Fall has fallen!  Yippee!  The air is crisp, the leaves are falling, we have baked and eaten Pumpkin Muffins!  I LOVE FALL!!

 

Due to a busy week and mom who didn't feel well, I fear I didn't do as well at recording our schoolwork this week.  Here's what I did write down/remember:

 

Music/Art Appreciation:  We listened often (background music) to a Mozart CD, as Mozart is our composer for the term.  The kids love this music and dance and hum to it all the time.  We began art study with a print by Henry Winslow called "Snap the Whip."  The boys would study the painting for 2 minutes at a time, then we put the painting down and they each describe (youngest first) something new they discovered about the painting.  We will do this several times with one painting.  It was amazing to see all the new discoveries they made.

 

 

 

Bible:  We are plugging away in I Kings, going back and forth between the real Bible and our story bible.  The kids noticed today that the list of kings of Israel so far is COMPLETELY in red (red = bad king, blue = good king), and that Judah has so far had only one good king.  We are up to the point in history where Asa is king of Judah and Ahab is king of Israel.  Just getting into the drama of Ahab and Elijah -- I can't wait.  What great stories!

We listened to the story of Esther and Joshua in the long ride to a friend's house.  The stories are word for word from the King James version of the Bible, but read dramatically by George Sarris (see The World's Greatest Stories) for more info, "The Prophets" is our favorite tape!)

 

History:  We are studying the Mexican War and pioneers (from the U.S. and Europe) who settled Texas, by finishing up Johnny Texas.  With only 2 chapters left to this delightful book, I plan to finish this weekend.  While visiting Grandma and Grandpa T. this weekend we found out that Grandma's Great-Great Grandpa fought at the Alamo!  His name was John George Rhodes.  She showed the boys a photo of Grandpa Rhodes, and he certainly looks the part!  I can't wait to figure out more about this man.

The boys re-read So You Want to be President? for fun, and discussed many things about our former and current president.

 

Math:  Christian and Micah worked 3 days in Miquon workbooks and 2 days in Singapore workbooks.  We also had FUN doing logic exercises with cuisenaire rods from a book just given to us called,

 

Science:  We learned about electricity, including information about atoms and how power plants work.  We learned about the rotation of the earth around the sun and the rotation of earth upon its axis, and how these affect seasons of the year.  (Sunshine Makes the Seasons and The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip)

CJ also read on his own (and to his brothers) all about optical illusions from the Usborne Book of Science.

 

Literature/Language Arts:  We read from Burgess Book of Animals, and plan to make this our new lunchtime reading.  We read the real fairy tale of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp (so different than Disney!) along with the story How the Rhinocerous Got His Skin by Rudyard Kipling.  We read 3 of Aesop's Fables.

CJ began working in English From The Roots Up, learning the greek roots photos, tele, and graph.

Micah kept plugging away in AlphaPhonics.

We read a poem outloud each day.

Service:  We brought lunch over to the boys' great grandparents this week, and vaccummed their house for them.

 

Real Life:  Our friends recently moved out to the country near Lincoln, CA.  I babysat the kids while the mom and dad cleaned up the old house.  The boys got to look at horses, check out the hay lift and loft, play in a creek, make boats to float down the creek, have a mud fight and run around in wide open spaces.  What a fun day! 

We also went to our very first Family Contra Dance!  It was English Line Dancing, similar to square dancing, with a fiddler playing, a caller teaching moves and telling you what to do next, switching partners and dancing with neighbors, swinging and making group circles, etc. etc. etc.  What a fun workout! 

I was terrible, but I had a wonderful time.  CJ and Micah were great!  There were lots of people there (50-75, and I heard it was a small turnout of the usual group), about half teenagers and the rest of the people a mix of littles from about age 6 and up to grandmas and grandpas in their 60's -- a completely multigenerational evening.  It was wonderful to see all the young men learning how to be near young gals and yet to be appropriate!  Gentleman-training was a serious part of the evening, as were lessons in modesty and being inclusive of others.  We will go to one more practice in November, and then the "Fall Ball" in December, where we dress up and should be a little better at the moves (Ha!  We shall see!)  Daniel was too little for the evening, but CJ and Micah did fabulously well.  Nana came with us!

Here's a random picture from Google Images of a group contra dancing: