Year 1: Week 7

(This "week" took 13 days.)

Our composer for this term is Beethoven, so we got $12 seats at the Hollywood Bowl to see Beethoven's 9th. Here is Gemma pretending to be Gustavo Dudamel, the conductor.

We rode the metro to the Bowl, which took about 2 hours. We did no "school" that day. I was thinking about how Gemma spent the day at the beach, playing in the surf with Daddy, while I went to the library to print out our tickets, and to the store to buy picnicky food, and about how when I, as a public school teacher, take students on a field trip, transportation time is included as instructional minutes. So, we spent from 5:30 to 7:30 getting to the Bowl, 8 to 10 listening to the concert, and from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. getting home. That's 7 hours - slightly longer than a California school day.

On the way to the Bowl, one man (also on his way to the Bowl) said (jokingly) to Gemma, "You probably don't like that boring classical music stuff." He was kidding, but I wanted to strangle him. Gemma, unaffected, responded, "I love classical music." She proceeded to tell him that she knew we were going to the 9th Symphony, by Beethoven, that it had 4 movements, and she wondered if the 4th movement would be in German or English. And then she skipped down the sidewalk pointing to sidewalk squares, saying they looked like various U.S. states.

 

The word "boring" doesn't have a place in my house.

For handicrafts, Gemma folded a giraffe (and we discovered that their "horns" are called ossicones).

Gemma chose The Bellelli Family as our latest Degas painting. It was fun looking at it closely, after having looked at other paintings by Degas, and realizing that the mirror over the mantle appears to be reflecting a window.

We went on a 4 mile bike ride. 

Gemma worked on cursive. She is an expert at lowercase i. 😉

We did not do a drawing lesson, a sol-fa lesson, a nature study drawing, or add to our timeline book. *Gasp.* How can I call myself a Charlotte Mason homeschooler?!

In addition to Duolingo, Gemma watched two episodes of Telefrancais on YouTube. When I was in high school French class, Madame let us watch episodes of the show. My favorite character was the talking pineapple. ("Je suis un ananas.")

In Bible, we worked on Psalm 150, The Good Samaritan, and our passage from Genesis. Our Bible passage this week was long - four chapters - so we broke it up over a couple of days. Gen 42-43, and 44-45.

For Literature, we finished Lamb's Midsummer Night's Dream, read The Lion and the Mouse for our fable, and several Stevenson poems. Gemma decided to memorize Stevenson's least PC poem: Foreign Children.

Our current read aloud is Ereth's Birthday by Avi, a sequel to Poppy. Prior to reading this book, I had never heard of a fisher, and I didn't know much about porcupines, except that they're herbivores. I didn't know they don't have quills on their stomachs, so predators can attack them there. I also didn't know that they hug trees to protect themselves.

In addition to other books, Gemma's read a couple of Boxcar Children mysteries from the library, independently.

In piano, she finally nailed the timing of "The Thing That Has No Name." We screamed and jumped up and down in celebration. It was very exciting. She also worked on learning tetrachords and major scales.

For geography, we read Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography chapter 4 (about the earth being round), and The World By the Fireside (A Fight With the Walrus). We also watched a video about walruses:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r35i6WFbPa0

At Little Explorers, it was my turn to host. We made ice cream and learned about Arctic animals, Inuits, and igloos. Homemade ice cream counts as handicrafts, right?

For natural history, we read James Herriot's Oscar, Cat About Town (my FAVORITE Herriot story!), and Burgess Seashore Book (more about clams).

For history, we read two chapters from On the Shores of the Great Sea, including one about the founding of Carthage.

She did a chapter of Life of Fred: Kidneys.

We went to big sister's performance in Shrek: The Musical, where she played Princess Fiona.

Lord Farquad was hilarious.

A blast from the past: For Gemma's first Halloween, I sewed a Princess Fiona costume for her.

We also went to Theatricum Botannicum for a Hans Christian Andersen play. It was Gemma's birthday gift from our wonderful friend Anita.💗

Our current round of swim lessons is at 9:30 a.m. So early for the night owls we've been this summer. She's getting the hang of side breathing!

This "week," as usual, has taken longer than a week. We've done quite a bit, like hosting Little Explorers and running the errands needed to do that, spending a morning at the library, independent reading one hour each day, a day spent cleaning before Grandma and Poppa's visit (Gemma vacuumed and made the bed), a day at the beach with Daddy/Hollywood Bowl, seeing Shrek twice, going to the Hans Christian Andersen play, etc. All that, AND school. 😉