Thursday

We went back to a normal day of school today.  Isaac came over first, then Elijah.  Elijah has a new way of joining me for his time...he comes in and then all is silent and stays silent till Isaac and I come downstairs and find him.  He is the best hider...he can stay so quiet and he finds a different hiding place each day.  I never know what nook or cranny he will be hiding in!  He is doing great on reading Dick and Jane books.  Today we started a new part of the big Dick and Jane book that we have been reading...a new part in this book is another Dick and Jane books and the way the books work is that the stories are very short at the beginning and then build on the words that have been introduced as you go through them.  Well, the stories had gotten quite long.  So today when we were back on short ones Elijah breezed through two stories not realizing he had read two.  When I told him, he didn't quite believe me so he checked and then decided that since they were so short that he would read another one.  So he read three stories today when he usually only reads one.  I was glad that he wanted to read more than the usual one story.  Esther is coming right along on her reader.  I brought home several books from the church library for Joy to choose from and she chose Heidi.  She didn't read today as today was her day to sew with me.  She is nearing completion on the purse that she is sewing...one that she came up with the idea for and then has designed it as she has gone along. She has learned quite a bit about both their machine and my machine and has become well accomplished at threading both machines.  Abigail is reading a Little House on the Prairie book...one that another author has written to fill in the missing years of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.  Graham is reading a biography of C.S. Lewis.  So we are into quite varied types of reading.  And, all are enjoying what they are reading...including me. At the end of their reading time (except for Graham...he wants to spend the whole time on the book that we are reading), I read a story or two to them.  Lately we have been reading fairy tales.  Today's was several versions of Little Red Riding Hood...I read one version to Elijah (I had read another version to him yesterday) and two versions to Esther and the same two versions to Abigail.  I about have those memorized if I didn't have them memorized from when I read them over and over to Melany and Nathan (as one of the versions belonged them) and also to Erin (my mother gave Erin the set of books that the other version came from) and Alex. I wonder how many books/stories Woody and I have read to our children and now our grandchildren...(and, add in for me to my Montessori students).

Woody went for his four-mile walk while I cooked our supper.  I made a modified version of our Pasta with Spinach Sauce recipe.  It turned out to be quite good and more moist than the original recipe.  We have had supper and have now settled in for the evening.  I have been reading a new book.  Woody is probably dividing  his time between the TV, reading and cross word puzzles