Whew! What a week!

Allo, allo… We have been extremely busy here this past week. We have had two full weeks of school now! Here is what the girls have been up to:

1. Math is going swimmingly. Zoe can add and subtract up to FIFTEEN, and she still can count to twenty! WooT! Kammie can multiply with ease up through the fives. They have finished up their lapbooks from Homeschool Share and are really excited over that. We have spent way too much time on them.

2. In the science world we are learning about jellyfish and sea stars. Yes, we really do spend about three weeks on each creature listed in TWTM book. I am just like that, and it seems to work very well with the girls. They have also began learning about classification and different phyla.

3. In History we are finally getting ready to move into Crete! I am so excited. We deviated the suggested timeline and spent a long time on Ancient Egypt, a favorite subject of the girls. They didn’t want to stop when the book went to a new chapter, so we paused and let them learn how to find non fiction library books on the subject!

4. For reading, we have been slowly plugging along. Zoe is moving on up in the decodables and is almost ready to read them by herself. I am so proud of her! Kammie is doing wonderfully and is now able to read AND comprehend chapter books (Big step there!). We are also using McGuffey’s eclectic speller with both girls.

5. We haven’t started Latin year. I have a confession, I am scared. LOL! The girls found my old Spanish textbook from hs and took it upon themselves to hold their own Spanish classes taught by Professor Kammie Lee.

6. Art appreciation has been spent studying Degas and we have been working on a few crafts to go along with that. In our world of Art techniques they are reviewing the color wheel and having fun seeing how to blend to make colors (this may seem really juvenile for Kammie, but we needed to go there. ) Next week they will be studying lines and white space, which we will probably stay on for a few weeks.

7. Language Arts- We are still on LL 1 for levels 1 & 2. Believe it or not Zoe is following along and keeping up! We are also supplementing with some great books by Brian Cleary. They are
Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective?
A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink: What Is a Noun?
To Root to Toot to Parachute: What Is a Verb?

We plan on reading all of his books many times over just to help reinforce what we are learning. I love the books, they are wonderfully illustrated and brilliantly written. The girls love reading them, so that makes them winners in my book.

The girls have read over 120 books this summer, not including school books. I feel like there should be some sort of celebration. I have no problem rewarding learning (tsk, tsk, bad mom), but I don’t know what we should do. They have had their names entered six times each to win a basket full of prizes at the library. For every twenty books the kiddos get to put their names in, yeah… It doesn’t seem fair… LOL

In my every day news:

Ingles will only double 3 coupons for every ten dollars spent. Did you know that? LMBO! I didn’t… They offered only face value after that. Word to the wise for everyone here, Publix doubles as many as you can bring in, as long as they are under fifty cents each. Awesome. Ingles is bad in my book. Exactly how many companies are going to end up on my no shop zone list? I am beginning to feel very limited. Oh, well.

We have found a brilliant piece of property. Justin is actually considering my ‘far fetched’ (his term, not mine) idea of wall tent living until we can build our home by hand. I am tired of being trapped in the city, a city that won’t let me have chickens!!!!! I want chickens!!!! *sigh*

I will post strictly pictures tomorrow while at the library. It will be fun. Wordless Saturday doesn’t quite have the same ring though, does it?

I hope everyone is having a great summer! Toodles!

Tags: beginning of school year, challenges, fun, Homeschool, homesteading, Life, living, math, reading