Year 1: Week 11

For composer study this week, we listened to Beethoven's Razumovsky String Quartet Opus 59, no. 1.

Thanks to Children of the Open Air, for sol-fa, we learned Lucy Locket Lost Her Pocket.

The picture we looked at for artist study was Degas' "A Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers."

In math, Gemma completed Life of Fred: Kidneys chapters 12 & 13, in which the reader finally learns why the book is titled Kidneys.

I especially liked this section of LOF: Kidneys (page 92), "But there is one leisure time activity that is more important than any of these, even more important than eating pizza! ... [L]eisure time gives you time to think, to ask the bigger questions in life. Many of the most important advances in the history of the world happened when people spent their leisure time thinking about *What makes plants grow? *How do stars shine? *Why is it cold in winter? *When will people stop doing bad things?"

At church, Gemma got the opportunity to practice playing handbells. :)

She also started Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Their first lesson was how to escape if a person grabs them by the wrist with one hand, or with two hands.

In Natural History, we read more about crabs, and learned that some crabs can climb trees! (We, of course, had to look this up on YouTube.) We also read (in Plant Life in Field and Garden) "The Story of a Turnip," which includes the parts of a flower, as well as how the different parts of a turnip feed different animals.

I checked out some of Freddie Levin's 1-2-3 Draw Books from the library. Gemma liked the Mythical Creatures one best. She drew the fairy, the unicorn, and the pixie.

At Classical Conversations, Gemma's class worked on symmetry, and drawing a bald eagle with Mona Brooks' "basic shapes."

Gemma's bald eagle...

As if the week weren't full enough, there was a bike ride with Daddy to the beach, dance class...

...and more...

Recitations: OT, Psalm 150, NT, hymn

Geography: The World By the Fireside (Iceland), and CM's Elementary Geography (ch. 6 "Our World and Other Worlds"). CM's book was written before Pluto was a planet, and then was not a planet, so it says there are eight planets, which is current. This chapter also discusses Galileo, and the way the planets reflect the sun's light. I didn't realize, but I now do, after looking it up, the name for this is planetshine (and earthshine).

Cursive: Gemma worked on signing her name, and writing ps and qs...and rs.

Tales: How the Camel Got His Hump (Kipling)

Fable: The Two Frogs

History: The Fall of Tyre & The Rise of Carthage. Added "574 BC Tyre (now Lebanon) fell to King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon" to timeline book.

Piano: continued working on "Caravan," reviewed other songs

Foreign Languages: songs & Duolingo

Bible: David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17)

We also read some Stevenson poetry.

For handicrafts, I found a second My Studio Girl sewing kit at the 99 Cent Store ($3.99 - a doll kit). It was the last one! I got it at the end of the week, so Gemma has only been able to sew and stuff one arm, so far.

Free reads: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Bronze Ring (from The Blue Fairy Book), and Phoebe the Spy (Judith Berry Griffin).

Week 12 - the final week of our first term - here we come!