Monday, July 29th

The kids all did an especially good job with their school on Monday, and took lots of time playing indoors and out.  Lunch, baths, and rest time took up the afternoon and then it was karate time!

I usually read Scarlett's math out loud to her, but I needed a couple of minutes with Waverly mid-chapter, and I came back to find her breezing through it on her own!  I'm not ready to hand over the reigns just yet, but I love that she was interested enough to just continue on her own.  We sure do love Life of Fred math!

After Victoria and Lincoln were finished with their lessons for the day, they took the bag of lizards and snakes manipulatives out on the porch to play for quite a while.  I think having fun and different manipulatives for the kids really grabs their attention during their lessons, and they often ask to take whatever was used that day to play with for an hour or so - sometimes they will just play with them, but they also spend a lot of time sorting, counting and adding them just for fun.

Meanwhile, Waverly was busy tackling the laundry...  ;-)  Gram sure is a big help during school time (well, ALL of the time actually...) - she is always happy to take the baby around with her for a while, especially when Waverly isn't being content to just be jiggled in my lap.

Victoria loves that in between lessons she can hop up and love on Pixie-cat :-)

We read another chapter in our "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" book for tea & story time, and afterwards the kids made rabbit masks.  I'm going to try and toss in an occasional non-drawing craft for their post-story, chapter-related artwork.

Lincoln worked diligently on his mask - he chose the black mask, and decided he wasn't going to make soft fluffy ears, but would rather put the cotton in the eye holes. 

The girls picked white masks and did really well!

Scarlett's finished mask~

Lincoln's (creepy) finished mask~

Victoria's finished mask~

What Waverly thinks of Lincoln's mask. (I agree)

Karate time!  Lincoln was SO thrilled that Janice was present.  And better yet - it was her birthday, so he gave her his rabbit mask :-)  She always is so sweet to sit and chat with him.

Janice is almost a black belt in her age range, and so she often helps Lincoln if he needs a little assistance.