Week Three Wrap-Up

Max

What a fast, busy, productive wild week we have had! If it were not for God in us we would be truly warped. He paced our days, gave us patience with each other and blessed us with Himself daily. What made a big difference in the week was that I spent more time in the mornings sitting with Him and singing....I love to sing especially about Him. My Favorite this week:

This week I was tempted often to add more and more things to our schedule, to go faster, to be busier. But why? I wondered. As I began to rush I often rushed the boys. I could be quick, sharp tongued and irritable. Luckily I saw the signs and slowed down. I took time to lay upon my bed and wait. I waited upon God for perspective, for help with the tasks lying undone around me and for a tangible and concrete way to remember the glorious truth that after all I am dead and He does live in me. I have a new life, a powerful one right here with me ready to orchestrate and create goodness and care in my little world. I ought to let Him. As I waited, it was easier to let go and to begin again watching instead of driving, listening instead of speaking. My sons responded with a tremendous love for me. Hugs from little boys are sooo sweet. I am addicted.

Zak with my good friend Michele's dog Kahalie

Last week we completed Bruchko and now we are reading a book from the Trailblazer series called Risking the Forbidden Game. It is about a young Muslim boy in Morocco who plays a very simple but later dangerous game of stealing items from the French soldiers or any other infidels during the Muslim celebration of Ramadan. Along the way he discovers he likes hearing stories about Jesus and those who tell about him. But he finds that his game leads to real life and death consequences for his new infidel friend. So far a great read.

We have been having so much fun draaaawwlllling to the X4 skip count song with a country western tune and Rapping with the X5 song. This little album has been such a painless way to learn these math facts. And slowly the boys are catching onto the multiplication table. So nothing new this week here just onward ho! 

But here is something new. I noticed that during the first four lessons of the day there is a lot of extra time that could be utilized. I read aloud to them for most of the morning, and I realized that they can be busy working on something that is somewhat "brainless" while I read. So, as I read a Fable from Aesop and stories from The Story of the Greeks, and  a delightful tale from The Burgess Bird Book they color and copy. This turned out to be a good way to introduce Aesop to the the boys and to my lovely copywork book. 

Knowing they just "love" doing copywork (LOL) I thought this book would work well for them because many, if not most, of the morals they copy are short. Since the copy work is short and the boys are needing a new challenge,  I upped the ante to earn a treat. This summer if they could copy the selection from their readers with no mistakes the first time: that means they don't miss any words, or forget a misspelling etc. they got a treat. If there were mistakes they had to recopy it. This year no cross outs! No Grace! First time, beautiful writing, no mistakes. They are getting it down. I am amazed at what they can do.

We are on Lesson #3 in Primary Language Lessons and should finish memorizing the poem "If I Knew" this week. We went about learning the Poem this way...

DAY ONE:  the boys read the entire poem aloud, each one taking one line at a time. Next I had them close their eyes and I read the entire poem aloud to them with emphasis and a bit of drama. Then they copied the first four lines into their composition notebooks (There are 16 lines in all) and drew a picture to go with it. Then I knew if they were understanding the meaning of the lines in the poem. 

DAY TWO:  The boys read the poem aloud again each taking a turn to read one line. I read it to them, and they copied the next four lines of the poem into their composition notebook like they did on the first day and drew a picture. Same lesson with different lines and pictures to draw. 

DAY THREE: On this day the boys read the poem again line by line taking turns, and I read it to them as they sat quietly with closed eyes. Then we said the first four lines from memory each one. Then we said the first eight lines from memory. Then the boys went on to try twelve lines from memory. Then they attempted all sixteen lines. Amazing.

DAY FOUR: The boys read the poem aloud again each taking a turn to read one line. I read it to them, and they copied the next four lines of the poem into their composition notebook like they did on the first and second days and drew a picture of someone gathering frowns form the nursery, the schools and the streets and putting them into a box.

DAY FIVE: The boys read the poem aloud again each taking a turn to read one line. I read it to them, and they copied the last four lines of the poem into their composition notebook like they did on the first and second days and drew a picture. This time they got to draw a giant dropping a box of frowns into the depths of the deep deep sea. So much fun imagery.

DAY SIX: Repeat of day three. On this day the boys read the poem again for the last time line by line taking turns, and I read it to them as they sat quietly with closed eyes. Then we said the first four lines from memory each one. Then we said the first eight lines from memory. Then the boys went on to try twelve lines from memory. Then they attempted all sixteen lines. 

And they did it. They memorized their  FIRST poem. I am so proud of them!

TJ

We have begun a new dialogue in our Latin lessons called "Lepidina at the Party" We are using the Minimus Latin curriculum this year.  In our lesson we learned a lot of new vocabulary words for a birthday party. We sang happy birthday in Latin and made a birthday card for Minims the mouse.

At the end of the day we have been making Klee inspired fish paintings with black oil pastels and gauche. 

and...Klee inspired clay fish.

We used a homemade polymer clay with cornstarch, baby oil, lemon juice and white glue. The consistency of the dough was fantastic! Then we let the dough dry for a day or so and painted them.

For other art recipes I found a wonderful interest site with oodles of fun things to try. You might also find some good ideas for other Paul Klee art projects at these sites:

Art projects for kids: Mini mural
Arted-Paul Klee
Deep Space Sparkle: Modern Masters
Meet the Masters
Harmony Art Mom

Zak

And to top off our week we had a fun game/activity/scrapbook day. It all began with this video clip about the Olympics.

Max is working on a picture of Zeus the god the Ancient Greeks honored during the Olympic games. The unveiling of the scrap book pages is still to come...

We played a rousing game of Digging up Greece. This is a FREE game found online. It is another of Ellen's (creator of Prof. Pig's Magic Math) wonderful inventions. She says this about the game...

"The board is a large map of Greece (6 pages taped together!).  The die does not contain numbers, but rather modes of transportation.  The players pretend to be college students taking a semester abroad in Greece and they use boats, cars, or planes to hop around the country, visiting famous sites and collecting artifacts.   When POP QUIZ is rolled on the dice, they must answer a multiple choice question about ancient Greek history. "

We say it is a blast to play it. What a great way to learn the islands and cities why the whole map of
Greece! And a bit of Greek history to boot.

Lastly we spent time outside making an entry into our nature notebooks. This week noting something overhead.