Year 1: Week 8

(This "week" took 10 days.)

Gemma is officially a Fish!

She's been in the pool every weekday for the past two weeks, and she made her first dive!

Our natural history readings this week included The Burgess Seashore Book (Reddy Fox Meets Barker the Seal), and the last story in James Herriot's Treasury - Smudge, the Little Lost Lamb.

I don't like having multiple free reads going on at once, but we usually do. This week, while finishing Avi's Ereth's Birthday, we started Pinocchio. 

I like Ereth's Birthday, but there are things about it that I don't like. Ereth is a curmudgeon, so he grumbles and says stupid and idiot, words I don't want to be part of Gemma's 6 year vocabulary. Ereth is not supposed to be likable. He's prickly. He's a porcupine. What he has to do in the book makes him grow, makes the reader feel for him, that AND the fact that he's being stalked by a fisher cat. (I actually think that the chapters from stalker Marty the Fisher's point of view are more frightening for an adult than a child.)

We started Pinocchio because, when we were at the library, I saw a postcard for a production of Pinocchio at a nearby theatre, and thought it would be fun to go see.

And it was. I was really happy that the play, unlike the Disney movie, stayed close to the original story.

For handicrafts, Gemma made a clay man with two coils and a ball. She also made a cone hat (not pictured).

Gemma is working on learning cursive, one letter at a time.

For history, we read about the Phoenicians circumnavigating Africa and Jason and the Argonauts. We watched a couple of short videos about Jason and the Argonauts, and added the founding of Carthage and the Phoenicians circumnavigating Africa to our timeline book.

For composer study this week, while I was cleaning, Gemma watched a NEST movie about Beethoven. Near the end, she said, "Mom! The sound keeps going in and out!" I said, "Maybe something is wrong with the disc?" She said, "No, it's supposed to. When the sound goes out, we're hearing from Beethoven's perspective. How cool is that?" That my 6 year old can appreciate this feature of the movie? The coolest. :)

We went to the Aquarium of the Pacific.

A lorikeet landed on Gemma's head! I wasn't quick enough with my camera. At one point, I had 4 lorikeets perched on me.

We got to touch sharks, rays, and jellyfish. 

And we got to see alligators, penguins, and an octopus.

We also went to the tidepools at Leo Carrillo.

This week's Bible story: Baby Moses

This week's fairy tale: Our Lady's Little Glass

This week's fable: The Snakes and the Porcupine 

This week's piano song: Three Wise Monkeys

This week's geography lesson: Lapland/Finland

This week's math lesson: Life of Fred Kidneys chapter 9 (4-digit times 2 digit numbers, perimeter)

There was also French and Spanish (Gemma is on a 11-day Duolingo streak!),  a sol-fa lesson from Children of the Open Air (lesson 6A - not easy, we'll be reviewing that one), French song, Spanish song, hymn, recitation of Bible passages and poems, and Gemma watched a couple of episodes of Telefrancais.