On Monday, we added another game to our French lesson. This game helped to reinforce the numbers in French the kids had already began learning, and also taught them a few new phrases. For this game, one of us would roll a pair of dice. The others would ask, "Quel age as-tu?" which means "How old are you?" The dice thrower would answer, "J'ai...ans.", meaning, "I am ...years old." I also told them how to say "Happy Birthday" in French. For math, Grant reviewed double-digit subtraction using a fun workbook sheet. It was a great double duty worksheet because he also got to copy some words. He had fun doing it, and I was happy he practiced subtraction and copy work. Win-win! We are also getting back into the routine of doing a different fun activity on different days of the week. Monday was, and will be again for awhile, jump rope day.
I read Grant a story about the plaques and Exodus from Egypt.
I also introduced Grant to the form drawing for the week.
After I was done, we drew a picture in our lesson books.
Mom's Drawing
Grant's Drawing
For Johanna, I read the next two pages in the Ulba Bulba book. This day the snowflake hid in Ulba Bulba, and then the two of them went up to see the Spring-time land together. At first, the snow flake was sad since she was sure she had melted, but when she looked down she saw a beautiful white flower dress.
After I read that part of the story to Johanna, we drew a picture together.
Mom's Drawing
Johanna's Drawing
Grant also wanted to draw a quick picture of Snowdrop and Ulba Bulba.
On Tuesday, Grant and I did our last penny whistle lesson together before moving onto piano. I will say that he was very excited to be learning a different instrument.
I also had Grant re-tell me the story from yesterday, and we came up with a summary together which Grant copied into his lesson book.
I finished up the last couple of pages in the Ulba Bulba story, and then Johanna helped me make some cookies for our spring picnic. We were going to have a spring tea party, but it was just too warm outside for warm tea, so we made it a picnic instead. It was a great day for it, other then the wind advisory that was in effect. We did manage to hold onto all our food, though.
Yummy cookies!
On Wednesday, we took a break from Moses stories and jumped ahead to the story of Esther. The story of Esther is the focus of the Jewish festival of Purim which is celebrated around this time.
Before I read the story, the kids made shakers, or noise makers. It is a tradition during Purim for people to make noise using shakers, to boo, or to stomp their feet whenever the bad guy's name, Haman, is mentioned in the story. The kids colored on two plates, then we put corn kernels on one, and stapled the other plate to it.
The kids had a ball shaking them while I read the story, and they were LOUD!
We also re-enacted the story of Ulba Bulba. Johanna was the pretty white snowflake, Julia was the wind, Grant was Ulba Bulba and I was one of the raindrops.
On Thursday, Grant started on the piano with me introducing the letter names of the keys to him. Later, we came up with a summary for the story of Esther (after he re-told it to me), and then Grant copied it into his lesson book.
He also put the form drawing into his book.
We also took the spelling words that Grant had missed during the week, and he made up silly sentences using those words.
On Friday, we took a field trip and watched a presentation called "Flowers for Kids." It was actually pretty interesting, and I learned a lot, too. Two women from a local flower shop do the presentation, and they have a lot of fun doing it. They talked about the science (what to feed the flowers and when to change the water), the art (the different types of flowers that go into an arrangement), and even some of the math that goes into the care of cut flowers (how much "sweet" in the water, how much "sour" in the water, how long the flowers can be out of the water after you trim the bottoms). At the end, all the kids got to pick out flowers and bring home a bouquet.
The kids really enjoyed it, but I think they had the most fun on the outdoor playground afterwards.
