I had a really good Sunday today. The Primary put on their program in sacrament meeting and it was just so wonderful. Our ward always does a wonderful job with the Primary program. I don’t remember feeling that same way in other wards. I think it’s partly because our Primary is small and everyone gets a chance (or three) to share something. They stayed within the time limit and the music was just really good this year. They did two songs with sign language, one even had three verses! They also used handbells for two different numbers. They had to diligently watch the chart and only ring their bell when Sister W. pointed to their particular color.
Of course D decided to wildly ring his red bell at one point when I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a red note, but overall it was pretty amazing how good they are with the bells. D would also join in for random lines of the songs with sign language, then stand there looking bored for the rest of the song, but he did sing quite a bit more than I remember A ever doing at that same age. He even gave his two speaking parts, although he kind of mumbled and it was hard to understand. So many people commented on how cute he was.
C of course was fearless and A got up and read his parts just fine. In fact, I hadn’t really even looked at his speaking parts as he reads so well and I knew he’d do fine, so I was almost surprised that I was so touched when he shared this quote of President Monson from April’s General Conference:
Parents, express your love to your children. Pray for them that they may be able to withstand the evils of the world. Pray that they may grow in faith and testimony. Pray that they may pursue lives of goodness and of service to others. Children, let your parents know you love them. Let them know how much you appreciate all they have done and continue to do for you.”
I love this quote and I think I need to go back and read this entire talk again. Motherhood and parenting with all their associated responsibilities have been on my mind a lot lately, probably due to the fact that another child will join our family in the very near future. There’s so much that I need to do for these little ones, beyond just caring for their physical needs. They need my love, prayer, faith, and teaching.
We had a wonderful lesson in Relief Society today as well and it kind of tied into my thoughts about motherhood at this time in my life. I will try to share the comment I made in class although I’ll probably butcher the sentiment. I should have written this down the moment I got home from church.
There was a quote in the lesson about this marvelous dispensation that we’re living in and what an important work we have the opportunity to take part in, in these latter days.
The work which has to be accomplished in the last days is one of vast importance, and will call into action the energy, skill, talent, and ability of the Saints, so that it may roll forth with that glory and majesty described by the prophet [Daniel]; and will consequently require the concentration of the Saints, to accomplish works of such magnitude and grandeur.
The teacher asked how we reconcile what an exciting time we’re living in to the fact that our day to day living just isn’t always that…exciting. Or marvelous, or particularly glorious.
I like this quote from the lesson manual: “It will be necessary for the Saints to hearken to counsel and turn their attention to the Church, the Establishment of the Kingdom, and lay aside every selfish principle, everything low and groveling; and stand forward in the cause of truth…”
I don’t think that I myself will be one to accomplish anything huge and important to a great number of people, or to the world, or to the kingdom. But in choosing to “lay aside every selfish principle” on a daily basis, I can do great and marvelous things in my own home, and that is where my power and importance will be primarily felt. Raising righteous children is where I feel I can do the most important work in building up the kingdom.
I am practically everything to my children at this point in their lives. I am MOM! That has to be one of the most wonderful, and yet one of the hardest callings to hold. I don’t get a day off. Once you bring a child into this world, you never stop being the mom. It always amazes me to look at my babies when they are six months old or so and realize that every ounce they have gained has been because I fed them day in and day out without a break.
As they grow older and their physical dependence on me decreases somewhat, it still takes discipline every single day, to lay aside my selfish desires and put my efforts into raising my children, into teaching them the gospel, into building an eternal family. That coincidentally was the theme of the Primary this year. Maybe that’s why their program resonated with me so much today. I know that’s what I want to do, yet it is still hard sometimes to put aside my desires and do what needs to be done to take care of my family.
So much of family life is repetitious. Everyone needs to be fed daily, dishes need to washed, laundry needs to be done, the house needs cleaning. As we also make spiritual things repetitious: prayer, scripture study, family home evenings, serving each other; we are building up our eternal family and accomplishing the work of the Kingdom in our own small way. And yet, it is still hard some days to get up every morning and do the same things all over again.
One huge reason that we decided to homeschool, and in fact felt like we needed to homeschool, was that we wanted our children to have a more sure knowledge of who they are, why they are on the earth at this time, and what their role is in Heavenly Father’s plan. We wanted them to have a strong LDS education now. Of course there is seminary to look forward to at age 14, but we wanted to be able to begin our days’ work with prayer and scripture study and gospel discussions from the very beginning of their education. Gospel study is the subject which is the foundation for all other learning, not just an extra to be fit in somewhere somehow, around everything else. Because we feel so strongly about this, and because teaching my children takes all of the “energy, skill, talent, and ability” I feel that I have somedays, I need to become even better at ”laying aside every selfish principle.” I think this was the lesson for me today. I just keep coming back to that line.
There was nothing terribly exciting about this week, it was just nice to get back into our routines after birthday and holiday excitement in the last two weeks. Except for art, we accomplished essentially everything we wanted to for this week. We have a pretty good routine going (although by saying that I’ll probably jinx us for next week!)
Other than voting on Tuesday and an afternoon at the park afterwards, we didn’t have many outings. I’m still kind of sore from our little car accident last weekend and while I’ve been resting, I’ve also been trying to practice enough for my symphony’s concert this weekend. The boys have been incredibly wonderful this week to play together every afternoon with hardly an argument so that I could get my practicing done. It was really a blessing.
Here’s what else we accomplished:
Music: We’ve been listening to Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony in preparation for attending my orchestra concert on Saturday night. C and D both went to Kindermusik, but A had to miss his piano lesson this week since we didn’t go to Grandma and Poppa’s house as Grandma was sick.
Art: We haven’t felt inspired to do Artistic Pursuits for at least the third week in a row, but I found an Ed Emberley book at the library on drawing trains and trucks and A and C have been having fun trying out the engines lately.
Memory Work: Reviewed the poem on trees from last week, and began our next scripture: 2 Nephi 9: 28-29
Science: We talked about main group metals and specifically learned about lead and read a book by Salvatore Tocci. We’re really enjoying his science books. We didn’t have any lead crystal wineglasses so skipped our experiment this week. That was one supply not in my budget!
History: We read SOTW chapter 12 on fire and plague in London. We also learned about King Charles I and II and Oliver Cromwell. They’ve been enjoying reading You Wouldn’t Want to Be Sick in the 16th Century. We also read parts of Don’t Know Much about the Kings and Queens of England as a review, and read two books about London.
Literature: We read William’s House about a family who leaves England during Charles I’s reign (1637) and tries to build an English house in North America. It describes all the changes they had to make to accommodate the different climate. It was very interesting, and the illustrations were beautiful. I know the boys have been reading as well, but don’t ask me what.
D (Preschool)
Math: Worked with number lines and even filled in the missing numbers on a 0-99 chart all by himself
Letters: Traced the letter J
FIAR: We finished rowing Three Names and learned about prairies, tornadoes, light sources and shadows, vanishing points in art, what a pet needs, how to play marbles, and one-room schoolhouses. They thought one-room schoolhouses sounded interesting and I had to remind them that that is essentially what we have going on here at home! D traced Three Names and also drew a prairie picture with a vanishing point on the road and decided to add in a tornado as well.
We also tried playing marbles. DH has a box of old marbles from when he was a child, but he couldn’t find it so we did the best we could with no shooters and all the small marbles we found in other games in the house. The boys had fun.
C (1st grade)
Math: Used Cuisenaire rods to create 6, 7, and 9, and to do simple addition.
Reading: We can’t find the nature reader we were reading aloud together, but he is reading so much on his own, I’ll admit I didn’t look very hard.
Grammar: 3 lessons on nouns that name places
Writing with Ease 1: 4 lessons from week 12 plus one lesson left over from last week
A (3rd grade)
Math: Exercises 41-44, multiplying and dividing by 8 and 9
Spelling: Making words plural that end in y, f, fe
Grammar: 3 lessons on pluralizing irregular nouns
Writing with Ease 2: 3 lessons from week 34 on Bunnicula and one lesson left over from last week (so we’re still behind one!)
Latin: Finished reviewing lessons 1-5
If we’re lucky…We’re now only 2 weeks away from the gestational point at which D decided to first make an appearance. Care to make a guess now on this child’s arrival date? (And how do you get your foot up by your cheek like that?!)
At my last appointment, my doctor said, “The 26th and 27th are bad days for me to deliver a baby.” I was thinking ok, I’ll keep that in mind, but really, why are we discussing the end of December already? “We’re going to San Francisco for Thanksgiving.” Then it dawned on me, he was talking about Nov. 26 and 27, not Dec. 26 and 27. “I’d really love to see you make it to December.” You would? Since I’m not due until JANUARY?
D’s premature birth has us a little spooked I think. On one hand there was no medical reason for him to come early and it was probably just a fluke. Which means it probably won’t happen again. On the other hand, we really don’t know why he came early, so there’s no real way to ensure it won’t happen again. To make everyone feel better, I’m now on slightly restricted activity: no hiking, no long walks, nothing too strenuous.
So it’s a good thing I sit down to play the cello as I have a lot of practicing still to do for our concert this weekend, but that’s really only strenuous for my fingers. And my brain. Oh boy, will I be glad when Saturday is over.
And I’m supposed to drink more water!! Lately I’ve been hearing everywhere that dehydration can cause Braxton Hicks contractions, which I’ve been having a lot of since about 20 weeks along. They’ve started that early with every single pregnancy and are fairly frequent though never consistent enough to get worried about. But after the fourth person cautioned me about not drinking enough, I finally asked my doctor about it and sure enough he said dehydration can bring on contractions and pre-term labor. He has never mentioned that to me before but now I’m feeling paranoid about my fluid intake.
Part of me says that this is the way my particular body gets ready for labor and those fast deliveries. But maybe if I drank enough, I wouldn’t have quite so many contractions! Just something else to be anxious about, I suppose. So I’m trying to drink more water more frequently, which is really annoying when I don’t feel thirsty but have only had two glasses of water by bedtime. I just want to do everything I can to keep this child inside of me as long as possible. I said I’d be ready by Nov. 17, just in case, but I’m nowhere close to ready.
Which actually went very well. We had a great day together. In fact I can’t remember the last Saturday that we had to spend together as a family. DH took all the boys to Scouts with A where they decorated pumpkins with glitter glue. I was quite sore from all the walking around we did on Friday while trick-or-treating at DH’s work so I stayed home, made bread dough, and got to relax while they got some needed errands and shopping done before lunch. Everyone decided they needed flannel sheets this year and they found some very cute ones with safari animals (for A and C) and snowmen and penguins (for D.) So now that we have a new furnace and also had the bedroom vents repaired and cleaned out, we’ll all be very toasty this winter.
After lunch we carved the pumpkins that they had picked up on their errands. A wanted to do a real pattern on his pumpkin this year while the other two were content to draw their own faces on. It took him quite a while, but he did most of the work himself. The other two thought it was great fun to scoop out all the seeds and “gunk.” The first year we carved pumpkins (probably 2004 because I was pregnant then too) A took one whiff of the inside of the pumpkin, declared it stinky, and held his nose the entire time I carved the thing. My, how times have changed.
Tonight (Monday) we finally got candles for them and put them out on the porch for jack-o-lanterns.
I’ve been wanting to try these cute mummy dogs for a Halloween dinner and finally got around to it this year. Everyone wanted to get in on the act except A who was still carving his pumpkin and therefore we didn’t end up with the picture-perfect mummy dogs, but the fun we had rolling strips of bread dough and wrapping them around hot dogs was well worth the less than photogenic results. Using homemade bread dough made them taste so much better too I’m sure.
The three “cutest” ones:
I never did get a decent picture of their costumes on Saturday. My new criteria for costumes will be a) There must be a pattern for it and b) You must be able to wear it in the car with your seatbelt on. Putting it on and taking it off every time you get in and out of the car gets so old.
I had determined that in spite of great intentions and willingness to sew, this was not the year for homemade costumes. D wanted to be Cookie Monster and we had that already, so he was ok. One point for Mom. A wanted to be George Washington and despite quite a few months’ advance notice, I just knew there was no way I could get that costume sewn, not this year. After calculating the cost of a pattern, fabric for pants, shirt, and jacket, plus my time, effort, and patience, I knew it was totally worth it to just buy a costume for a change. Yay, another point for me, and I thought he looked really good. Can anybody guess what C is? 
That’s right, he is a Civil War cannonball! No, I have no idea where he came up with that idea, and yes, I made that costume using some black felt, plenty of stuffing, and a beach ball as a guide. So I still ended up sewing a costume this year. And resewing. And taking in seam after seam after voluminous seam after I was way too generous in the curves. Hence the decree that all future costumes must have a pattern. But the cannonball was a hit everywhere he wore it!
So we all had a fun day, and then we got rearended by another van, and that was the end of that. Now the holiday is over, and the effects of both the time change and too much candy (which is soon to disappear) are setting in and I will be so glad to get back to normal. Whatever normal feels like. I’m not sure I remember.
To put the most important part first–we are OK!
However, we were rear ended last night in the van on the way to visit my grandparents. I spent 4 hours in labor and delivery this afternoon for observation after heading to the ER ”just to be safe rather than sorry” since I woke up stiff and kind of sore this morning. Last night I felt ok, besides being a little shaken up, and was more concerned about the boys (who said they were all fine) and DH (who was feeling some small aches in his neck and back.) It was getting late when we got home, and nothing seemed to warrant heading to the hospital right then. I wasn’t in any pain and I felt fine. I tend to be pretty calm and collected in crisis situations. The anxiety and stress always seem to hit later.
They hit this morning. I was stiff when I got up, but then I’m seven months pregnant and when do I not wake up a little stiff? I had aches and pains too, although I wasn’t sure which ones might be new and different, especially after all the walking, standing, and spending too much time on my feet I did in the past two days. I got ready for church and made it through sacrament meeting, but I was really starting to worry about the baby (I’ve been a little on edge all week over this upcoming delivery) and I kept asking myself, “What if?” I asked DH for a blessing after sacrament meeting which greatly calmed my nerves and fears, but we still decided I should go be checked out medically after church was over.
I found out just how quickly the ER responds to a pregnant woman in distress. I was immediately taken back to be checked for vital signs, then they rushed me over to labor and delivery for observation, a full exam, another ultrasound, and a blood test–all of which determined that the baby is fine, very active, and as far as all can tell, there are no ill effects from the accident. So I should be able to sleep in peace tonight.
Which is where I’m headed. Halloween costume pictures and all the rest will have to come later.
Our ability to concentrate and work hard is in inverse proportion to the proximity of a holiday. Monday was a really great day! So great in fact, even with DH home, that we finished all of our work in record time and on a whim decided to go to a corn maze as a surprise after my doctor’s appointment.
The week kind of went downhill from there, although it wasn’t a heavily-scheduled week to begin with. In light of the growing excitement for dressing up and getting free candy, including trick-or-treating at DH’s place of employment this afternoon, I didn’t even try to have them finish their checklists towards the end of the week, but we’re really only down a few math assignments and one writing assignment each that hopefully we can catch up on next week. We did remember both C’s Kindermusik practice almost every day this week and D’s Kindermusik assignment (homemade shaker) but didn’t get to any formal art or music.
Science: We finished up learning about the alkaline earth metals and added them to our periodic table wall posters. We specifically studied calcium this week, reading a book and doing two experiments. One involved adding plaster of paris powder to (our admittedly already hard) water and comparing the ability to make suds with dishsoap in that water as opposed to soap in a cup of plain water. It did work however and now we own a 5-lb. box of plaster of paris. We only needed 1/4 teaspoon. DH has learned not to question my grocery list anymore. “Why do you need…” “Science experiment,” is all I have to say.
We also immersed an egg in vinegar overnight to see how the calcium in the hard shell was broken down. Touching that rubbery eggshell the next morning was very creepy, so it was appropriate for Halloween week I suppose.
Memory Work: We added in a poem about Trees by Sara Coleridge:
The Oak is called the king of trees,
The Aspen quivers in the breeze,
The Poplar grows up straight and tall,
The Peach tree spreads along the wall,
The Sycamore gives pleasant shade,
The Willow droops in watery glade,
The Fir tree useful in timber gives,
The Beech amid the forest lives.
History: We read SOTW 11 on the Moghul Emperors of India and learned about the Taj Mahal which we all now want to visit. The boys colored the map and we read quite a few books on Japan (from last week) and India including several folktales and picture books.
Literature: Besides the history-related books, we finished listening to Freddy and the Ignormus. C read three of The Littles books by John Peterson and another Dick King-Smith book. I’ve got to find him some more challenging reading!
D (Preschool)
Letters: He traced H and I this week.
FIAR: We started rowing Three Names. We read the book once and I think that was it!
Math: He did several pages from Miquon this week that had him exploring with Cuisenaire rods and counting and coloring shapes.
C (1st grade)
Reading: Finished reading to me about crabs in his nature reader
Grammar: 3 lessons on nouns
Writing with Ease 1: 3 lessons from week 11 on Trumpet of the Swan
Math: Loves the hands-on aspect of Miquon math and worked on making 4 and 5 in different ways with Cuisenaire rods
A (3rd grade)
Math: Finished lesson 39 and did lesson 40 at an incredibly slow, but accurate pace (so I’m not complaining!)
Grammar: 3 lessons on pluralizing words ending in y, f
Spelling: Overlapped with grammar
Writing with Ease 2: 3 lessons from week 33 on The Hobbit
Latin: Review week on lessons 1-5
We did absolutely nothing Halloween-related for schoolwork, but the boys sang pumpkin songs at Kindermusik, dressed up for an extended family party last weekend, for the grandparents yesterday, for trick-or-treating today, and will still have a church trunk-or-treat tomorrow night and hopefully pumpkin carving tomorrow morning. I don’t know about them, but I’m about Halloweened out. Pictures of costumes forthcoming…
Attendance at rehearsal last night felt rather sparse. Our conductor mentioned that several people were out with swine flu, and he was actually glad they stayed away so the rest of the orchestra wouldn’t be wiped out the week before the concert.
He also conducts the orchestras at the University and he said that the University Health Clinic swabbed all over campus and concluded that the most germ-ridden place was the School of Music. He said that sure made for an interesting faculty meeting. “So when you come up to Libby Gardner (concert hall) next week, just don’t touch anything!” Thanks for the advice, I think. It sure makes me glad I’m not in college at the moment and using those practice rooms everyday–all that spit from the wind players, pianists sneezing and then continuing to play. Then the next person comes in… And to think I survived four years at BYU, locked in a practice room on a daily basis and only very rarely did I get sick.
Right now my biggest concern is getting in enough practice time before our concert next weekend. We’re playing Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, as 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth. I wish we were doing the Italian Symphony instead, but the Scottish is a great piece too and has one of those heroic cello melodies you live for in the third movement. It almost makes up for the second movement, which can only be described as fiendish.
We’re also playing Elgar’s cello concerto (not my favorite) and overture to The Wasps by Vaughan Williams.
I’ve officially hit the point where my cello rests on my belly. I always wondered how I’d play the cello pregnant, but I’ve never gotten so big that it impedes my playing. I just have to start lengthening my endpin and playing more horizontally than usual. I just seem to have hit that point earlier this time around and I still have to play in church a month from now.
It’s probably good this is the last concert I’ll play this year though. I am so tired of sitting up straight by the end of a three-hour rehearsal and I’m not functioning my best at 10 p.m. anyway, no matter what I’m doing. I’ve practiced so little in the past six months and my endurance is shot. But one good thing about a concert is you get one chance to play it. No multiple takes on difficult passages as you get more and more tired.
Practicing will definitely be a priority in the next ten days.
Built in 1896
Fruita, UT, inside Capitol Reef National Park
Turning 35 this month reminded me of another notable milestone in my life. I have now been playing the cello for 25 years! That is a really long time! I started in 1984 right around the time I turned 10. Here’s the story: (adapted from a previous blog post)
What I really wanted to be when I grew up was a ballerina. Somewhere around 3rd grade I started ballet. Then in 5th grade I like to say I was conned into playing the cello.
Actually the orchestra teacher in town came around to all the elementary schools to sign up 5th-graders for orchestra. For some reason I thought violin was the only instrument option and I wasn’t interested. The teacher called my mom, who she knew played the violin, and asked, “Why isn’t your daughter signed up for orchestra?”
My mom told her I didn’t want to play the violin, she didn’t want me to play the viola, and they weren’t about to haul a string bass around for me. Mrs. W asked about the cello. That was fine with my parents, if she could just convince me. I guess I was rather stubborn even then, and I still don’t play the piano despite starting numerous times.
She came back to my 5th-grade class bringing more instruments. She had us hold out our hands. Some were told they’d be just right on a bass or a violin. I held mine out. “Now that is a perfect hand for the cello.” “Really?” I thought. “Well, ok then.” I’m still at it! Some years later, I was reading a book on creating a successful string orchestra program and found this exact method of convincing children which instrument they should pick up. She had me convinced though, and I still think I have the perfect hand for cello.
Our 5th-grade orchestra class was 4 students, though we did get to play with all the 5th-graders in town in a spring concert that year. I started private lessons in 7th grade while still taking ballet three times a week 40 minutes away. Eventually my parents told me if I dropped ballet, they’d put the money toward a trip to Europe. Naturally, I took them up on it, and though I loved ballet, it wasn’t that fun for me any more.
In high school, I took both choir and orchestra classes, as well as private lessons. One day my cello teacher said, “Oh by the way, I got you an audition with the cello professor at BYU, so tomorrow instead of your lesson with me, I’m taking you over to play for him.”
Well, ok, thanks for the advance warning.
I went and played for him and he said he’d take me on as a student. I thought, “Great, now I have to go home tell my parents how much this guy charges for lessons.” They agreed without any hesitation though. My mom later told me how much my dad spent on piano, organ, and voice lessons in college. They understood.
To make a long story longer, I decided I wanted to continue my studies with Roger Drinkall and I went to BYU as a cello performance major which always kind of surprised me. I get incredibly nervous performing for people, but so many times, it was confirmed to me that I was in the right place, doing the right thing. I loved my college years. I met people like me! I didn’t know there were any. I got to enjoy classes in music theory, music history, string literature, string pedagogy, world music cultures, conducting, chamber music, and of course all the performing opportunities. I graduated cum laude with a bachelor of music degree, moved back home, and didn’t have a job. You know how it is with musicians!
Actually, what I always really wanted to be was a wife and mother and being a musician complements my life so well. I teach a few students each week and I spend 3 hours on Tuesday nights playing in a really good volunteer community orchestra. We can handle most of the major orchestra repertoire and it’s a fun challenge for me to play with them.
I’ve also played with a piano trio (piano, violin, and cello) for over eleven years now. We play at weddings and other fancy affairs, and of course I play at church on occasion. I’ve done a few freelance recording projects as well here and there.
I’m glad I can use my talents to enrich the lives of others and pass on some of my musical knowledge and experience while being able to stay at home with my children and watch them grow and progress. It’s hard to fit practice time in, but I feel that I owe it to my children to show them how important this is to me, and let them see the parable of the talents at work in my life. For I know that when we use what we’ve been blessed with, we will surely be given more, especially when we use what we’ve been given to bless the lives of others.
I realize I’ve hardly mentioned the cello at all on the blog lately. I still play. I still teach. I still believe in showing my children that I’m willing to spend the necessary time to develop my talents. But it is definitely a challenge finding time for it these days with 3 (soon to be 4) children, homeschooling, and everything else I have going on right now. It is especially difficult right now to make it to orchestra and sit up straight and concentrate on music for 3 hours. I will take a sabbatical, at least from orchestra, for the next few months, but I can’t even imagine giving it up for good. My cello is one of my oldest and dearest friends! I’ve owned this particular instrument for 19 years now. I love being able to play beautiful music and hope to be at it for many years yet to come.
What a week! We had trouble getting back into the routine after being gone last weekend and it feels like I’ve been spending all day, every day on school and I’m worn out! In reality we didn’t work quite that long. I taught a few cello students this week that only come once a month or so and it seemed to take more than an hour out of our afternoons. We also went to visit my grandpa for his 81st birthday.
On Wednesday DH wanted us to meet him at the planetarium on his lunch hour so we could see Dinosaurs 3D at the IMAX theater. I wasn’t feeling that great and didn’t really want to sit through a 3D movie so I took the opportunity to have 45 minutes to myself. It was nice. 
Then we took Thursday off for my birthday and had a nice day (other than the 6-year-old throwing up at breakfast.) Friday we went to homeschool park day and to the library. We’ve been busy!
Highlights were of course our outings, plus our FIAR book and activities, and an art project. Anything with paint is always a highlight, at least for the boys.
History: We read SOTW chapters 5 and 10 about Japan and did the two map assignments. We never did sit down to read the stack of Japanese folktales and other books I checked out, but did try some Japanese food last night.
Art: We never got back to da Vinci this week, but instead did apple prints. After the fact, I discovered the neat trick of sticking a fork in the apple for a handle. That would have been nice to know beforehand, it was really quite messy otherwise and I think our paint was a little too thick.
Memory Work: I think we’re finished with memorizing 2 Nephi 2:27. It’s been a tough one and we’ve been horrible about reviewing our previous pieces, but then some weeks are just like that.
Science: We learned about alkaline earth metals and talked about magnesium, chlorophyll, and what makes the autumn leaves those brilliant colors. Our experiment this week was to dissolve some spinach leaves in rubbing alcohol and put a coffee filter strip in it to see what colors came out of the leaves. After the 90 minutes suggested waiting time, there was hardly any color on our strip, but after 4 days it was much more impressive.
Literature: Even though I haven’t done much reading with the boys, it’s nice to know that if I keep a basket full of history and science-related books, they will frequently read through them on their own. My only gripe is that I’m missing out on those stories! I’ve never read half the literature that they’re being exposed to at their ages. For free reading, C has finished The Golden Goose and Funny Frank, both by Dick King-Smith. We’re also listening to Freddy and the Ignormus by Walter Brooks in the car.
D (Preschool)
Math: He is loving the new Miquon book and did about six pages on counting objects, number lines, and dot-to-dots.
FIAR: We finished rowing How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. Although I’m not sure we covered all five subjects as the manual has been missing, but we did have lots of fun with apples and baking this week so that’s what counts, right? Sometimes I worry about the amount of output and written work, but at D’s age I think the fun factor and experiential learning are more important. We read several apple-related books and cut an apple crosswise to discover the star pattern made by the seeds. We also read two books and watched a video about Johnny Appleseed, put apple stickers on a world map to trace the girl’s journey in the Apple Pie book, colored flags in a flap book for each of the countries visited, and played a matching game to review what ingredients came from what country.
We also tried evaporating salt water to see the salt left behind. I remembered from previous years that this takes forever so I used more salt and less water and after 2 weeks the water still isn’t gone so we’re really glad we didn’t have to wait use that salt in our pie!
Because of course, we baked an apple pie!
C (1st grade)
Math: C is also liking Miquon math and did 4 pages on patterns and odd and even numbers.
Reading: He read more about crabs in his nature reader.
Grammar: 3 lessons on intro. to nouns
Writing with Ease 1: 4 lessons from week 10 on Davy Crockett and Sacagawea.
A (3rd grade)
Math: 2 reviews and exercise 38 and half of 39 on the 8 times tables
Spelling: none this week
Grammar: 3 lessons on capitalizing proper nouns and initials
Writing with Ease 2: 4 lessons from week 32 with excerpts from Hillyer’s A Child’s Geography of the World which is another book I think I may want to buy.
Latin: We kind of sort of finished lesson 5 and A got 100% on his quiz, although we could have done a lot more work on this lesson. At least next week will be a review of lessons 1-5 and we’ll get more practice with these words.
Now it’s on to figuring out a side dish for a Halloween party tonight and working out C’s cannonball costume. At least I won’t have to do any work on Halloween costumes next week.
