Today marks day 31 without husband home. When we wake up we’ll scramble to the arrivals section of the airport. My heart sings.
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay,
My, oh my, what a wonderful day!
My marvelous husband is headin’ my way!
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!
I’m so excited! I even cleared off the counters, which at one time looked like this:
(Don’t worry. In two days it will look like this again.)
But maybe now I will have more motivation to cook. I admit that lately we’ve had way too many meals like this:
(Why are you looking at me like that? It says “no preservatives.” It also has “real cheddar cheese.” That counts for something, right?)
As far as school is concerned, our reading this week consisted of an assortment of Lewis & Clark and Davy Crockett books.
Pictured above:
- How We Crossed The West: The Adventures Of Lewis And Clark (family read aloud)
- Of Courage Undaunted (family read aloud)
- Lewis and Clark: A Prairie Dog for the President (Step into Reading) (David read aloud)
- A Picture Book of Davy Crockett (Stephen read aloud to David & Levi)
- David Crockett Creating a Legend (David read aloud to Levi)
- Davy Crockett: A Life on the Frontier (Ready-to-read) (Future read aloud for David)
- The Battle of the Alamo (Graphic History) (Has been read many times by the boys)
- Draw Write Now, Book 5: The United States, from Sea to Sea, Moving Forward (for reference)
The book we’ve enjoyed most is How We Crossed The West: The Adventures Of Lewis And Clark, which is a compilation of words actually penned by Lewis and Clark. Great excerpts and illustrations!
We started reading Of Courage Undaunted (which is not a favorite book of our boys) and read through a hodge podge of Davy Crockett books from our trip to the Alamo a few years back. Stephen also drew a Comic Illustration Page for the Louisiana Purchase using instructions from Draw Write Now, Book 5. (History sentence memory work is blanked out but was handwritten at the bottom.)
We’re still learning to play Lewis and Clark The Expedition game…
and also started using index cards for organizing the principal parts of irregular verbs.
Stephen has also been working on a fabulous interactive (Early 19th Century) Homeschool in the Woods study, which includes a timeline, copywork, games, and handicrafts, and covers events & people during the early 1800s, such as the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, America’s First Twelve Presidents, Statehoods up to 1850, Native Americans, The Mexican-American War, Trails West, and Slavery.
I guess I don’t have much else to talk about that’s new in our homeschooling days. We continue to use the same things over and over again. And we read a bunch of books. It doesn’t sound exciting, but it fits us well!
In other news, we experienced a couple of somewhat unplanned events this week.
A group of folks from the county’s adult leadership team came to visit our homeschool. (A wonderful lady from our church sweetly asked if they could come to see what homeschooling is like.) I was thinking maybe about five people total… but as the shuttle bus pulled up our driveway, I realized I was mistaken. Not only that, but would you like to know what I was thinking when the sheriff walked through the door? Whew. I had no idea that the sheriff was part of the adult leadership team! Immediately, David ran off to find his handcuffs to wear around the house. In fact, the three boys acted like… their normal selves (aside from sibling rivalry; they were too excited to even think about arguing, thank goodness!). Coward that I am, I kind of hid behind Isaac the whole time.
Believe it or not, I survived. God’s grace and mercies are new every day. Especially on days like that one.
They’ve asked to come back again next year. And, of course, I said yes. (What’s wrong with me?!?)
Over the weekend, we also had a special American Revolution shindig at the courthouse called William Walton Days: A Pioneer Celebration.
The boys learned from various colonial craftsmen, and then Stephen performed part of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!” speech. He did extraordinarily well for not practicing much. (We didn’t know about this event until two days prior. )
As far as Isaac is concerned, he’s growing incredibly fast! He is now wearing 18-month onesies, and he isn’t even four months old yet! I try to tell him to not be in such a rush to grow up. He just won’t listen to me! 🙂
That about wraps up this week. Now it’s time to snooze a bit before we’re off to the airport! Oh, happy day!