Week of 03 March

Our week has been fairly light. We've kept up with reading lessons, but otherwise we've just played and had fun.

Phonics:

Abby has officially completed 100 lessons of the 120 lessons of Funnix Beginning Reading. We should be done with it completely in about two weeks. Tonight she is choosing to stay up in her bed and read (and actually reading/sounding out!) board books.

Emmett chose to have some reading lesson this week. He is still only three so we go really slowly and let him slack if he or I feel like it. Today, though, he asked for a reading lesson, so I actually set him up to do the first lesson from Funnix Beginning Reading.

The kids love to draw and write stories. Abby chose to draw the new baby (Hyrum) a picture. It says "Hyrum, this is for you." I think doing some spelling work after we finish Funnix might be a good idea. :)

Life:

The biggest thing is that we've been trying out what we would think about keeping him. He's a 4-month-old boxer puppy...and as much as we'd like to keep him, we really don't have the space to keep a dog at this point. We'll probably be taking him back to his owner tomorrow. We've just told the kids we are watching him. He sure has been fun to have around! The kids like sharing their food. They love playing fetch with him. If he stayed this size forever, we'd keep him definitely.

Our zoo finally also got our elephants back so we went to the opening of their new exhibit! They've been gone for about 18 months to Tulsa to be impregnated. On the morning of the event, we discussed how elephants are mammals and carry their babies in their tummies like Mommy does. Then we talked about other ways baby animals grow. We discussed how baby birds grow in eggs, but kangaroo babies grow in pouches. Then Abby told me that when I'm ready go have Hyrum, that he I would be as big as an elephant.

Swim:

We ended the session this past week. Abby and Emmett have both been advanced to the advanced class for next session. This class has a different teacher and really seems to focus on endurance capabilities. It is also for older kids (6+). We'll see how well they do. There is at least one other girl that is under 6 in the class, so ours won't be the only ones.

Mom and Dad:

We took our second test in our Developmental Psychology course this past week. Daddy and I didn't feel as comfortable after this exam after we did the first, not because we weren't prepared...mostly because the study guide of what was going to be on the exam didn't cover everything. What a bummer!

Daddy needs to finish up a section on our Oklahoma state senators for his federal government class. He hates writing assignments, so I think he's been putting it off...

This week in my European history class we have been talking about World War One and its root causes. I think it's so interesting how little people actually know about the first world war. Reading the discussions, it seemed like half of my class believed that half of my class believed that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was the only reason that war broke out. Many were unaware of the military alliances that had been formed beforehand that pulled nearly the entire continent into the war so quickly. While I AM a history major, I don't consider history my favorite or strongest subject (that would be math). I'm a history major for the benefit of it being mostly online. Still, I'm amazed at the ignorance a lot of my classmates seem to have for history. It does not bode well for our country or world with this type of ignorance running rampant.