Week in Review: It's Summer Vacation, Right?

This week was VBS. The theme was Surf Shack. I volunteered and was assigned the Story Deck, so I got to tell Bible stories that had to do with water, teach the kids memory verses and sign language, do a variety of activities, and pass out stickers for the kids to put on their foam surfboards. (Plus, I got some quiet time between classes to read. I'm working on Seven Myths of Education by Daisy Christodoulou and A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes. Both are excellent.)

Gemma had fun rotating through the stations, making crafts, eating snacks, playing games, singing songs, and playing in the sandbox.

Reading-wise, we read some of Prince Caspian, and some more of Little House in the Big Woods. We read the chapter titled "Sundays." I had a good time reading it aloud. (Lots of people think the Little House books are not for boys - because the main character is a girl - but this chapter is about boys, and it's very funny.)

We are slowly reading Training Hearts, Teaching Minds to learn the Westminster Shorter Catechism. We're currently on question 4.

Gemma has been reading aloud to me both Pippi Longstocking and The Magic Tree House: Leprechaun in Late Winter. The public library's summer reading program awards prizes for every five hours of reading, and Gemma just earned her first prize - a finger soccer game.

While we were at the library, she took a ukulele lesson as part of the library's How-To Festival.

We have also been reading Life of Fred: Edgewood. We've backed off of Mathematical Reasoning - which I love - and have been using Fred as our primary math curriculum for the past couple of months. (If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought using LOF as a primary curriculum would work, I would have said, "You're kidding, right?" But now, I'm doing it, and Mathematical Reasoning is our supplement.) Fred taught Gemma to add multi-digit numbers with carrying (or regrouping, which is what I have to call it at work, when I have to speak teacherese). She totally gets it. I <3 Fred.

We also did a couple of Duolingo Spanish lessons about adjectives, had a private swim lesson focusing on ice cream scoop hands, practiced piano for 15 minutes each day, hosted our home(pre)school co-op lesson about simple electrical circuits, and went shopping for new shoes.

It's summer vacation, right?