The weather is beginning to change here in the mountains; we had our first light frost this week.  With the weather getting cooler outside, it means we spend more of our time indoors.  It's alright though, because we listened to lots of stories on CD and when we weren't listening to stories we were listening to music, that often went along with our school lessons.  Here's a bit of the fun and learning that went on this week:

Caleb learned addition with carrying.  He loves that he can add such big numbers now!

Smiley practiced letters and learned the letter I.  We talked about the sounds "I" makes and the word "I".  In his notebook, he added a face to the letter I, making it into a person.  His picture is of himself: "I am riding a skateboard with my brother" he explained. 

The kids love the Celtic legends we are reading.  Caleb often writes paragraphs and draws pictures about the stories we hear.  We also have been listening to fun Celtic music, the favorite being a spooky Celtic song from Putumayo's World Playground CD.  The legends and stories we have been reading together have been from a long ago time, before the writing instruments of today, so the kids made their own ink and experienced writing with homemade ink and feathers.

  
Caleb worked in his handwriting book and practiced consonant blends.  We are continuing to read poems from a variety of books and we also make up our own poems and rhymes.

We had our first fall frost this week and we went out early in the morning to see the frost and the other changes of the season, checking on our pumpkins and seeing if the tomatoes survived (they did).  Caleb charted in his science book.  Smiley did pictures in his nature book, including one of his special nature spot, the newly discovered tunnel under the apple tree. 

Smiley has been learning about the primary colors and we did fun experiments with color.  The kids mixed and made colors, made colored crystals, and observed the cool different reactions when the color tabs mixed with different mediums (soap, milk, water).

The kids listened to the 2nd book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.  They also picked up lots of Halloween-themed books at the library, and a CD of fun, spooky short stories.  So, as usual, there was lots of reading this week; the kids also went bike-riding, played board games, practiced hand-sewing and did other art projects, made bagels, played with magnets, and lots more!