A Week of Colds and Reading

Sadie, Tom, and Blachick

Today was the last class of the year for our geography/missions homeschool co-op I started last fall.  We've had a great year learning about various countries in Africa, missionaries, food, culture, maps, and more.   My dear friend made cupcakes and even decorated them with flag picks of the countries studied.  Argh, I meant to get a picture of that.  Oh well, maybe next year when we move on to Asia, Lord willing.

Cupcake painting a colorful hotel

Miss Cupcake and I had nasty colds part of this week, so her school was extremely light.  We worked on the letter "P" and made numbers 10-19 with our 0-9 number puzzle.  Of course, we recited our favorite poems, and are working on some new ones.  She chose to illustrate "The Drinking Fountain", so yes, that is a water fountain in the picture, and um I do believe she said that was Grandma at the water fountain.   On her own, she decided to draw a seed, a tree, and roots, and a sprouting seed when I read her a a simple tree book.  Her favorite story this week was Little Sally Mandie at the Farm, a book I've had since I was a little girl, that was my mom's, and we think my grandmother's.  Little Sally Mandie and Tommy Whiskers went to the farm, and Tommy Whiskers got his tail nipped when he was rude to Mr. Gander Goose. They got to see Mrs. Curly Grunt (momma pig) and her little curly grunts (her babies). This morning she told us she had a great IDEA, which was that for her birthday Grandpa could build her a Great Wolf Lodge in the backyard (I'm thinking she meant all the play stuff, not a whole hotel).  She thinks her grandpa can do anything!

Muffy's birthday presents

Muffy girl had a simple but wonderful birthday celebration last Saturday with her daddy and auntie (both also had birthdays the same week as our Muffy).  S made her a strawberry cake, decorated with each child's favorite animal piped with frosting-- Huggy, Lamby, Snuggy, and Huggy Bunny.  Big brother E made strawberry lemonade punch.   Muffy was thrilled to get some binoculars and a gift card to Lowe's.  We told her to pick out some things to attract the birds, for a little thinking spot.  So she picked out a bench, cute yellow "lollipop" flowers, and a bird bath.  Now, when we had this idea, I had no idea there was anything out there other than plain looking bird baths.  She found a mushroom one with a bunny on it.  It is cute, but thank goodness it goes on the side of the house.  She's enjoyed reading Joan of Arc and Wind and the Willows at her special spot.  She finished Tree in the Trail, and got a lot done in grammar and our CLE reading workbooks.  She named our new friend, the black-capped chickadee, "Blachick", and the male house finch "Tom" since his the color of a Tom-ato.  I named Tom's wife, Sadie.  The three have been fun to watch this week out of our school room window.

Wind and the Willows illustration

S, Muffy, Aunt Missy, and Cupcake

S and E worked hard at their booklists this week.  E is now captivated with Narnia, even choosing to read it in his spare time too.  They're both still on Robin Hood, which is a very LONG book.  I am hoping they will finish it in the next couple of weeks.  They both think the mythology book, Age of a Fable by Thomas Bullfinch is weird, but they do it anyway.  E loves reading and listening to books in his treehouse.  However, S does not care to spend his time there.  Both boys, along with Muffy, watched "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" from Shakespeare- The Animated Tales on dvd from Netflix this week.  I'd like to get the whole set for our homeschool.  We also listened to Joseph Haydn's "Farewell Symphony" (Symphony #45 in F Major).  E is very close to conquering long division!!!!  Thank you Math-U-See.  In Bible, we learned about King Jehu who was zealous in destroying Ahab's family and their gods, but didn't destroy the gods of Jeroboam. 

E at Fort Macon

Matt preached on "Hate" this past Wednesday night using the book of Jonah as his basis, with several ties to other Old and New Testament examples.  We were so glad for him to have the opportunity, and I was so glad that Tylenol made me feel well enough not to miss it!  He and I've had some good discussions and things are brewing as a result of last weeks trip to Together For the Gospel.

I've been trying to keep up with Muffy in Wind of the Willows.  If books were food I'd say that selection is like having strawberry shortcake with cream on top!  I'm happy to finally report the completion of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling, volume 1.  I also finished Johnothan Edwards on True Christianity this week.  Apparently, Jonathan Edwards faced nominalism in churches back in his day as well.  I'd love to tell you all about it, but that would require a whole other post.   Matt is re-reading David Platt's Radical, so I decided to do the same.  I'm ahead of him, but don't tell him I said that.  Hee, hee, hee.  If you haven't read it, it is one I think every evangelical Christian should read (or listen to, I've got both the audio and the book, and I love to lend!).   Lastly,  I've been enjoying leading our children's choir.  They sang during Sunday morning worship and did great.  I think I was the only nervous one! 

May you all have a wonderful weekend full of God's grace.