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by Christina Rosetti

Hurt no living thing:

Ladybug nor butterly

Nor moth with dusty wing,

Nor crickets chirping cheerily,

Nor grasshopper so light of leap,

Nor dancing gnat nor beetle fat,

Nor harmless worms that creep.

We memorized this poem this week in place of a scripture. It went along well with Nature Wednesday's theme: BUGS
After reading about them I sent the girls off with whatever bug collecting tools they could find: tweezers, jars, magnifying glass and --safety goggles? That was Brynn's idea.

The "pest control guy" came to spray that afternoon (I've seen way to many black widows lurking about). I realize writing this how much that is in stark contrast to above poem....

Anyway, turned out to be a perfect day for the girls to hunt. The bugs came out of their creeping places by the dozens to die...and be collected as specimens. Beetles, crickets, a praying mantis, and a (ackkk!!!) black widow were found--to the delight of the kids. This project may be ongoing all summer long.

For literature this week we read some of Aesop's fables and one of our favorite books, Sam, Bangs and Moonshine. Brynn and Adrie both finished a unit of math, earning them a prize from the prize-jar. We worked on spelling and handwriting and reading aloud.

Today was Art and Cleaning Day...It is 3pm and Brynn still hasn't mustered up the will-power to finish cleaning the bathrooms...

A couple of neighborhood girls joined us for today's Art project: paper houses. The Little Hands Art Book by Judy Press has tons of cute ideas like this one.

Before starting I introduced the girls to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and we listened to it while the girls worked on their projects. They chose a couple sheets of construction paper. One of them they used to cut out the shape of their house. Then they cut out windows and doors and garages and placed them on the 2nd sheet of paper as background.

We talked about different kinds of houses people live in and we practiced knowing our home address. One girl chose to make an apartment, the rest made little replicas of their own house. They scoured magazines, ads, and newspapers and cut out faces, pets, etc. to paste in the windows and make their homes look "lived in."