This week...

Sometimes things just don't go as planned. I'm okay with this usually, but with the snow finally receding and the grass peeking out, I realize that spring is just around the corner. Will we be done with school by the dance recital weekend? That's often my goal, and this year it's looking really hard to reach.

This winter, we've had some illness, some distractions, some unplanned fun, and I suppose it was just inevitable to be looking at the next 10-12 weeks and wondering if we can make it... One thing I underestimated this year was co-op. We meet once a week but the prep does eat up more time than I accounted for, and of course I am also prepping to teach at the co-op each week. We love it though, and the benefits far outweigh the additional time commitments.

Anyway, here's what we did this week:

Math: Sweet Pea learned short division which she is SUPER proud of, and I am too! Cupcake has a passion for math and this week was fun for her too. She worked on some fun addition problems and we started talking about subtraction.

Grammar: Sweet Pea had some troubles this week with her R&S grammar, but we worked through it. She's working on direct objects & pronouns and those predicate pronouns threw her for a loop one day! We re-read the lessons together though and she's got it all figured out now. Cupcake is working on pronouns too in FLL and some poetry copywork.

Writing: This week, Sweet Pea has worked on a book report for co-op. She chose "Caddie Woodlawn" from the TOG literature list and really enjoyed it. She has loved the historical fiction she's read this year, so this book was a natural fit for her. Cupcake had two writing assignments this week to prepare for co-op, plus some copywork that we do regularly anyway. She wrote a descriptive paragraph for her co-op writing class about our wooden swing in the front yard. Then, she wrote a few paragraphs to present Abraham Lincoln to her history class. She is now Abe's #1 fan!! Cupcake read no less than 3 books about the man this week, and I think she'd read more if I'd get them for her...

Reading: Continuing from the writing section, Cupcake was later allowed to read all the fluff she wanted. :) Also, she reads along with Sweet Pea in Joy Hakim's, "History of US" which is probably where the Abe Lincoln infatuation began! Sweet Pea has been reading some "Dear America" books about slavery, two this week in fact! Now she's started "Turn Homeward, Hannalee" which is a TOG selection. I have had to start assigning reading "minutes" to her because I've noticed her reading time has become shorter...hmmm... Part of my solution to this new development is to assign book choices because some of her self-selected books just weren't holding her attention like the literature selections from TOG and other "good" books. So after a short experiment of letting her choose more, I am resolved to make more of these decisions for her now.

History: Sweet Pea completed quite a bit of "History of US" reading, specifically, the last several chapters of "War, Terrible War" and Lincoln's assassination. We started the next book in the series as well. She is memorizing The Gettysburg Address and doing some vocabulary study to go along with it. Cupcake did her Lincoln presentation at co-op and is now working on some Reconstruction reading to be ready for next week's mini-presentation.

Science: Together, we've been reading Zoology 1 by Jeannie Fulbright. We are loving it, but it took us til November to figure out how to work it in to our schedule effectively. Just something I had to give up to stay sane I guess! :) So now with our bird feeder up and a science fair around the corner, we're doing great with readings, notebooking, and daily birdwatching. This week, the robins have arrived! We had dozens in our front yard one morning and we just stood still and watched in awe...it was wonderful.

Below are some during & after photos of the girls' sculpted birds. It took several days to shape and perfect them, and then we baked them. They will be part of the science fair display.

Sweet Pea is holding her black-capped chickadee and Cupcake shows off how her woodpecker would be knock-knocking on a tree.

I am sure there is more to report, and I haven't started photographing/scanning written work, but I'm still new at all this documentation!! Love it though!