Week 9, day 1

Bible (Catechism, Bible story, memory verse): We reviewed all the memory verses and catechism done to date, and read the second half of the story of Ruth.

Calendar (Update day of week and date of month, record weather and temperature): It was raining solidly pretty much all day. The weather is still cool. P enjoys figuring out what time it is, with my help.

Handwriting: Thanks to a suggestion on the Sonlight forums, I printed out dry-erase letter cards for both kids - large ones for E and small ones for P. They enjoyed doing this, but I had tried using clear contact paper for laminating them instead of paying to have them properly laminated, and the dry-erase only mostly erased, only coming off completely with rubbing alcohol. Later in the afternoon I took them to a teacher supply store to get them properly laminated, and now they work great.

Language Arts: The kids were happy to do another letter sheet this week, and P, having practiced all her letters on the dry-erase letter cards, did beautifully with the copywork.

Math (5-a-day, other activities): I had given P a sequence to complete (2,4,6,8,?) and she needed a lot of help to figure it out. However, adding 2 coins to 2 cents to make 8 cents was easy and fun for her. Before we started school in the morning, the kids played with Cuisenaire rods, and I got out of the shower to hear my father-in-law tell me, "You've got to stop teaching these kids! E just told me that 6 plus 2 makes 8!" We went to the library in the afternoon and checked out a book on graphs aimed at early elementary age, and the kids really liked it and requested that it be read several times in a row.

E's "school": This week involved tracing around a pair of his shoes, my shoes, and Ari's shoes, cutting out the tracings, labeling them with L and R, and counting them or sorting them by size. E really got excited about this, and had me trace around his boots and his daddy's boots (as I have no cowboy boots, I wasn't nearly as exciting). He later told me, "I like my shoes school."

Geography and/or science: I went to the library and renewed all the books we'd checked out about South America. I read the kids a book about 24 hours in the Amazon jungle, featuring the activities of several animals throughout the day and night and focusing on certain types of animals (for example, howler monkeys early in the morning, and bats at night). It was well above E's level, and he wandered off about halfway through, but P listened attentively.