We are using a curriculum called Writing Tales this year. Piper takes a story, Aesop so far, and rewrites it in her own words. We edit and correct grammar and spelling. Then she gets to embellish the story. Here is her second go at The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.

A blue dragon named Pearl lived in the country. The cousin of Pearl was a town dragon named Halloween because he was orange and was a boy dragon. Halloween came to the house of Pearl. She gave him a simple meal. He did not like it!

Moral: Simple food in peace is better than fancy food disturbed.

Piper grew her tallest ever cornstalks this year. We even harvested a few small, but edible ears of corn. We just don’t grow enough to get good pollination so we really just grow them because she thinks they’re fun. As always, they are now adorning our light pole out front.

Piper and I do a casual afternoon tea on Tuesdays, but since we are studying England we thought we would do something more more elaborate this week. Piper is starting to show an interest in cooking and made the cookies with only a little help from Mom. They Rock Cakes from the Redwall Cookbook. The rest of the menu includes cashew dip and cinnamon tortilla crisps, hummus and crackers, and a salad with carrot from our garden. Piper also did a fine job beautifying the table.

Yeah! The painters finished today and there was much rejoicing. I’ll try to get a picture where the entire front of the house isn’t in the shade, but you can kind of get the idea. It really does look a ton better.