Friday

February 14, 2014 by Amy Welborn

Pushing on through….

1. Prayer. Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Remember going to San Clemente in Rome? One nod, one vacant look. Well, it was over a year ago. St. Valentine. Talk about them, look at art. Read Mass readings. Morning Prayer, adapted.

2. Digging into The Mass Explained. I had discovered that we were not using it correctly, and skipping huge chunks. (Scroll down. Oh. ). So we moved backward, and learned a lot more about the the procession, the altar – including reverencing it – and the sanctuary in general. I’ll say it again. It’s fantastic.

3. Pythagorean Theorem again. Just doing more problems, learning about the Pythagorean Triples, and so on. 9-year old took a break from his text and played around with a couple of fractions apps and read in The Life of Fred.

4. Oh, copywork. In honor of love, 1 John 4:19. Then some cursive practice. And for the 12-year old, work in a new composition text – this one. We’ll see. It’s different.

5. Then a bit of Brave Writing! Together, we did this exercise in close observation. I am always a little afraid to do these kinds of exercises, and then shocked at how receptive they are as well as how seriously – relatively speaking – they enter into it. Michael came up with a new word: “Smumpy” – smooth, yet lumpy. As I said, this was a joint effort today, and on Monday I’ll let them loose on another object to do by themselves.

Our close observation was of the little pot on the far right.

6. Finished art.

7. They pulled out some clay. Made things.

8. A couple of science demonstrations. This one, from the Happy Scientist, and then they started some epsom salt crystals in eggshells. We’ll see.

9. Watched lecture 3 of this “Great Course” on Greek and Roman construction. It’s taught by a West Point faculty member, and it’s sort of college level, but it’s quite accessible, even to a 9-year old. He is an engaging speaker and uses a lot of models and demonstrations As I said before, I picked it up on sale around Christmas, and it’s worth every penny. (It seems to be on sale now, as well.)

(As an aside, “social studies” this week – in addition to the usual barrage of hourly questions (I should be flattered they think I’m such a super-genius) – has been reading this month’s stack of magazines from Cricket. We get Dig, Cobblestone, Calliope, Odyssey, Muse and Ask.)

10. Nailed (all three of us) Passage #7 – What country, friends, is this? ….Twelfth Night, Act one, Scene two. Their greatest delight is for some reason switching up voices and reciting Viola in a booming bass and the Captain in a squeak. Whatever!

11. FINALLY hit up Taming of the Shrew. I’m glad we did our storytelling/watching the BBC version/Moonlighting version first. After we get done with this, we’ll do Kiss Me Kate and sometime in March go see a show!

Outside play/piano practice/now indoor rambunctiousness. Long day tomorrow. We’ll have to get up earlier on a Saturday than we have any day this week….