This week was a short week because my husband decided on Wednesday that the kids should be allowed a spring break (the neighborhood kids were out of school this week), so we completed only 2 days of school. In addition to our regular lessons, we continued our study of Ireland. We read more from The King of Ireland's Son, which the kids are enjoying as it incorporates many Irish fairy tales and legends. We also read from Shamrocks, Harps, and Shillelaghs and Pot o' Gold: A Treasury of Irish Stories, Poetry, Folklore and (of course) Blarney (an excellent book which I'm so happy I purchased!). Copywork was poetry from the latter and the kids learned about the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. We also watched several documentaries, including Patrick, The Celts: Rich Traditions and Ancient Myths (long and a bit boring) and another film about St. Patrick on History International. The kids completed a packet of Ireland-related worksheets incorporating extra math and language arts assignments, as well as a few coloring pages, puzzles and mazes. I also assigned reading from this month's Calliope magazine (which was about Ireland) and we listened to Irish music all week. We had planned for an Irish dinner that didn't materialize and never got around to any crafts, but were busy nonetheless! I think we're all getting pretty tired of Ireland though. :-)

On their days off the kids stayed quite busy with a number of projects. Jaymon helped a neighbor boy dig/prepare a large garden (now all the neighborhood kids want gardens!)...while neglecting to do his own. He & Dominic started some additional seeds and he made great progress training his new bird, Ace.

Maddie watched entirely too much anime online (though she's learning some Japanese from it and does read all the subtitles!), experimented with new hairstyles and exchanged Sora for a friendlier bird she named Sunshine. She also played Lego's intermittently, coming up with some stunning creations, and "invented" a new snack - Wheat Thins smeared with peanut butter, topped by a jumbo chocolate chip.

Elon was probably busiest of all (as usual!), here's an example of what he did today:

• Started creating chain mail rings from some heavy gauge wire (he's got something in mind for these, though I'm not sure what!)
• Did some interesting experiments with oil and water and made several oil lamps.
• Created a paper boat and then a mini "lake" for it to float on.
• Watched an episode of Modern Marvels about bread and was thus inspired to invent his own cracker recipe (which ended up as something like hardtack, which he loves to make, lightly dusted with sugar).
• Worked on an "unbreakable" creation of Lego's...he's learned that by interlocking the blocks in a certain way, the finished product is much less likely to break under stress.
  

Meanwhile I've been swamped with planning - first, I'm still working on my "new & improved" curricula schedule - combining Winter Promise & Sonlight. While working on that, I got heavily sidetracked, resulting in the creation of a new website pertaining to the history of science and medicine (not quite finished, though hopefully soon!). Then, because the weather turned warm again, I got further sidetracked by planning a roadtrip for the family in two weeks. I'm still working on the road trip and, because I tend to overdo everything, it's taking virtually all of my time. My husband thinks I'm crazy and quite honestly, I probably am!

I'll have more on the trip later, but essentially we'll be visiting a number of stops along the Santa Fe Trail, a handful of fun museums, and a whole slew of Kansas ghost towns (the boys, like their mama, have developed a passion for exploring abandoned places). With that in mind, I'll need to decide this weekend how to finish out our month. It hardly seems practical to return to ancient civilizations with our upcoming trip...Maddie, in particular, has never studied the Santa Fe Trail and westward expansion, so I may need to design a quick study of that for the remainder of the month. We'll see how that goes!

For those who enjoyed the Free Dover Coloring Pages, I've continued to keep that list updated and will be posting many new pages this weekend. And lastly, we've given up on hatching our silk worm eggs, it just isn't happening without an incubator. Meanwhile our adult silkworms have turned cannibalistic, which is kind of alarming...and gross! I think I need to find a much larger container for them this weekend, hopefully that will help.