The Academy of Zion WEEK IN REVIEW Week Two

So, if you read my Truthful Tuesday post, you know I am challenging myself this week to keep my Week in Review short and sweet ... well, at least to the point, highlighting only the good stuff.  That will be very hard for me, the novel writer that I tend to be.  But, I will try.  Please remember that we do so much more than I could ever express here!  For more details, look to the pages across the top ... I'll add more as time permits ... maybe to cover each subject.  

We'll see.  

One thing's for sure ... the Three Rs tend to be boring, so we probably won't touch on that much.  I'm sure you don't really care about how many Phonics pages the Princess completed or which lesson we made it to in All About Spelling.  So, I'll try to keep those out.  

Here goes ...

The Fairy has now read 20 books this school year (you can see her list as it grows here).  She LOVES the Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books.  If you've never heard of them, you can check them out here.  I've added the set to her birthday wish list!  

 

She also loves the Mind Benders!  I "planned" for her to do maybe one or two per week, but the girl LOVES them.  She's been doing a few per DAY!  At that rate, we will definitely need the next book for her for Christmas!  :=) 

The Princess is still plugging away at her Bob Books and making progress.  For whatever reason, she is extremely shy about reading!  She wants it, she really does.  But, she refuses to read to Daddy.  Only Momma.  And, even then, she almost whispers and you can tell she is just SO embarrassed and nervous.  But, she is trying!  

She also loves to do her handwriting practice.  I know I said I wouldn't harp on the boring stuff, but I just have to share a little.  This year I decided to get her a basic handwriting workbook from the School Tools store, but it is Modern Manuscript, so it is almost "fancy".  It is perfect for my budding cursive writer ... she's been BEGGING for cursive, so she really likes this one.  And, she does it so beautifully ~ you should see her "k"!  

This week we learned some important lessons of love, kindness and forgiveness.  We talked about Jesus' ideas about living together in peace and harmony.  We talked about how Jesus said that we should love one another because God loves us.  We learned the parable of the shepherd and his sheep and talked about how it was told to show that God loves each one of us, just like the shepherd loved each one of his sheep.  We also talked about how Jesus said that we should love even those people who are different from us; how we are supposed to treat other people the way that we want to be treated.  We learned the story of the Good Samaritan.  Of course, both of my girls already knew this one WELL.  We've used it many times in our home to illustrate that God wants us to care for ALL people; that we are ALL "neighbors", regardless of our culture, race or religion.  It was really enjoyable for me as their mother to be able to impart the wisdom of Jesus' teachings on them!  And, for them to really get it!  

We read the cutest story in our studies this week about Jah's Creation (science).  

This book did such a good job of illustrating for a child how human beings ponder how we came to be.  Could it all have happened by accident or were we created exactly the way we are on purpose, for a purpose?  We thoroughly enjoyed this one!

We also spent some time outside discussing light and shadows this week.  We looked at the shadows that various items outside were creating as well as our own shadows.  We also spent some time sketching some items from nature and the shadows that they projected.  

Of course, in total Fairy fashion, the Nature Study led itself "off-topic" and into bug study!  

In history this week we read The Magic School Bus Shows and Tells:  A Book About Archaeology.

We also discussed the items we found in our own Archaeological dig the previous week and what those artifacts told us about the people who lived "there".  Then, we moved on in our book and learned about the earliest people.  We learned that nomads had to move from place to place whenever they had hunted all of the local game or eaten all of the local berries.  We learned about the Fertile Crescent (the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) and how the nomads became the first farmers when they discovered that they could actually plant and grow things in this area and could raise livestock.  I had to do a bit of "editing" ... the book actually said that the people ate horses, but my little one LOVES horses, so that just would NOT have gone over well with her.  So, according to her, the early farmers ate cows.  After we learned about nomads and farmers and irrigation canals and the shadufs that they used to bring the water to the crops, we had fun reading a possible account of the very first dog.  Such a cute story!

At our homeschool co-op this week, the girls both enjoyed their PE classes and learning all about the difference between Baleen Whales and Toothed Whales.  We even had the pleasure of making whales out of clay (of course, both of them chose to make Dolphins ... which ARE whales).  The Princess learned about the American Flag in her Elementary Civics class and the Fairy learned about the artist Paul Klee ... and even made HER version of one of his pieces called "The Golden Fish" 

Leave it to her to be ORIGINAL and go against the grain!  ALL the other kids' pictures had pretty blue/green backgrounds (you know, for the ocean).  Not the Fairy.  She's GOT to do her own thing ... always!  And, I love it!  Notice the dolphin, sea turtle, octopus and jelly fish.  For other artists she has studied and her copies of their works, look for me to put a page at the top of my blog.  I'll get to it ... when time permits.  So far, she has already done a Van Gogh, a Matisse and now a Klee.  

We continued to listen to Bach during our written work this week.  The Princess still says that it reminds her of Mozart.  She thinks maybe they were friends.  Hey, at least she's getting a taste for classical music!  We've now added three CDs of Bach to our library.  We read Bach's Goldberg Variations and listened to a CD of the actual Goldberg Variations ...

In addition to the "work" of school, the girls decided to institute a Show and Tell at our school.  The Fairy showed us her Strawberry Shortcake doll and talked about how she couldn't figure out how I got it into the cart for her birthday right under her nose ... literally, since she smells so good!  

The Princess decided to show us her Silly Bands collection ...

 During their free time this week, the Fairy managed to build a zip-line in the back yard for her dolls.  Both girls had a ball giving their babies and horses rides down it!

The Fairy also decided to color and cut out some Greek paper dolls while the Princess colored, you guessed it, more HORSES!

On a tasty note, Momma made some raw "Hawaiian Pudding" (as the Fairy calls it) for snack and recess one day.  That sure made everyone's day! 

We finished off our week with a spontaneous little family vacation!  Aaaahhhhh ...

Always a ride at the Academy of Zion ...