Friday, March 16, 2012

Porch Time Lessons

We enjoyed beautiful weather this week.  I usually had one on one lesson times from the comforts of the front porch or the back.   The sunny skies have given great incentive to finish lessons most days by 3:00 in the afternoon. Evan and Stephen acted like... A couple of kids, as can be seen in this photo ---Mud everywhere!!


The girls both built, primed, and painted their birdhouses with Daddy on Saturday and Sunday.  Fun was had by all, and the birds are going to love them!

The Cupcake fell victim to the stomach bug on Sunday night.  I wonder why those pesky creatures invite themselves in the middle of the night.  She was puny all day Monday, but back to normal on Tuesday.  She did great learning the letters "b" and "h".  To her "h",  looks like "n", so I've been drawing pictures with a person sitting on the hump with its back facing the stem (the chair letter), which she thinks is kind of funny.  Whatever works, right?  She decorated a construction paper hat for letter "h".  For math, she's been given a big basket to fill with x number of things:  clover, dandelions, blades of grass, and rocks.   Bees have become her worst enemy.  She is terrified of them.  In the car, after Africa class, she asked, "Are there bees in Africa?"

Our Muffy girl spent some time crafting this week, making foam cookies, cakes, and chocolate bars for the American Girl dolls.   She finished A.A. Milne's Now We Are Six poetry book, as well as Rudyard Kipling's, Just So Stories this week.   I think her favorite school read this week has been Holling C. Holling's Paddle to the Sea.  We did a lot of cut and paste with our copier for a good map of the Great Lakes, U.S., and Canada, but our end product was a fail.  It is simply not big enough to write in all the things to document Paddle's exciting journey.   I'm going to order the maps from Beautiful Feet for the next ones.  She chose to do some research on the African lion for a short report to accompany a drawing from Africa class for her notebook.  The cardinal and the chickadee were her birds this week.  She says the chickadee is considered a brave bird because it will often get closer to people than other birds.

S- continues to dream of his elaborate mountain home.  The boy looks at house plans and cars during his free time.    He did quite a bit to help me get ready for teaching the Africa class this week, making copies and gathering supplies.  When time is of the essence, he knows how to get the job done!  He's still reading through the Narnia series.  It looks like it will take a while.  It just isn't really his cup of tea.  We began the portion after World War I in The Story of The World for AO Pre-7 history.  He worked at doing written narrations for that subject this week.  The older he gets, the more he sounds like and looks like Matt.

E- when not at the I-Pad, has enjoyed swinging with the girls.  Unfortunately, he's WAY too tall to zip-line with them.  He's a good big brother.  His grass mowing skills are much improved this year, maybe coordination being better now.   I greatly appreciate fresh cut grass!  He's plodding away through Narnia too, and began the same history book with me.  On his own, he's been listening to Gulliver's Travels for fun.

We finished our joint Ancient Egypt study this week.  We have a few videos we might watch, and I have one read-aloud that we might do, but I think we've had about enough.  Ending it early, will give them more time to read the history books on the AO list to be ready for next year.

In Bible this week, we studied Elisha and the miracles God used him to perform.  Then we compared and contrasted them with Elijah's miracles.  We also looked at some NT verses about miracles.  We determined that most of Elisha's miracles were to help people with their physical needs.  Our study book pointed out that perhaps miracles still happen today, but people are always going to point to a scientific reason or another to explain away God's part.

Other than helping the girls with the birdhouses, Matt made doors for our shed.  I'm impressed with them.  The previous doors (put on before we got our house) were interior doors that had pretty much rotted through.  He's also had to help me with powerpoint this week for my Africa class.  Too bad he has a technologically challenged wife.

All my free time and more has gone to preparing for our monthly homeschool co-op Africa class.  This month I taught the kids about the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the rainforest.  Next week, we are going to take some time off so I'm hoping to get to some sewing projects and reading something my children aren't reading.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

P.S.  Muddy pictures are brought to you by my husband who allowed the mess!!!  Amazingly, the mud came out of the Cupcake's green knit dress, but the boy's shirts went in the garbage after a failed washing attempt.  I really should change the title of this post to "Mud" after his contribution, but, I like the other better.


1 comment:

  1. I think we'd all be a bit happier if we just rolled around in the mud every once in a while!

    The bird houses are a great idea. I'll have to consider that.

    Amy

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