Well, this week we finished the second half of our homeschool week 7. Turns out that I think this "messed up" week 7 might be something I'm going to stick with. I've heard of "Sabbath Schooling" before but wasn't sure if it was something I would want to try. But I think I'm going to try and go with it. The idea is to school for 6 weeks straight and then take a break the 7th week for other chores, family time, trips etc. We'll see how it works with our calendar but I think I might like it. Week 14 is going to be right at the time my Winter Concerts at the school will fall so I'm thinking that that will be a good time to take off anyway. We may take a couple weeks off around December anyway so it'll work out. I was trying to figure out how I'd take reasonable breaks with her anyway, and the Sabbath model is something I think I'll try.
Letter F
The week before, we got through a few of the Bible stories and did some other things, but our letter activities got thrown to the wayside. So we had one day this week where we only did the letter activities in order to catch up. The letter this week was "F" Same activities as before: Hide and Seek, writing practice, and then painting the upper and lowercase letters. I had grand visions of giving her a lunch or dinner with all "F" letters, and do more with the letter that day, but it didn't happen. It was fun anyway. Didn't get a picture of our giant letter "F" on the floor, but know that she covered it with blocks, which went along with our discussion of the Israelites in Egypt building for the Egyptians.
Library Trip and Counting/Matching
This week we took a trip to the library. Our neighborhood library is pretty interesting. During the day, it's an elementary school library. But after 3pm, it becomes a County Library. What's nice about that is that it's, essentially, a children's library. Claire hadn't been a while and wanted to pick out a few books. She recognizes books that her teacher at her Parent and Me Music and Art Class, reads. Some of the titles she picks are fun for me to read, now, too. She picked a GREAT one about a jazz pianist and one about a ballet class (which is her favorite thing right now, too).
Ashlyn likes to wander around the library, say "hi" to everyone and pull books off the shelves. We are still learning "library etiquette."
Cooking Class and HOA "Pumpkin Patch"
Couple things signify fall for us. Our church "Soup and Pie" dinner and our neighborhood's "Pumpkin Patch." In the morning, we peeled carrots for mommy's soup for the church "Soup and Pie" dinner. She;s getting better, although, there were points when I thought we weren't going to have much of a carrot left. . . Claire tended to peel with a little too much gusto (although, it's pretty amazing to me how much small kids are capable of doing. . .if we just let they come along side and try!)
In the afternoon, we went across the street and enjoyed being with our neighbors for the "Pumpkin Patch." Our HOA brings pumpkins. Each household gets a pumpkin to take home. The had lunch (taco truck. . . mmmmmm) and a bounce house for the kids to play in. We got to meet a few new people and the girls had fun (a free pumpkin is always good, too).
Genesis 5:6-19
The last Bible story we talked about this week was Moses and the plagues in Egypt starting with the Nile turning to blood. In order to show this concept, I let her play with water in the sink. I put a tiny bit of dish soap in the water and, since I was out for red food coloring like the book says to use, I dropped a couple drops of red finger paint into the water. She LOVED playing with the waters and the bubbles. We did discuss why the water changing in Egypt was so bad. We wouldn't want to DRINK that terrible water, so having your best water supply turn to blood was a pretty bad deal. Not sure I should count this as a homeschool failure or success but after we had cleaned up the activity, Claire said, "I want to play in the blood again." Yikes!