Year 1: Week 10

This week's handicraft was a cupcake sewing kit from the 99 Cent Store. It cost $1.99, and included everything (except scissors) needed to make the cupcake - two plastic needles (one for each color of thread!), more than enough thread, all of the beads with holes actually big enough for the plastic needle to fit through! We've used lots of kits and they usually omit materials. Now I'm curious about what other sewing kits "My Studio Girl" manufactures. 

The cupcake was a three-day project. First, Gemma sewed on the pearls and sewed the red and green pieces to the purple piece. A couple of days later, she attached the purple piece to the pink piece with a running stitch. The third day, she sewed the rest of the beads on and stuffed it.

It was great fine motor skills practice, as well as practice following directions. She also gained practice with failure recovery. One of the biggest lessons sewing can teach is that problems can be fixed. Seams can be ripped out and sewn again. Worst case scenario, a person can buy new fabric. With a little kit like this, the needle can go back up through the prepunched hole it came down; knots can be unknotted.

This week's...

Bible story: David the Shepherd Boy (from 1 Samuel, about Samuel annointing David)

Natural History: Plant Life in Field and Garden ch. 2 ("The Work Done By Leaves"), Gathered four, not six (as written), plants with different shaped leaves and noticed how they grow upon the stem, painted (with water brush) the four leaves, & The Burgess Seashore Book ch 10 "A Lobster and a Crab that Cannot Pinch"

Artist Study: Degas' "At the Races in the Countryside"

Composer Study: Beethoven's "Turkish March"

Piano: "Caravan"

History: ch 19 "The Dawn of History"

Geography: The World By the Fireside "The Water that Spouts and Boils" & "Mount Hecla" (both about Iceland). Gemma's narration involved physically reinacting the volcanic eruption.

Math: Life of Fred Kidneys ch 11

(Introducing exponents, 1 to any power is 1, 0 to any power is 0, a score is 20, etc.)

Cursive: m n o

Fairy Tale: The Frog Prince

Fable: The Angler and the Little Fish

Foreign Languages: Gemma is on a 27 day Duolingo streak. She decided to go back to the beginning and review earlier, easier, lessons, and I'm all for that.  She sang her foreign language songs, and watched one episode of Telefrancais.

Free Read: We're on the second to last chapter of Pinocchio, and we started Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I'm curious, which book do you enjoy more - Prince Caspian or Voyage of the Dawn Treader? My vote is Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

There were also some Stevenson poems, recitation, this term's hymn, the solar eclipse (which Gemma viewed using a pinhole camera box), her first week of Classical Conversations Cycle 3, and her first week of dance (Tap 1 and Ballet 1).