This was our first week to utilize a morning basket, a lovely idea I borrowed from Jen at Wilflowers and Marbles. I'll be writing more about this later, but this week our work included the catechism/liturgical work below, reading from Nature in Verse by Mary Isabella Lovejoy and a picture study/comparison of "The Gleaner" by Jules Breton and "The Gleaners" by Jean-François Millet.

Religion

• Each day began with a reading from Saints for Young Readers, Vol. 2, followed by lesson work from St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism No. 2. This week, the kids were still on Lesson 1...M mastered it two weeks ago, but J is still struggling with the memorization which is not something he enjoys! Next week we will be moving on to Lesson 2.
• Nearly every morning I read a little from Our Lady's Book by Lauren Ford.
• On Wednesday, we celebrated the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary with vanilla birthday cupcakes. We read that, "The birth of Our Lady was like a dawn. When the sky starts to turn a rosy pink early in the morning, we know the sun will soon come up. In the same way, when Mary was born, she brought great happiness to the world. Her birth meant that soon Jesus, the Sun of justice, would appear." For this reason, M thought that the cupcakes we made ought to have pink frosting - "just like the rosy dawn."

Language Arts

• Handwriting: Two worksheets per day (M-Th).
• Spelling: One lesson per day (M-W) from Word Power Through Spelling, spelling pre-test Thursday and final test Friday.
• Vocabulary: One lesson per day (M-Th) from Vocabulary 5 for Young Catholics.
• Grammar: One lesson per day from Voyages in English and one lesson per day from Vital English [Composition-Grammar], Intermediate.
• Reading: Two lessons from This Is Our Heritage (6th) and These Are Our People (5th), two lessons from Reading 5/6 for Young Catholics, Comprehension Skills and one lesson each from Reading 5/6 for Young Catholics, Thinking Skills.

History

• Alfred the Great
• William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings
• The Bayeaux Tapestry
• Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitane
• King John and the Magna Carta
• Richard the Lionheart
• Knights

Every day there is some reading, followed by discussion and a worksheet. I've learned that having to do a worksheet encourages the kids to read more carefully.




This week we celebrated our first Friday Fine Arts "Fiesta", beginning our study of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Because Amazon took their own sweet time delivering our books (they arrived on Thursday), my planning time was minimal. Fortunately, one of the books, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Their Lives and Ideas, 24 Activities by Carol Sabbeth was all I really needed. It is an awesome resource, perfectly suited to our semester-long artist study. The biographical information is excellent and every single one of the activities is really good (unlike many similar activity books where half are unusable).

We read the first eleven pages, learning about the childhood of Diego Rivera and the influence of artist Jose Guadalupe Posada. We examined Diego Rivera's mural, "The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City..."


I had planned to make Sugared Fritters, but then realized these Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Crisps were much quicker and easier! Unfortunately, they were a little too well done, but they were still pretty good.


Our art project for the day was Jose Posada-inspired printmaking. I had wanted to do it this way, but didn't get the scratchboard in time, so we had to follow the alternate instructions (using styrofoam plates) in Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Their Lives and Ideas, 24 Activities. The results weren't that great, probably because we used Crayola markers rather than the permanent markers suggested in the book, but everyone had fun regardless.


While working on our art project, we listened to the lively music of Los Lobos, "La Pistola y El Corazon" - the kids very much enjoyed this CD!

We did not begin our Pablo Neruda poetry study yet because I was not expecting the books I'd purchased about him to be chapter books (yikes!). Clearly I need to pay more attention next time I'm ordering resources! I'll be determining our schedule for those books this weekend.

Handwork