Time Flies when.....

The week really did seem to fly by. We stayed at Grandma's an extra day so maybe that had something to do with it. It was a short week. Plus my husband was home all week. He was sick with bronchitis and the doctor told him he shouldn't go to work and spread the infection. So instead he stayed home and shared it with us. We didn't get it too bad. Just a lot of coughs and sneezes. It isn't too bad a sickness so it didn't really slow us down any.

We did try to get some school in even though Dad was home. He mostly just stayed in bed and slept anyway. So we still did most of the normal stuff. We still went out on our Nature Walk and did our Green hour Challenge. Sophie now points out any tulips she sees while we drive around.

We also still went on our hike with friends. Hopefully we didn't spread any germs since we were outside in nature.

I have been looking in our field guide to find out what these flowers are but still have yet to find them. Any ideas?

Here are some pretty blue ones as well. They aren't in my book either.

And this week at the park we brought our kite. Sophie tried really hard to fly it.
The kid took turns running it around and getting it up a little. I just don't think there was enough wind. But they really wanted to fly it since kites were first invented in China, and China is what we have been reading about this week. We have learned all about the Great Wall of China, the Terra Cotta Army and the first emperor. We really liked the booksYou wouldn't want to work on the Great Wall of China , Ms Frizzles Adventures: Imperial China, and Adventures in Ancient China. We have also read a number of Chinese tales, but I can't say the kids loved them. We also made paper lanterns. Sophie remembered us making them when we rowed The Story of Ping for FIAR. That was the first book we rowed about 2 years ago. She has a good memory. She also has never forgotten that the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers are in China either.

We also decided it was high time we got to planting a garden. The yard in our house has a big pine tree so the ground isn't really good to grow things in. We are sad since we had such a great garden in our last home. We even grew pumpkins. But we had to settle for a little tub garden and keep it to tomatoes and cucumbers.

Sophie planted some bulbs in the front two little tubs. We got the bulbs at the dollar store. After talking about bulbs earlier in this week she decided she really needed to try some. We will see if they work.

We also got a few strawberry plants.
There is only a few plants so I am not expecting very many strawberries but I just want to kids to watch them grow and then get to pick and eat some. They are going to be one of the plants we study next week.

Sorry all my pictures are of outside. Many people have commented on how beautiful the flowers are and how green it is here. There are some benefits to living in California. Weather is about the only one I can think of. We did spend a bit of time indoors doing "seat work" as Sophie now calls it. She got the term from Ramona Quimby. We started reading Ramona the Pest as our night time book.
Sophie did some math and of course her penmanship. She also did endless drawings. She is always drawing.
We have all sorts of pictures of birds, flowers, the great wall, and mythical creatures. She really is quite an artist.

We also played a few games and read a lot of books. The boys never get tired of Curious George, Berenstain Bears, or Magic School bus books. I personally wouldn't mind reading a few of the other books we have on the shelf but.....