This week...

Monday: Both kids went to C.O.'s enrichment class, as they were hosting a Halloween/fall party. They got to wear their costumes and do all kinds of fun crafts - C.O. made a flower arrangement in a hollowed out mini pumpkin that was really lovely. He has a good eye for color and shape. They also made leaves out of colored tissue paper, and paper-lunch-bag creatures. C.J. started her new gymnastics class, and she really enjoyed it! During the recreational classes she was trying out, the gym was empty and there was always cutesy music going. This time, the gym was full of girls of all ages, practicing, no saccharin music. C.J.'s teacher seemed a little more focused on the kids too than her rec teacher. C.O. still says he'd like to try it, so when soccer ends in a couple of weeks, we'll sign him up for a month to see how he likes it! For school stuff, we worked on vowel sounds, some handwriting practice, math, and read "Johnny Appleseed".
 
Tuesday: HALLOWEEN!!!
C.O. was Buzz Lightyear and C.J. was a rag doll (Almost but not quite Raggedy Ann, though that's who she said she was). Soccer practice was canceled for the day, and we just read a couple of Halloween stories for "school". We had a great day though! We visited relatives in costume (I was Medusa and M was a zombie), went trick-or-treating (well, the kids did), and just had fun.
 
Wednesday: After C.O.'s enrichment class, and my meeting with his teacher, we ran some various errands, then headed off to the Environmental Discovery Center, which turned out to be pretty cool! After C.J. threw a few fits because I wouldn't let her climb on rocks and hurt herself, we had fun. C.J. played with Cassia, jennyberm's dd (they are just adorable together), then we went inside and looked at the tide pool table, decorated paper koi, checked out all the taxidermied animals (for some reason C.J. was fascinated by the skunk), played with animal puppets, and C.O. got a big kick out of playing in the indoor "tree" fort. My kids really like the homeschool group kids, and they liked the Center. I wish we had skipped the errands and gotten there earlier though! I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable around the other moms too, though C.J.'s tantrum was pretty embarrassing! At home C.O. read the next book in his readers series. He's getting pretty good at it! Still has to sound out a lot of things, but that is fine with me. We did some math and a couple of pages in Maps, Graphs, Globes, before I headed off to class for the evening.
 
Thursday: Soccer practice was canceled due to rain. The kids played outside for quite a while in their rain gear, and came in sopping wet and muddy from puddles, so off they went into a bath, and pajamas. We had a cosy evening at home - read a few stories from James Herriot's Animal Treasury for Children, did some math, practiced writing words from signs (like "Men", "pull", "bump", etc.) from HWOT, and practiced with the reader.
 
Today: We went to the library - this seems to be becoming a regular Friday afternoon activity. The kids played while I picked up a bunch of books I had put on hold - this is easier than searching for books while watching those two! I also came across a flyer for a live performance of the story of Johnny Appleseed on November 14th at our local library, and it's free! The kids are very excited since we just read this. After that we dropped by my mom's for a while to visit, then came home. We counted seeds from apples the kids ate yesterday for Saxon math lesson 19, checked on our celery stalk science experiment (capillary action), which we had to redo because we had it on the table, and the cat knocked it all over. Then we worked on two pages of HWOT, and the letter "U" from HM Phonics, plus C.O. read his second reader again. C.J. is learning to color inside the lines beautifully - she is very careful and deliberate when coloring. I hope to read another story or two to them before bedtime. Right now they are watching "Charlotte's Web" with utter fascination - they've really enjoyed farm/animal studies so far.