Our “Five in a Row” book this week was “Daniel’s Duck” by Clyde Robert Bulla. It’s a nice little story about a little boy who lives in the mountains and wants to learn woodcarving. It ends sort of abruptly, and Poppy wasn’t thrilled about that. She wanted to know what happened next, so we spent a little time on Monday imagining what might have happened after the book’s end. In other “FIAR” news, we talked about how artists do what they do and about why the days are shorter in winter.

Poppy finished her handwriting book before Thanksgiving, so we’ve started doing copywork. I made several sheets for her to work on at the Zaner-Bloser web site. This week, I used lines from “Autumn Fires,” a list of our family members’ names, a quote from “Toy Story” and a line from one of her favorite songs. So far, she’s been excited in the mornings to see what the copywork sheet will be. She also memorized “Eletelphony” by Laura E. Richards this week (it’s a silly little poem), and we started reading “Betsy-Tacy” by Maud Hart Lovelace. I’d never read it before — in fact, I hadn’t ever heard of it until I was looking for chapter books for Poppy and I to read together. We read Chapter 8 on Friday, and I don’t want to hand out any spoilers here, but: I cried. On the bright side, I’ve now steeled myself against any more surprises in Lovelace’s cruel world.

What to know what other homeschoolers are doing? Here’s the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I’m linking up there, and lots of other homeschoolers have, too.