Starting Back

We did a little math on Monday. Just got everything put away from breakfast and grabbed the math book. It wasn't so bad--I gave Harry a couple of review pages to work on just to get him started. I think we'll try to do some review every day for a week or so and then get back into the new info.

It wasn't my intention to take such a long break, it kind of just happened and I think I need to get back into the swing of things kind of slowly.

20 July

Harry says he doesn't like picture books anymore--he's too old. Sure, little boy hanging on my knee engrossed in the pictures. Much too old.

Read Picasso and the Girl with the Ponytail to H&S. Mostly to Harry while Sam sat at the other side of the table drawing great white sharks. Annika also there--eating crayons. I'm aghast--not the crayons, you just don't do that to perfectly innocent crayolas. When I get the good crayons, I'm hiding them from her.

Looked up Picasso in another art book we have. Funny picture of him with bread hands--Harry was a bit disturbed by it. Went to the computer, but we'll have to finish in a while. Remember Usborne Quicklinks, Children's Book of Art, pages 44-45. All about Picasso.

Must get Annika dressed and get to the library before she is too tired and will fall asleep in the car. I need a nap today too!

under construction

Pardon me while I mess around a bit with this template. Hopefully I'll finish soon, before I have anything real to say!

A Morning Spent in Scotland

We are reading Little House in the Highlands by Melissa Wiley. It is historical fiction written about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Great Grandmother who grew up in Scotland. At first I thought it blasphemy to try to write novels about LIW's family, but I love the books. They are incredibly descriptive as far as life in Scotland at the end of the 18th century and just fun to read. Plus the boys really like them.

So this morning we had porridge and cream because that is what Martha had for breakfast every morning in her nursery with her brothers and sister. Harry pretended to be Martha's brother Robbie and Sam Duncan, another of her brothers. Annika got to be Martha, although I'm pretty sure Martha never dropped most of her porridge down her dress--maybe she did at almost two. While they ate their breakfasts I read a chapter that described the tenant farmers' cottages, so now I'm trying to find a picture of what one might have looked like. Not that easy, really.

I have this sneaking feeling that we will be incorporating more and more Scotland into our summer--mostly food, probably. But we'll do more than that as the little people in our home want to. It's just fun.

This morning

We're reading Pagoo--a really wonderful book about a hermit crab growing up in a tide pool. It's full of a lot of information about tide pools and the animals that live there. What's more is that the kids really like the book and it's sparking an interest in tide pools. Which, for where we live is pretty good.

This led to looking at other animals in tide pools, trying to figure out how the tides work (I knew it had something to do with the moon, just not exactly how), and inexplicably, looking up how fireworks work.

All in about 30 minutes. (this was actually yesterday morning)