a cold day

Our house was still chilly like it was a snowy morning when we woke up, even though the snow had already melted away.  We all wrapped up in blankets and hunkered down, unable to get going for the day.  We listened to a chapter of the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling before finally getting ourselves together enough to get on with the day.

Mademoiselle planned her day, and filled it to the brim with projects.  That girl can never have too many science or art projects.  That's the thing about her - she's a doer.  Do, do, do.  Before she got on with projects, though, she had to find out how Heidi was fairing in Frankfurt.  She listened (through LibriVox) and did some touch-typing practice at the same time. She also drilled herself on vocabulary by going to this website and seeing how many grains of rice she could donate by getting the right answer. When she was done with that, she joined me and S.A.M. in what we were doing.

We all played a couple of rounds of SET.  It's a really great game that uses visual and mathematical (although, not strictly numerical) skills.  We all enjoy it, but at times the younger kids get a bit frustrated trying to find sets.  Even so, Benefactor played on my team and even managed to find a set or two.

S.A.M. received his words for the week, and worked on handwriting and spelling in copying them a few times each.  He also read a book to James. He also spent a little bit of time practicing his touch typing.  Mostly, today he spent time playing with his brothers, trying to build something mysterious outside, and just being a boy.

Mademoiselle spent the bulk of her time on her art projects today.  She covered a cardboard box with decorative papers to use in her room to organize supplies.  It turned out really cute!  While she was working on that, I read a chapter of an American Diaries book called Nell Dunne, Ellis Island 1904.  I also read a brief history of Leif Erickson and his discovery of Eastern Canada taken from the Book of the American Colonies, published as part of the Brown Paper School, USKids History book series.  We'll be reading more from this and doing a variety of projects recommended in the book, as well as several taken from American Kids in History: Colonial Days, by David C. King.

Mads found a recipe for blueberry ink, and made some to use in her quill tomorrow. We'll see how she likes it, but hopefully it will work better than the watercolor paints she's been trying to use since last week.  She's excited to write letters using her homemade ink and quill.

Benefactor worked a bit on letters and numbers at his request.  He really wants to better his name writing so that he can have his own library card.  We also played a game of Go Fish with a deck of cards that have colors on them.  He're trying to discern between pink and purple, and remember the word for orange, which seems to just slip his mind!  He loves to be like one of the big kids, doing "school work".


P.S. This weekend I read Elijah of Buxton, by Christopher Paul Curtis. (Recommended to me by my sister-in-law.)  I highly recommend it.  An amazing book, incredibly well written, and incredibly lively.  It's a YA Novel, about a young born-free son of escaped slaves living in a community in Southern Canada.  Enjoyable, vivid, moving.