Weekly Happenings: Testing, One, Two

It's been an atypical week here! We set aside most of our regular subjects while Miss Priss endured the CAT5 for sixth grade and Tiny Girl suffered from test envy. To stay on schedule, we continued with our readings after testing for that day was complete.

Readings this week:

• Oliver Twist: read through chapter five. Still a favorite.
• George Washington Carver, by Suzanne M. Coil: read through chapter four. Tiny Girl especially is connecting with this book, which pleases her mama.
• Lilias Trotter: A Passion for the Impossible: read through chapter three. Miss Priss loves this!
• Story Book of Science: read the chapters "Rain" and "Volcanoes."
• Abraham Lincoln's World: problems cropping up around the world, e.g., Ireland's potato famine, Canada's dissatisfaction with the mother country, working-class rebellions.
• This Country of Ours: the battles of Shiloh (in Tennessee -- I visited the battleground when I was a child) and New Orleans; the importance of control of the river system.
• Mapping the World: a new geography resource. Read my review here.
• "Brutus," from Plutarch's Lives: Caesar's assasination. Both girls thought there should have been a better way to handle Caesar's thirst for power than murdering him.
• Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar: we finished our readings for the term.

In other activities, Miss Priss had a fabulous time at her first junior docent meeting at a local antebellum house museum. Tiny Girl has been working hard with the new pony, Max. I've implemented a new schedule for writing and life. The girls and I greatly enjoyed Miss Priss's theatre company's high school drama troupe's production of Seussical. The kids did a wonderful job. The girls and I planted morning glory seeds, carrots and corn, lamb's ear, and basil (potted).

Yesterday, Tiny Girl and I had an up-close interaction with a baby squirrel at the barn. The mother died (drowned in the horses' water trough) and left several babies. We are giving them food and water and hoping for their survival, but it's going to be tough for the little guys.

Jasper and Georgette, our delightful and much-loved corgis, are shedding their undercoats. We've witnessed birds carrying in their beaks tufts of dog fur for their nests. I had to smile while watching a tufted titmouse struggle with a particularly large clump; she managed it in the end!

I'm linking up with I'm linking up with the Homeschool Mother's Journal and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. If you're looking for some inspiration and ideas, you're sure to find both on other linked-up blogs!

Happy weekend!