Family Schooling: Indian Summer

 We have been enjoying a beautiful extra-long Fall. The nights are cool and the days have been mid 60s and even 70s a few times. 

I heard great things about this lovely little book on Monet and we finally read it. It's a wonderful story about a little girl who goes to Paris to see his home and gardens. Big sister A and I both felt a little home sick for France while we read it.

We discussed the similarities between Monet and Renoir's impressionist style of painting.  And then we looked closely at Grandpa J's paintings to see whether they were impressionist (not at all -- his are very detailed). It was wonderful to have some real canvas paintings to look at. 

Big sister A was very proud of how hers turned out and did not want to risk water and paint brush ruining the work that she did with the water color crayons. 

We finished our science unit on Arthropods and switched back to American History. I want to go over it again with a different curriculum and make sure that it is well cemented in our minds. We are using the "History of US" series that a friend gave me.  We learned about Beringia, Eskimos, and early hunter-gatherers.  I loved the parts about how the Native Americans settled down and started farming -- potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, corn, so many of our current vegetables, were improved/tamed and cultivated in this promised land. 

The kids spent some time helping me in the garden, digging for buried treasure!

Baby A is sitting up well and getting droolier by the day. 

His sleeping habits have not improved much and I am anxious for him to start eating solid foods. Hopefully, then I can get at least 5 consecutive hours of sleep. 

He wore a church shirt for the first time last Sunday.  We were lazing around in bed since I was sick with a migraine, chills, and body aches.   I thought I might have Covid and was tested on Saturday. It took until Wednesday morning to get my test results back -- negative. By then I was already feeling a lot better. 

Big sister A captured this funny picture while she was watching baby A for me. Look at those cute chubby legs!

Miss L singing him a shark song and telling him about sharks. 

The girls had a sleepover at the cousins' house this weekend. They had a great time, but were pretty tired when they came home.  Miss L slept about 4 hours that afternoon. 

Brother M learned about campfire cooking at cub scouts. He had to plan and make his own foil dinner. 

They went on a hike near the Patapsco River.