A Week, Briefly (May 9, 2022)

Such a lot of free time these days!

This first full week of our summer schedule was a joyful success.  Everyone happily looked forward to the activity of the day and was terribly cooperative while it happened.

It looks like he's reading, but it was only a 2 second pause in his running and leaping!

Because of psych appointments, we switched our park and library days, but that means we ended up at the library with half a dozen babies in tow.  Even that might have been fine, but Little Mister Frog had a bee in his bonnet, and he just ran and ran.  He inspired the rest of our babies to do the same, so we corralled them in one of the new community rooms and allowed them to bounce off the walls in there while we took turns watching them and searching for books.

The boys each found a Lego book, and the rest of the week was spent poring over them, making plans for their Sunday Lego-palooza.

The park outing was short and sweet (those psych appointments!), and we had lots of fun in the sticky heat.

For art I simply laid out paper, a variety of paints and chalks, and turned the kids loose.

Some of them produced a dozen pictures, while the babies had sensory experiences, and other kids worked long and hard at a single project.

Note for next week: Allot more time--maybe after lunch.

We finished Jenny and the Cat Club and started Mary Poppins.  We have a few nap/lunch tweaks to work out on this new schedule. I was only able to read 3 times this week.

We're continuing to make progress in Augustus Caesar's World.  It's not a novel, which the kids prefer, but as we're reaching the halfway point, I'm seeing increased interest and lots of questions that we have to stop reading to research.  Last night's questions were about Roman wedding traditions.  Other nights I looked up "fasces," several Latin phrases, and the relationship between "druid" and "dryad."

Mister Man begged, "For our next book, can we read something really good about Romulus and Remus!??" 

The passion has been lighted.

Temperatures have crossed the 90 degree mark all week long, so the kids have flooded the sandbox, filled the wading pools, built dams in the creek, and turned our porch into a mud kitchen every day.  

And then one day Belle found a Box turtle on her walk, so she brought it home for a visit.

Belle carefully let the kids examine the turtle in several places, she answered their questions, and she helped then see a few things that might have otherwise been missed.  It was a glorious half hour of science!

She took the turtle back to the area in which she found it, tucking it safely into the woods far enough from our home that our kids couldn't immediately find it and "study" without supervision.

In addition to working on her pencil sketches, Nature Angel is also learning to play the guitar.  Her fingers are quite tender from so much practicing, and she looks forward to the calluses that will eventually form, making practice more comfortable.

The coming week includes a camping trip for us all . . . I'm more than just a little bit nervous!!