Weekly Wrap-Up: Knights Edition

What do knights, aquifers, and auto body shops have in common? A Monday at our house!

Since we've finally gotten to the part of the Middle Ages that we've been looking forward to, we've decided to slow down and take our time. This week, we focused on knights and castles. Brianna has been reading Men of Iron on her own and we've all enjoyed several quick, easy reads together. One of the best books we read about knights this week was Knights by Catherine Daly-Weir. It's just a little Level 2 All Aboard Reading book, but it was packed with detailed, easy-to-understand facts about knights -- from the steps to becoming one to detailed, labeled drawings of their armor and weapons.

On Thursday, we made shields, which, by the late Middle Ages were more for identifying individual knights than for protection. I started to cut out template for full-sized shields, but I decided that might prove to be a bit much. Besides, I thought the kids might enjoy the smaller ones for their kids (a.k.a. stuffed animals, but around here you refer to them as kids unless you wanted to be corrected in a very long-suffering tone of voice). I was right; they really enjoyed making them. I'll post more details about the shields sometime in the next few days.

Science has been a little iffy this week. We learned about aquifers, which are layers of rocks, soil, and sand that contain water. It was a difficult concept to understand and I had hoped to help it make more sense by doing the hands-on project in Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space, but I couldn't find the aquarium gravel and sand that I know I have around here somewhere.

Well, actually, I think I remember using the last of the sand for our sand dough, but I'm pretty sure I saved the aquarium gravel. I just haven't been able to find it. So, there you go: no "Stepford wife" blogging for this blogger. Sometimes, I just don't get it together to follow through with my plans.

I received an email today with a word of wisdom from author, Joyce Herzog, that really lifted my spirits and I thought it might inspire some of you, too. I had emailed her saying that some days I really felt like Josh was making remarkable progress with his reading, while other days, it seemed that he'd forgotten everything he knows. She assured me that this was normal, then she told me this:

Think of the PEAK days as a PEEK to where he ALMOST is, rather than thinking of the valley days as a frustration.

Wow! I needed to hear that. It really helped put things into perspective because, if he's got it sometimes, it's in there all the time and it won't be long before it sticks.

And, of course, we learned about a state for our Fifty State Fridays today: Florida. I failed to pick up a library book about Florida, but we've actually visited there many times, so we reviewed a lot of what we already know about Florida, like the fact that America's oldest city, St. Augustine, is there. We also learned that Florida holds the Guiness Book of World Records record for largest strawberry shortcake, so we're enjoying strawberry shortcake for dessert tonight. Yum!

I did have two personal highlights for the week. One was on Monday, when I finally got to go pick my van up. I had taken the supplies for cleaning up the inside with the intent to stop by the car wash on the way home. When we got there, they had washed it already. Then, I opened it up and they had completely detailed the inside! It was cleaner than I would have gotten it. They even found a Nintendo DS game that had been missing for about a year!

So, apparently, all you have to do to get your van detailed is have a wreck. While I appreciate the wonderful job the auto body shop did, I think I'll just stick to cleaning it up myself from now on.

The other highlight was Tuesday, when the UPS man delivered this:

It's Susan Wise Bauer's new writing program! The small, hardback book is the teacher's book that covers levels 1-4. The larger book is the student book. There is one student book for each level. I received Level 1. I can't wait to get started using it and review it for you!

That pretty much wraps-up our week. How was your week? Be sure to post about it and sign up with Mr. Linky. If this is your first time to join us, be sure to read the Weekly Wrap-Up guidelines.

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