School has been great. Leah is on T-t-turtle. Her words to remember are "I don't quit; I persevere." After an explanation on what persevere meant she has loved using the word. It's so big, you know. We have read several Bible verses on perseverance. Today we will read about "Mike Mulligan" or "Katy the Steamshovel", which ever one Leah picks. We could read about "The Little Engine That Could." But I am kind of tired of reading that story. On Friday we will read about the "Tortoise and the Hare" and act it out using stuffed animals.
Leah painted the bottoms of two paper plates. I made a head, legs, and tail out of green construction paper. Then we stapled them all together. Now she has a turtle. Each week I make a badge for her with her words to remember on it. This week I made a turtle. She asked if I would not punch a hole in it or put a string for her to wear as she wanted to use it as a baby for her bigger turtle.
One day out of each 6 day lesson we use these cards. Leah puts the vowels in order. Then she puts the pictures above the vowel that matches the short vowel sound for that picture. After she has finished that, which takes her only a few seconds to do, we sing the short vowel song. It is to the tune of "Mary had a little lamb" and goes like this: "I hear a in cat and man, cat and man, cat and man. I hear a in cat and man - a - a - a, " using the pronunciation of short a when we say "a". We do this for all the vowels. She loves the songs we sing and likes the repetition of them even though I am getting tired of the same ones.
Her hair is really messy as I had just washed it and wait until it is almost dry before I brush it.
Daniel has been studying in Genesis. We are still reading about Abraham. I got a couple movies through inter library loan on Abraham. We had watched one last week. Then I forgot about them. Yesterday when I was dusting in my living room I found the DVDs. So we watched part of the other one last night and plan to watch more tonight. I think it is really interesting though they include things that could have happened but aren't mentioned in the Genesis account. Since Daniel is a visual learner it helps him to understand better life in that time period.
Daniel learned the second commandment this week. Yesterday we used the verse in his cursive handwriting practice. As his vision gets better so is his handwriting.
In math Daniel is still working on fractions and will be for the next couple weeks. He is getting quite good about knowing when he needs to "simplify" his fractions but still gets a little stuck sometimes remembering how to do that. Yesterday he started learning about "improper fractions." He thought it "easy."
In Genesis for Kids we read about air and water. Then we did an experiment demonstrating how air has mass. We filled a big glass bowl with 8 inches of water and got two small clear glasses. One glass we put straight down upside down into the water trapping the air inside. The other glass we let fill with water and watched the air bubbles come out. Then we did it again and filled the glass that had no air in it but had filled with water with the air bubbles from the other glass. That was neat. Finally we stuck a dry paper towel into one dried glass, put it straight down upside down into the water, left it there for a few seconds, and then brought it back up again. It was still dry.
Yesterday the children listened to "Summer" by Vivaldi while they painted a summer scene. They really like doing this and do well on it.
Tim finished replacing the front steps. The old ones had so many rotted boards we were afraid someone would get hurt on them. We want to replace the steps and sidewalk with new cement but will probably wait for a couple years to do that as we want to make a cement patio by the south window which needs to be replaced with a sliding glass door. The door needs to be put in first as we will need some steps there as well. In the meantime the wooden steps were cheap to make and will do fine until we can get the other work done.
The children and I picked all the apples from my little tree and got about 8 gallons. I will need to store some of them in my downstairs fridge as they are just as good eating as a Fuji apple and have no pesticides or wax on them.
Earlier this week we were happy to see this hawk over by my garden. We got out our binoculars so we could observe it better. It wasn't afraid of us if we were outside. It was hunting those pesky pocket gophers that are digging up our yard. I hope it got them!
I intended to write a short little post but it has grown again. I best go.
