Chapter 26 or France and England At War was a great chapter about the Hundred Years’ War. The kids loved the idea that a baby became a king. A king in diapers was such a funny and silly concept, they brought it up over and over.
Joan of Arc paper dolls
There were lots of crafts we could have done. I chose the Joan of Arc paper dolls and skipped the coloring page. There was a lot of coloring for the paper dolls. I was impressed that, for some reason, my kids did not shy away from cutting and pasting. They used to avoid glue projects like the plague. I guess we are growing and changing ever so steadily.
The questions were answered quite well, though not perfect and not without help. And then, I dared ask my son to narrate the stories to me. There were two of them. He did a good job, actually. I think my hesitation in asking for narration is more in my head than in his.
I need to start narration consistently. Susan Wise Bauer even recommends that the parent write down the child’s narration unless the child is a strong writer. At this point, I would prefer to write it down myself, just to encourage him to narrate. Also, again, I am the impatient one. I don’t want to make him sit through a 15-minute writing session. But maybe I should.
Hmmm…. First things first. Maybe next year he can write down the narrations for himself. Note to self.
At this point we have 16 chapters left in the textbook. I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. With summer camp season starting, at least for us, I will only focus on history for the next five weeks. We should be able to get it done before August rolls around.
I told them we are taking a summer break from school and they were very happy. But what that means is that we still read a lot, do our devotional, play our instruments, even take a few violin and piano lessons here and there, finish up the history curriculum, and attend these summer camps: string camp, soccer camp, princess camp (my daughter only) and Adventure Camp (my son only).
