August 5-11, 2012

First things first.  Our little Henry turned five this week.  I look at his birth announcement picture and compare it to him now and I'm amazed.

Henry had a grand old time this year.  We thought about doing a party, but we were pretty much exhausted by the previous month.  Instead, Matt and I took Henry out solo for a special birthday eve.  We went to his favorite Japanese restaurant for dinner, then to the movies to see Brave.  He loved every minute of it.

On his actual birthday, we had pizza and cake and, of course, presents.  Now, I promised not to be the homeschooling mom who turns every gift-giving occasion into an educational opportunity.  But.  A couple of months ago, I came across a homeschooling forum post alerting us all to a fantastic sale on the Ancient Egypt bundle from Playmobil.  Yes, we're going to start our Ancients history lessons sometime this year, but they're still really cool toys all on their own.  So, I bought it and stuck it away until Friday.

 Wrapped and ready.

 Blowing out the candles. (He requested chocolate frosting with green sugar sprinkles.  Okay, kid.)

 Two Robbers with Camels.

 Egyptian Soldiers.

 Egyptian Chariot.

 Sphinx with Mummy.

 Tomb with Treasure.

 One of our friends got him this book off of his Ancients reading list.

The verdict?  He immediately requested to put together at least one of the sets (it was getting close to bath time) and he, Matt, and Jane went to town.  Oliver commandeered another gift (Roger the Shuttle from Mater's Tall Tales) as his own and is in the background zooming around with it.  I couldn't get a picture that wasn't blurry.

Now, Henry is a tad obsessed with all things Egyptian.  That night, he set up a bed for himself in a pack'n'play so that he could be a mummy in its sarcophagus.  He fell asleep with his Great Pyramid book next to him in the sarcophagus.  Yesterday, we put together the rest of the sets and he's been playing with them ever since.

Success!

Oliver had a great week, too.  His first week of therapy went very, very well.  He's all smiles when I've dropped him off and he's smiling when I pick him up.  I take that as a good sign.

What Henry did this week:

• Saxon Math 1: Lessons 17-20 (writing the number 16, identifying the season-summer; writing the number 17, dividing a solid in half; writing the number 18, picturing and combining sets, graphing a picture on a pictograph; Written Assessment 3 and Oral Assessment 2)
• The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading: Lessons 68-73 (words with the long-e vowel sound, words with the long-i vowel sound, sight word 'give,' words with the long-o vowel sound, words with the long-u vowel sound)
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Kindergarten: Pages 58-68 (c, Ee, Ff, CEF review, uppercase letters, Gg, Jj)

 This week, I started doing some more targeted work with Jane also.  Our current theme is the color red, so we did lots of painting and coloring with red and also a lot of searching for red things in our house.  She's enjoying herself!