Kindergarten Week 11

A few things we did this week...

Gemma worked on her millinery skills.

On Sunday, after church, I needed to work on report cards, so I told Gemma to figure out something that would keep her occupied. She dug out a bag of felt, a bag of feathers, a roll of glittery silver duct tape, and a pair of scissors. She made hats, bracelets, and necklaces, and was busy for a good hour and a half.

My friend Frankie, who currently lives in France, sent us a gateau de semoule, semolina cake, which I'd never had. 

The recipe, in French, called for 1 liter of milk, which I rounded down to 4 cups. This is what the gateau looks like as it's cooling:

The gateau, when it cooled, had a similar consistency to flan, and was creamy and deliciously rich. Thank you, Frankie! :)

We read a few chapters of Life of Fred: Ice Cream, and a bit of Training Hearts.

We also read Prince Caspian and Little House on the Prairie. I'm looking forward to being done with Prince Caspian. I'm still reading it with enthusiasm and reading the dialogue with my best attempt at a British accent. While The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was an excellent book for a 5 year old, I wish we'd waited on Prince Caspian. There are a lot of characters to keep straight, and most of them are male. Susan and Lucy (the female characters we came to know and love in the first book) get lost in the story of a war between the Old Narnians and the Telmarines. Finally, the concept of earth time vs. Narnian time is a very sophisticated concept for a 5 year old to grasp. I had never read Prince Caspian myself, so I didn't know better. If I had to do it over again, I would have saved this book for a couple of years from now.

Gemma did Duolingo Spanish six days this week! She's enjoying having conversations with the Bots.

We went trick-or-treating on Montana.

Gemma dressed as "Queen Isabella." She wore a dress I made her two years ago, a pair of lace gloves from Easter, and an inexpensive crown from a costume shop.

Last week, her tinker group built small catapults. This week, they built big ones...

She learned 5th position at ballet.

The song she is learning on piano is "Money Can't Buy Everything." 

One evening, she ran two laps (half a mile) around the high school's track. She smiled the entire time. I, too tired from teaching and report cards and parent conferences, stood and watched, and cheered her on.