Back to somewhat normal.

After a week away where we did little or nothing school related I thought we would have trouble getting back into the regular schedule. It ended up being a pretty darn good week for school even with a birthday thrown in too.

We read some New Testament Stories The boys always love these and I end up reading at least three or four of the chapters a day. We are almost all done with the book so I will have to either reread it, move on, or try to read the real thing.

History - We listened to the Story of the World Chapter about India which we did last week as a review. Then we listened to the next chapter about Muhammad. Sophie and I also read the Demi book about Muhammad.
We had a great discussion about the similarities between Muhammad's experience and Joseph Smith's experience as well as some of the teachings of Islam. Having had neighbors who were Muslim (who were also good friends too) helped when we talked about Ramadan and some of the other practices. Later in the week we listened to the next chapter about the spread of Islam and read some books that take place in the Middle East. We have really enjoyed Jim Weiss's tale of the Arabian Nights. We have listed to it twice since picking up the CD at the library on Thursday. I have a few more books about Mosques and the Schlessinger video What is Islam to watch still. So the topic isn't done yet.

Awhile back I downloaded a book called Grammerland from this site. Sophie has really enjoyed reading some this each day as a review of the 9 parts of speech. I think we have covered most of them already but this is a fun way to review them. If anyone wants it, I have the PDF that I can email you. (It was a free download after all.) We have read about a chapter a day this week and have made it through about half the book. We will continue with it next week as well.

Sophie also wrote out thank you notes and addressed them to send to both Grandmas and her aunts that sent her gifts for her birthday. She was tired of writing out addresses toward the end. But she did enjoy decorating them with stickers. I hope the mailman can read them well enough to deliver them.

Science is where I really dropped the ball this week. Since we were gone last week I didn't get to do my weekly library run for books. We were supposed to start our focus on Rocks and minerals this week but since I didn't have many books on the topic we will be starting it next week. We did read a few more books about earthquakes and How mountains are made.
And we rewatched a few earth science movies that have been hanging around and needed to be returned to the library. Other than that we didn't really do anything new science related.

Math - Sophie has been doing a lot better with her Math this week. She hasn't seemed to be having trouble adding and subtracting the last few days. She is getting better about remembering to carry or borrow now. For her birthday on Thursday she requested not to have to do her Math. I relented since it was such a busy day anyway. So only 4 exercises completed this week.

Our artist this month is Winslow Homer. I love his artwork. We read through a biography about him and watched a movie that I found at the library We talked about the difference between an artist and an illustrator while looking at his different paintings. I printed out a few to put up on the wall for us to look at the next few weeks.

Our musician is still Chopin. I am giving our musicians two months instead of just one like we did last year. It is hard to give any artist or musician a fair shake in only a month and I didn't feel like we really got to know Chopin last month. I enjoy his music but can't seem to remember to read the biography I have.
So we have done little more than listen to his music while making dinner or playing blocks.

We also haven't done an Outdoor Hour Challenge for a bit. I have just felt so busy lately things seem to be slipping out of the schedule.

That seems to be a pretty good run down of what we were able to get in this busy week. There has been all sorts of games played (birthdays are good for adding new boxes to our already full game closet) and hours of fun just building and playing with knights and pirates.

Henry and Ian started Soccer and Sophie started her Ballet Class and Science Club this week. They all enjoy each of their different activities very much. But it sure keeps us hustling about.