Ah December, it is magical and dark and cold. It holds Advent and Chanukah, Christmas and the Winter Solstice, Festivus and New Year's Eve. We have woven in some winter and holiday fun with our regular curriculum.
Emmett is still reading Ramayana: The Divine Loophole by Sanjay Patel. This is a great version of the story of one of Vishnu's avatars, Rama, as written and illustrated by an artist and veteran Pixar animator. This week he made his own map of a hero's adventure that he created. We also started learning about Langston Hughes. We read "Danse Africiane" and "Mother to Son".
Micah read the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel (um, I forgot how scary that is). I am going to revamp Micah's language arts because the fairy tale situation isn't going to work for us. Anywho, we talked about how a breadcrumb trail isn't ideal for multiple reasons. I asked him to come up with some better ways to navigate. This gave Patrick the opportunity to take him outside and show him how to use a compass! Patrick pulled out his compass from scouts and he and Micah spent about 45 minutes learning how to use it. When they came in we got out a map and tried some basic map reading. It was fun to watch him figure pieces of that out.
For science this week, Micah made rock "baseball" cards. We used his science book to research rocks found all over the world. He looked through the book and marked the pages he wanted to come back to. He then colored an index card for each of the pages. We went through each one together to come up with facts for the back of each card including location and rock type.
In math he continues with module 2, subtraction using 10 groups broken into number bonds.
Jonah continues to work on letter recognition and matching - Christmas style!
Working together... just for a few moments.
Norah continues to be sassy and confident. She is 100% independently flying around on her Strider bike. She also loves a good Zoom meeting/call.
Just another Zoom meeting with dad.
On Thursday and Friday Jonah worked on his gingerbread house! We had never done these before so thank goodness for prefabricated houses with minimal construction necessary!
Leaf clearing was way more interesting than decorating.
On Friday night, the big boys got into the decorating fun with their house.
Thursday, the weather was beautiful. We had a December lunch picnic outside in the yard and spent most of the afternoon running football plays and riding bikes.
Friday evening the boys went to work building a Nativity scene with blocks and magnetic Mary and Joseph and Jesus, shepherds, wisemen, animals and angels. It was really fun to watch them talk about, build, and create from their imaginations. Thank you Miss Carol (and Tom)!
Saturday brought a rainy, cold, foggy day. Jonah got really lucky and got to talk to Santa on an Outschool class! He was soooo excited. Patrick ran the boys through a few plays in the few moments he was home Saturday. Ah the life of a pastor during Advent. We look forward to seeing him more after Christmas. After dinner we went for a walk in the dark to check out the fog. The kids had fun with their flashlights although crossing the street was a bit scary.
Looking forward to next week and all the fun we have planned. It looks like we might get some snow!!
Peace and light,
Kate
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