Week 29, day 4

Thursday: Bible. We introduced a new memory verse - one I might end up reminding both P and E of quite a bit in future - and catechism question. We've been working on the hymn "To God Be the Glory" all week, but I forgot to review it today. We read the story of Pentecost in their children's Bible storybook.

P found her old handwriting workbook that she finished near the beginning of the year. It's neat to see how her handwriting has improved since she finished the book, and certainly since she started. She insisted on looking at every page, and she and E acted out the animals that represented some of the letters and numbers (Z for zebra, 6 bears, etc). Once they were done, I gave P the choice of reading the same reader we've been working on, and reading next week's reader. She chose next week's, which was what I expected, and did well with it. My plan is to try to do 2 or 3 weeks' worth of language arts next week, since it's introducing the letter E and there are 2 review weeks after that letter. P already knows her letter sounds very well, so I don't feel we need the review, and I'm getting antsy for a proper summer vacation. I'll try to fit in 4 or 5 weeks' worth of geography in the next 2 weeks, doing a country every 2-3 days instead of once a week, to keep pace with language arts. Now that all our outside activities are done for the summer, we have more time that I can devote to moving us along in school. I'd like to be done altogether before July so we can completely relax on our planned road trip and still have some unstructured time at home before starting first grade for P and Pre-K for E.

I put 2 games on P's math 5-a-day this time. I'm glad I started doing this, and not always having her solve 5 pencil and paper problems. She solved her 3 problems and then we played Subtraction War (played like War, but with 2 cards at a time, and the biggest difference wins) and Uno. I started teaching the kids Rummikub, but they're really too young for it and I did most of the thinking for each child's turn. I noticed after we were already playing it that it's recommended for ages 8 and older. Ah, well, there's good family tradition for doing that kind of thing. I remember my dad starting me on Monopoly when we were in Durban when I had just turned 6.

After lunch, P wanted to do a project from her new sewing book. I showed her the lazy daisy stitch, but we didn't really have good materials for embroidery around the house, so we went to JoAnn and picked up basic cross-stitch materials. She made one 4-petaled flower shape using lazy daisy, and it looks pretty good. I'll help her do another one tomorrow. I noticed while teaching her that, since I haven't really thought about how to teach sewing the way I've thought about teaching lots of other things, I don't have a good idea of what sorts of things are likely to trip her up. Learning to sew involves a lot of separate, complex skills: threading a needle, keeping the needle threaded instead of pulling it off the thread each stitch, figuring out where to put the needle in, tying a knot in the end of the thread so it doesn't come out of the fabric, etc. Of course P wants to be able to start and finish a project in an afternoon, so she needs me to pay attention and help her with each of these skills. With a baby to look after and dinner to cook, I'm not as helpful as she might wish. She did manage to thread the needle by herself, so hopefully she won't need me for that as often in future.

A child is constantly working on learning so many complex tasks! It's no wonder they sleep so much. I need to try to remember how much is being asked of them in just learning to navigate the world, so I can be more patient with all 3 of them.