This Week's Feasts and Festivals

This Week’s Feasts and Festivals:

Monday, March 31: Haydn’s Birthday

Tuesday, April 1: April Fool’s Day

Wednesday, April 2: Hans Christian Anderson’s Birthday

Science Stuff

My last post for the day, I promise!

Science is something we don't really get a whole lot of here. I mean, we experience nature every day and we hit on science in other subjects, but it isn't something I've been intentional about. But now, we have a little Science Station on the landing:





I've also enrolled the kids in The Young Scientist Club. This month we've been focusing on ecology, recycling, and composting. We finished our first experiment today, in which we buried plastic, cabbage, and potato peels in soil to see what would happen.

Scranimals

This week we're participating in a Kids' Writing Workshop over on MDC based on Jack Prelutsky's book Scranimals.

This first one is Katie Grace's (age 6). It's a Piggolo, a combination of pig and piccolo.

The piggolo squeals
And rolls in the muck.
He gets all dirty
And his holes get stuck.

He goes to his bed
And lies down in the hay.
His mother picks him up
And washes him--YAY!

He squeals a shrill
And whistling tune.
He squeals so loudly
That it bounces off the moon.

And here is Michael's (9). It's the Avocadness Monster, a combination of the Loch Ness Monster and an avocado.

Some think you're scary
And enormously hairy,
But I think you're sweet
'Cause if you're real, your to eat.
The Avocadness Monster
Might be real or not, sir,
But one thing is sure--
If you're a fruit, we want more!

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Hanging out after church...

Pictures from the Sunday School Egg Hunt (held indoors due to mud)

Alleluia, Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed-- Alleluia!

Home-Grown Egg Hunt

'Round here, we look for Easter baskets and have our family egg hunt on Holy Saturday afternoon, before our meal and the Vigil.

The whole crew and Daddy too!

Me and Rick Moranis]

A Housekeeping Retreat

This post from Are We There Yet? is twelve shades of awesome.

Holy Monday

You know, I was thinking about why I always choose Monday to our "day in review." It's because on Mondays, we're fresh and fairly on task. By Friday, we're just hanging around looking at books. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The day started out with some yummy turkey sausage and scrambled eggs. Then Daddy supervised the kids putting their laundry away and covered devotions while I ran to the store for some last minute corned beef and cabbage.

We looked at Michaelangelo's Pieta. We talked about what the word pieta means--pity--and then they drew a picture of Mary holding Jesus. It's interesting how different their pictures are. Michael's was very gray--"Like marble, mama"--and Katie Grace's was very bright and colorful. She just can't draw a dark picture when it comes to God. As you can see, drawing has never been a strong interest of Michael's.

While we're here, these are the "Walls of Fame". Michael, Katie Grace, and Nicholas each have a door in the kitchen with their work on it. I don't know what I'm going to do with Daniel. I'm out of doors. :lol

Michael's Door

Katie Grace's Door

Nicholas's Door

On to math! We reviewed mixed numbers with Michael. Really, it was pretty simple. And Katie Grace worked some sums of 15 and 16.

We made Irish soda bread and had snack next. We also cleaned the living room a bit. Then the kids went outside. They are killing my lilac tree (bush?). I get that it's the only climbable tree in the yard, but they have split off three huge branches. So, no more climbing the tree for them.

After break, we talked about Holy Week. We sponge painted crosses--see Walls of Fame.

Then it was what is affectionately known as The Language Arts Big Fun Hour. There are all theses little piddly things to be done--a spelling worksheet here, part of a handwriting sheet there--so we just do it. We ended up playing a compound word game, where you have to keep making compound words.
ME: base
M: baseball
K: ballgame
ME: gameboard
M: boardwalk
K: walkway
etc.

We wrapped up the morning reading Jamie O' Rourke and the Big Potato and Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland, both by Tomie dePaloa.

Following lunch (some yummy rebaked pasta that was sent home with us by some church members) we read Caddie Woodlawn. Then we read The Last Snake in Ireland: A story about St. Patrick by Sheila MacGill-Callahan. This played in nicely with Michael's current Loch Ness Monster obsession.

I let Michael mess around a bit on Yahooligans --I believe he mostly watched clips from The Water Horse--while Katie Grace cleaned her room and Nick and I cleaned up from lunch and had Bunny School (Nick's name for "preschool time" with me!). We finger painted with yellow and blue and made green, and made a St. Patrick's Day shamrock sticker picture. Then we built a "restaurant castle" with blocks.

We read Story of the World and Michael did a map, and then Ms. Anne, Nick's speech therapist came. It was his last session! While Nicholas played Candyland with Ms. Anne, Michael and Katie Grace added a page to their Saints Main Lesson Book.

Then we were done for the day! Michael can't practice cello because his buddy Noah broke the bridge when he smashed into it, and his cello is in the shop. We spent the rest of the afternoon resting, munching on soda bread, and running to the library.

This Week's Plans and Projects

Monday, March 17
St. Patrick's Day: Make Irish soda bread and corned beef and cabbage for dinner.
Katie Grace has a ballet make-up class.

Tuesday, March 18:
Katie Grace has ballet.

Wednesday, March 19:
St. Joseph Day: We usually make St. Joseph cream puffs to go along with dinners.

Thursday, March 20:
La Leche League!
First day of Spring: We'll go to Rita's for a free Italian Ice.
Maundy Thursday: Church for foot-washing service.

Friday, March 21:
Good Friday: Stop in and visit at church between noon and three.
Bach's Birthday: Since it's Good Friday, we'll probably listen to one of his Passion cantatas.

Saturday, March 22:
Dye Easter eggs!
Sondheim's Birthday: I hope to have my new "Drama Mama" theater blog up and running today!

Sunday, March 23:
Easter Sunday: Easter egg hunt at church, followed by services. Then we'll hop in the car to go visit Grandma and Grandpa.

Homeschool Plans
Art Appreciation: Michaelangelo's Pieta
Music Appreciation: Bach's St. Matthew Passion
Math: Michael: Continue with fractions
Katie Grace: Continue with facts through 18
Language Arts: Continue on with spelling, handwriting, and reading.
Compound nouns from Lively Language Lessons at Serendipity.
Start talking about paragraph construction with Michael.
Science: Continuing to learn about what makes a fish a fish.
Bunny School: Weather related activities, especially spring, and Holy Week activities
Story of the World: Greek gods and goddesses and the Peloponnessian War
Christian Ed: Holy Week

Household and Family Plans
Deep clean the playroom.
Get Easter basket stuff ready.
Do some felting with the kids.
Make some button headbands for Katie Grace.
Pay off the library fine.
Rejoin Netflix.
Update Yard Sale blog.
Work on theater blog.

This week's feasts and festivals

Monday, March 17: St. Patrick's Day*
Wednesday, March 19: St. Joseph *
Thursday March 20: Maundy Thursday
Thursday, March 20: First Day of Spring
Friday, March 21: Good Friday
Friday March 21: Bach's Birthday
Saturday, March 22: Sondheim's Birthday
Sunday, March 23: Easter Sunday

*I know the church has officially moved these feasts due to Holy Week, but we'll probably do something little to mark the days anyway.

An Easy Week in Pictures

Daniel's first doodle!



Spring is finally coming.
Platonic solids, hanging out on the window sill to see if they'll become more than friends.



Eating matzah.

My latest project!

Yard Sale Treasures blog

I've got a basement and an attic full of stuff to get rid of... and I haven't even started decluttering yet.

It has not been a happy week.

Daylight Savings Time is kicking our butts.

Michael is an emotional basketcase and is going back into therapy.

Daniel seems to have forgotten how to sleep last night.

Nicholas is answering "NO!" pretty much automatically.

Katie Grace has decided she's 6 going on 16.

And last night I accidentally ate some Jelly Bellies with Splenda and had some sort of allergic reaction with the nastiest tummy issues I've ever dealt with.

We haven't done a whole lot of school this week. To make myself feel better, I'm listing what we've done.

MATH: We ended our Sir Cumference geometry unit. For a closing project, Michael is making a poster of the kingdom and labeling key vocab words. He also started with fractions and we used magnetic fraction bars to make equivalent fractions. He's also been keeping up with his daily math book. Katie Grace started her second-to-last chapter in math: sums and differences through 18. We reviewed addition and subtraction strategies and made a poster. We also played Moneywise Kids.

LANGUAGE ARTS: We skipped spelling this week. We skipped handwriting this week. Katie Grace has been chugging along with her reading lessons. Michael finished The Wright Brothers (Childhood of Famous Americans) and is creating a children's picture book based on it. He did a storyboard and started the book today. It's called Dynamite Wrights! Michael did a page in his grammar main lesson book about abstract and concrete nouns (thanks, Serendipity!). We started reading Mandy as a read-aloud, but it's really boring to me, so we're going to put it aside. I don't feel guilty because (a) we've read it out loud at least once before and (b) we have the book on tape, read by Julie Andrews herself. We also finished the Christmas Kirsten American Girls book. Oh, and we went to the library.

CHRISTIAN ED: We haven't done any formal Christian ed this week. We're learning Natalie Sleeth's Hymn of Promise for Easter, and they had Sunday School and church and choir.

SCIENCE: Nothing formal. We got a few more books about fish from the library. I've been slowly setting up a science station on the upstairs landing.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We read two chapters in Story of the World but haven't done any extras. We've been reading lots of Greek myths, which they love.

MUSIC AND ART: Nothing formal. Listening to Broadway soundtracks. We did look at and copy some illustrations from The Book of Kells. Also, I got this pop-out animal thingie on sale at Borders. They're decorating them as part of the 24/7 Lion King-a-palooza that is our life around here. Oh, and Michael has orchestra this week.

Writing it down, it seems like we've done more than we actually have.

Oh, and did I mention I lost the camera again. Uh huh.

Michael's First Orchestra Concert

Michael goes to his old elementary school for cello/orchestra, thanks to a nifty little PA law that says the school has to let him participate in extra-curricular activities. Last week he had his very first orchestra concert. There were a lot of things I don't like about our school district, but the music program is phenomenal. They have 650 kids enrolled in their strings program. That is just amazing.


Here's Michael with his cello.


And here's Michael and his buddy Noah, who was in his class at school.

I'm hoping to upload a video, but you tube is being difficult. Let's just say that I think the strings teacher is a saint and must own stock in Tylenol.

ETA: And here's the video!

Dan Spam (with some Nick on the side)

Daniel is discovering how much he loves balls. I keep trying to teach him the sign for ball, but he just grins a goofy grin and crawls away.


Daniel and Nicholas doing puzzles




And before and during the bath (ignore my tub--I've been trying like crazy to get the soap scum off, to no avail)

Scrambled Eggs

I wanted to share a fun math game we played last week. First, I cut out 20 paper eggs. One each one I wrote a numeral from 0 through 9. Then I put them all in a little basket. I set up a white board like this:


+

_______________________

Katie Grace pulled out 4 eggs and arranged them on the white board, and then did the problems. It was great practice for adding double digit numbers.

Happy March!

Things have been a little nutty here (thus the lack of posting!) but I'm hoping to catch up tonight. I'm going to warm up with a few Story of the World pictures.

Today a good time was had by all using our blocks to create a labyrinth. For reasons I don't want to explore to closely, they love the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.


We also made a siege tower out of legos. Take that, Nineveh!


To tell the truth, I'm kind of happy to be moving out of Mesopotamia and into Greece. Although now we won't have a reason to sing this song any more.