.