Would You Buy a Beach House When Cupcake Will Sell You a Bathouse Instead?

We are in the countdown of those last few remaining of our 180 days!!   I feel like the little engine that could, "I think I can, I think I can.."  Of course, when we reach the goal, we will still have a relaxed summer school routine put in place, continuing in math, reviewing grammar, and lots of reading lists. But somehow, the lighter load will be just right to rejuvenate us for the fall.

I fear our vacation caused a stumbling block to Cupcake's progress with Hooked-On-Phonics, so we started back at the beginning.  This week consisted of the letter M only. One thing I added to her school routine, is Eloise Wilkin's Poems to Read to the Very Young.  Our favorites this week have been "Mix a Pancake,"  "The Little Turtle", and  "Little Black Bug."  She almost has the pancake one memorized.  She also began notebooking like the big kids.  She illustrated the pancake poem (in case you can't tell, that is a blue plate, pancake with syrup/butter/strawberries).  She was as proud as a peacock over it.  On Thursday, she and I had fun at the library's "Block Party".  I helped her build what I thought was a beach house, but she put in a potty and said it had to be a restroom instead. Since the Muffy girl has been learning about birds, I read Cupcake a shorter book with real life photographs of mommy birds, daddy birds, babies, and their nest.  It was an old one Matt had from his childhood.  Both girls have done some spying on the robin's nest in our neighbor's bush.  The eggs are gorgeous!  We have a nest in our magnolia, but it is too high up to see what is in it.  The girls think it is funny the birds used some of their craft ribbon left outside for the nest.

Muffy has been engrossed in Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher.   She only has one chapter left.  Since her adventure with Paddle-to-the-Sea ended, she has begun Tree in the Trail, another one of the Holling C. Holling books.  Crows and blue jays were her bird friends this week.  For history narrations this week, she enjoyed drawing cartoon pictures of some of the people from Our Island Story, in particular, Henry II, Thomas a Becket, and Gilbert and Rohesia.  She used the drawings to tell me about the chapters from the week.   She is supposed to be doing the free Peter's Online Typing since she finished Dance Mat Typing with flying colors.  Suddenly typing is not so exciting when it does not involve dancing hippos that congratulate your skills.  I promised I would do a dance and song for her after each Peter's lesson, to which she is probably going to hold me to next week.  In free time, she and the Cupcake have set up a stuffed animal hospital (using Daddy's painter's tape as bandages), and have spent a lot of time outside.


S and E learned about the stock market, the Great Depression, Hitler, and the beginnings of World War II this week.  It is interesting this go around teaching modern history to see it from a world history point of view rather than just American.  We've had some interesting discussions.  It is great having big boys. We've added Thomas Bullfinch's Age of A Fable to their daily readings.  I'm allowing this one to be audio from Librivox since we need to get through our list in time.  I'm not a big fan of mythology, but I think they are mature and discerning about it at this age.  They are both reading Robin Hood, and E excitedly gives me the highlights.  We also started back with our CLE Reading Program for them, with just two units remaining.  This week's focus has been inferring, interpreting, and comparing parables.  In science, both boys have been learning about DNA.  It would be nice if I could show their DNA models but someone cut the pipe cleaners too short, and I decided we'd just move on or come back to it later.   In Bible, Muffy, S, and E finished up with Elisha and his encounters with the kings of his time.

Matt bought us a new piano that was delivered on Monday.  It probably wouldn't be too hard to guess what S has been doing besides school.  He is so happy to play on something that does not have a bunch of broken keys.  He's also begun working on a violin piece, a hymn, "Come Thou Fount" in hopes of being able to play it in church one of these days. 

S at Grandpa's

In E's free time, he mostly read Peanuts comics,  played games, and read magazines in the tree house.  His favorite one was when Charlie Brown was playing cowboy and Snoopy was the cow.  He also loves to keep track of restaurant reviews, and gives us accounts good and bad, some of which I'd probably rather not know about.

Today we met my uncle, his wife, and children, affectionately known to as the "cousins" for some trail walking, bike riding, and playground time.  It was a bit cooler today, but with the sun shining was such a beautiful day.

We hope everyone has a blessed Easter weekend, reflecting on the ultimate sacrifice and resurrection of our Savior.