Weekly Review

This week was much easier than last week. No one had a fever or was throwing up, and my tooth stopped hurting. It's amazing how much those physical pains expose our weaknesses. Now that things are a bit back to "normal", I'll have to remind myself to still come to God for strength daily and hourly. Even though I physically feel strong now, it is God's sustaining Grace that gets me through. How easily I forget, when I'm back on my feet. The sermon that was preached this morning was such a good reminder of God's amazing grace for when I'm sick or well.

We were able to tackle quite a bit more school work since everyone was up to par.

Evan grappled with long division this week. It has been encouraging to see him gain speed and accuracy with addition, subtraction and multiplication. We went back to drilling with flash cards this year and that seems to be a help.

Evan has really taken off with his baking. He even asked if he could do his school work on Saturday so he'd be freed up to do more baking on Thursday. He has been selling bread to other homeschool families that we meet with on Fridays. He got half of his work done. Sometimes his start is better than his finish, so we're working on that character trait with him!

Amy is enjoying cursive handwriting. We use Italic so it's a bit different than traditional cursive. She is also a great speller! We are just about done with Modern Curricular Press Spelling workout B (which Evan hated but she loves) and then I'll have her start IEW's Phonetic Zoo spelling program.

Someone had suggested saving those credit card, magazine etc. applications and having your kids use them as practice for handwriting, learning their address, and filling out job applications later on. Amy filled out one for Sierra Trading Post this week. It was great practice for her and I realized she still didn't quite know what town we lived in! She guessed the town we go to church in instead. There were two spots to fill out so she got double the practice. Next week I'll try to find one for Evan.

Emily asked several times this week to cut. She is really getting the hang of scissors. We also worked on tracing and letters.

For our Bible curriculum we are using Nancy Ganz's commentary on Genesis in the "Herein Is Love" series. It has been a challenge for Emily to sit still and not interrupt while I read. But she is learning quite a bit too. She has been asking all week, "Jesus made bananas? Jesus made my kitty cat? Jesus made my big girl bed?" She is also very curious about angels now.

One of the other subjects that Evan and Amy do together is Latin. This only works when Emily is taking a nap or going for a walk with dad. This week we learned more about conjugating verbs and declining nouns. Evan is really getting it this year. Amy is having a harder time, but it is her first year. She however, loves learning the songs and prayers.

On Thursday we got to go to a Harvest Party with a homeschool group that we used to be a part of three years ago. We had such a fun time visiting. The kids had sack races, played tug of war, and bobbed for apples. Then we had dinner on my friends porch overlooking the valley as the sun set. I wish I had taken some pictures, but it seems these days my hands are always busy taking care of Emily!