Weekly Wrap-Up: Our New Addition

This week fit right in as part of our new normal.  But I am pleased to say we handled it with aplomb, which means we juggled a few assignments around to accommodate the schedule.  I don't know if this happens at your house, but sometimes things just pop up around here, and we have to go with the flow.  Thankfully, we managed to do just that with no derailments.  So far.

On Monday, we had our normal day of lessons and then spent almost three hours at the new barn so Tiny Girl could try two saddles we had out on loan from a local tack exchange.  Here is the winner, which was, of course, the more expensive of the two.  But it was also the higher quality, so I consider it a new addition to the family.

Next Saturday is Tiny Girl's second "big" show, so she and her trainer are working hard to get her and Tappy ready.  She's going up to the short stirrups level (division? group? I dunno what it's correctly called.), which will involve some jumps, and Tiny is nervous.  So am I, but I never let on!  Consequently, we're spending a good deal of time at the barn.

On the school side of things, we are in a groove with our studies.  Bible, copywork, piano, French, spelling, Latin, poetry, geography, and math are clicking along.  The new Mind Benders book, A1, ups the ante in our logic study, and the girls have worked together on the first few puzzles until they get more comfortable.  And in science, we continued with our study of bones.  The girls can name most of the major bones of the human skeleton, but a few names, like scapula and tibia, often elude them.  I've been falling down in the fine arts arena; we've not yet studied a composer or an artist this term!

In our readings, we learned about Apollo and Daphne in Bulfinch's Age of Fable; we finished Marsha Sewall's James Towne and we marveled that the colony managed to avoid utter failure; the girls continued Heidi, which they are both reading on their own, two to three chapters per week; we discussed the heights of Caesar's ambition after reading more from Plutarch's Lives for Boys and Girls; we learned about early Canadian exploration, specifically Samuel Champlain's Quebec and Henry Hudson's Hudson Bay, in SOTW; we left Jim Hawkins in Bristol with his share of the hard-won treasure when we finished Treasure Island (a book we all enjoyed very much!); and we began Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which both girls think is slow to get going thus far.

I thought you might enjoy seeing Jasper.  Hasn't he grown?  He's now 10 months old, and he is a smiley, happy little man.  He loves to chase squirrels and chipmunks, and he shadows the girls everywhere they go.  However, I think he's suspicious of the camera.  Whenever I try to "pose" him or simply bring out the camera, period, he presents a serious countenance.  Perhaps he prefers a more mature look to his portraits.

How was your week?  For more fun reading and encouragement, pop over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and read more Wrap-Ups.