We are getting ready to take an end-of-summer trip next week.  We get to visit the boys' big brothers and sister in Oregon!  It means we have lots to do, as we prepare to be gone for a bit and leave the animals to be cared for by a friend.  We did manage to get our schoolwork done this week though . . . here's a bit of the fun and learning that went on this week:

We read lots of great books this week, in addition to our progress through Farmer Boy.  One book Caleb loved was called You Read To Me, I'll Read To You.  It has silly rhymes that two characters from popular fairy tales say as they converse back and forth.  The idea is that two people each read a part, so Caleb and I read them together.  He really enjoyed them and wanted to make up his own similar story (of two characters talking back and forth).

Smiley practiced writing the letters he knows, and also learned the letter G.  We played some fun games that give him practice identifying letters.  One game he really liked was "fishing" for letters.  Using a homemade magnetic fishing pole, he picked up "fishies" (letters) and had to name them and then put them in order.  Caleb did a similar game, picking up numbers and having to add them together.

Caleb learned multiple-digit addition this week.  He caught on quickly and by the end of the week was adding numbers in his head.

We are continuing to learn about legends and how different cultures pass down stories from generation to generation.  This week the boys heard legends from Ireland.  We also read a terrific book called A Port Through Time.  It is filled with amazingly detailed pictures of the same port and how it has changed over thousands of years.  The boys loved finding the pages that showed the period that the Irish legends were from, and also the page that would be during the life of Robin Hood (the household's current favorite hero).

Caleb practiced writing with consonant blends and worked in his handwriting book.

We are studying cycles in nature.  Caleb made a chart that he is going to use to record the changes of the big tree in our front pasture.  Smiley drew the big tree as it looks now at the end of summer, full of green leaves but surrounded in browned grass.

When the kids spent a day at Greenwood Institute d'Art this week, they visited a woodworkers studio and got to see  furniture and other beautiful pieces of art that were made from wood.  The artist was making small looms out of wood.  The boys learned how to weave on the looms, both bringing home beautiful samples of their art.

We also played games like memory and cards, the kids constructed letters out of dough that we baked into bread sticks, they flew kites, swam at the river on the hottest days, read poems, drew pictures (the bottom two show some of Smiley's pictures and designs), and lots more!