Saturday, December 20, 2008

This Week's Wrap-Up

The girls were excited to start studying about George Washington this week. One of the reasons I decided to include American History in our curriculum this year was their fascination with the early presidents, especially George Washington, thanks to Papa's introducing them to the presidents using the dollar coins. As they got older & became more observant/detail oriented, there was confusion about how the various presidents they'd heard about, and the various historic sites in our area ("our area" including the DC area, Northern VA, MD & PA) all fit together. I decided an overview of American History would be a good way of helping them fit the pieces together. And give them/me some points of reference when we visit various sites, read books, etc.

As I mentioned earlier this week, George Washington's Breakfast is great! We also read the d'Aulaire book about George Washington, and w/ all of their books, LOVED IT!

We've hit some more difficult phonics worksheets and L, especially, is having trouble w/ having to actually spend TIME doing the worksheets instead of whipping through them in no time flat. I've cut back to one worksheet per day as a result, and they're doing fine with them, just having to adjust to THINKING about it LOL. I managed to misplace the McGuffey's Primer (not sure where it is, since the house is actually much cleaner than usual in preparation for Christmas, shrug) so for reading class we've been reading the SDA reader same as we use at bedtime.

With the snow, and prep for Christmas we stayed home a bunch this week. We've been making Christmas cookies, and Christmas presents and wrapping presents . . . it's been a fun week :o)

Oh, and to elaborate on the wordless wednesday picture. Tuesday night as I was reading bedtime stories I noticed the hole in A's smile!! Silly kid, didn't even bother to tell me. Apparently she didn't even know when she lost it, but thinks she lost it somewhere outside while they were playing in the snow. She seems to think she'll be able to find it "once the snow melts" because you know, it's so much easier to find an itty bitty tooth in acres of grass LOL. Both L & A have a loose tooth as well, so I suggested that she wait & when she loses the next tooth she can write the tooth fairy a note telling her about the lost, lost tooth. She seemed to accept that which gives me a few more days to figure out what the tooth fairy is going to leave LOL. I was figuring money, but dh said when he was talking to them at bedtime that night, they both were sure the tooth fairy leaves small gifts like books & stickers, I did just get a pack of easy reader Bible stories that I haven't given them yet, so maybe we'll use those for the first several teeth and play it by ear from there. . . I'm still thinking.

Yesterday we got an ice storm that had us pretty much homebound all day. We're dog-sitting a chihauhua for one of dh's coworkers this weekend, so the girls had fun torturing, I mean playing with, her a bunch yesterday.

With threats of more snow coming tonight & tomorrow we decided we better run errands tonight. DH took the girls to choose gifts for me, and then took them to ChuckECheese, he said they had a blast, and they seemed to agree. And I ran out for the last minute gifts I realized I'd forgotten (and needed to get w/o the kids along) and also groceries (Walmart on the Sat night before Christmas, when the day before was bad weather & more bad weather is coming, is NOT the place to be, btw! On the other hand, Aldi's was EMPTY (though the checkout clerk said it had been mobbed earlier)).

School next week will be laid back. We'll continue with the Jesse Tree for Bible, but then just read American Girl books for History & I think we'll continue reading in the reading book, but skip the phonics worksheets for reading. And we'll continue with the Christmas cookie-making and such. The girls are excited to take cookies to our neighbors, so we need to get a few more kinds made and then make up the plates of cookies to take to the neighbors.

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