Saint Francis of Assisi

"History likes to portray Francis of Assisi as a perfect being, unmoved by the trials that bring the rest of us to our knees.  A placid sage who held out his holy hands to the gentle forest creatures while they scurried and swooped and glided to greet him.  An innocent child-man who easily slips into the kingdom of heaven while the rest of us grapple outside the gates with our thousand grown-up concerns and responsibilities, failing again and again to meet our lives gracefully.
  It is comforting to discover that Francis of Assisi suffered and lamented, lost his temper and forfeited his dignity, rebelled against the rebels and lashed out at the meek.  That, like us, he fell again and again.  And that he continued to stand up, brush himself off, and recommit his life to God.  it is precisely in his humanness that his true sanctity lies; it is in that same essential humanity that we can find a role model for a deeply spiritual life.
  Like most great prophets, Francis of Assisi became a saint in spite of himself.  The more he tried to disappear into the unifying light of the Divine, the more the Holy One seemed to raise him up as a shining example of what is meant by the phrase "love one another."
  Eight centuries after his death, this humble Italian sage is the most popular saint in the world.  Saint Francis dissolves the boundaries between believers and doubters, leaps over the fence that divides religious traditions to penetrate the heart and inflame the imagination in every culture and across the centuries.  Who doesn't love this gentle, joyful saint, a being who preaches to the birds with one hand and blesses lepers with the other?
  Francis of Assisi was born in 1182 and died in 1226.  In his 44 years on the planet, he managed to reform the entire Roman Catholic Church - not through revolution and dissent, but through gracious persuasion and his own living example of an authentic gospel life."

The above introduction came from the following book (it has all kinds of interesting tidbits):

That is why we spent the whole week on Saint Francis.

We started out the day on Monday with lots of outdoor playtime since it was nice and warm.

Once we were inside, we started our new Monday activity of drawing with our feet.  Grant and I started moving our right foot in counter clockwise circles above the paper before I gave him a red crayon to try it out on the paper.  He practiced drawing a circle with his right foot. 

After that we did some math review with the Lot's of Boxes game, and then started a new penny whistle lesson.  We work on the same lesson for two weeks before changing to a new one.

After the penny whistle lesson, I read Grant an introductory story about Saint Francis and then a story from our Stories of the Saints book.

After I read the stories, we drew our pictures in our main lesson books:

Mom's Drawing

Grant's Drawing

(I didn't know how many of you actually knew what our block crayons looked like, so I included them in the photo above.)

After we drew our pictures, Grant did a little reading.  We didn't get any knitting done in the afternoon because Grant and Johanna crashed and each took about a 2 1/2 hour nap!  They would have slept for longer, but I woke them up so they wouldn't sleep too late.  Now if only Julia had actually fallen asleep (why doesn't she know that's what she is supposed to do??), it would have been the most successful nap time in about 3 years!


On Tuesday, we had the day off from school because we went to see the St. Louis Symphony perform Peter and Wolf. We also began to show the effects of a very little, unwanted visitor.  This little guy sure did make our immune systems flex their muscles!  Grant's immune system went into battle first, then Johanna, then Mom, and then Julia.  We all made it through Tuesday, but by Tuesday night, Grant and Johanna were feeling pretty bad.  Grant was feeling better on Wednesday, so we were able to have school.

On Wednesday we started outside.  The temperature was about 55 degrees, and we really enjoyed it!  We watched the "snow melt" water trickling down the hillside into our pond and then gushing out the pond through the overflow tube on the other side.  We watched it begin it's long journey from hillside to pond to stream to creek to river to ocean.  There is still a lot of snow on the ground, but with highs in the upper 60's, low 70's for the next two days, I'm sure it won't last for long.

Once inside we reviewed math with some dice rolling, and did our penny whistle lesson.  After that I had Grant re-tell me the story about Saint Francis and we came up with a summary which he copied into his lesson book.

I copied the summary onto the board and then scrambled some of the words.  Grant had to figure out which ones were scrambled and write them in correctly.

He also practiced his form drawing for this week:

And I read them all this book:

 We ended up taking Thursday and Friday off school, too.  Thursday because I wasn't up for it.  All I can say is Thank You for Thursday being Dad's day off (well, not really a day OFF, but a day at home)!  He watched the kids Thursday morning so I could sleep. 
The kids and I enjoyed sitting outside in the sun on Friday morning in the warm weather and listening to the birds.  We tried to get some school in afterward, but Grant was still really stuffed up and tired, and couldn't focus on anything, so we gave up and will be making up those two days on Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, we kept it pretty simple and basic.  Grant reviewed a little math by rolling his dice and he used our homemade clock to review time.  We did a little with our penny whistles, and then I told Grant one of the more famous stories about Saint Francis, Saint Francis and The Wolf. Once I finished the story, Grant and I drew pictures in our main lesson books:

Mom's Drawing

Grant's Drawing



I also read the kids this book:

Johanna REALLY liked this book for some reason, and kept looking at it all day.  She had Dad re-read it to her in the afternoon, and wanted me to re-read it to her before bed.  I wasn't thrilled about reading it to her right before bed because of the images of the ferocious wolf, but she said, "Mom, he turns nice by the end after that man talked to him." Okay, this is true.  What a good lesson in positive thinking from my 3 1/2 year old!

I also read Grant the Canticle of the Sun and we listened to The Prayer of Saint Francis as a song.

On Sunday, Grant re-told the story of Saint Francis and the Wolf using some props.

When he was done telling the story we came up with a summary and he copied it into his lesson book.

I also read the kids this book:

Later in the afternoon, Dad and the kids made some peanut butter/sunflower seed pine cone bird feeders for all our little bird friends in honor of Saint Francis.

We also read Grant this book throughout the week outside of our lesson times:

Last week seemed a little choppy with our days off, and all of us in various phases of recuperation.  I didn't get all of our planned activities in last week, but sometimes that's just the way it goes.  I am looking forward to this coming week when the kiddos will feel better so we can settle back into our normal rhythm and have a smoother ride. I can say I much prefer the loud, rambunctious kids to the sick, clingy (like mom should be able to hold me ALL the time even when she is cooking, showering, etc), runny nose, crying, not sleeping well at night, whining (even more so than usual) kids.  ;)