Learning and Life

We had a really productive week with lots of academic learning and lots of life-skills education. Academically, we've been studying fun things like the Punic Wars (so we found it humorous to meet a woman from Carthage this week! ha!) and the Roman soldier in history, conjugation of irregular verbs in Spanish, and punctuation in grammar. Our study of physical science was enhanced by a couple Bill Nye the Science Guy videos this week on simple machines and motion, which even Mom enjoyed. We also watched "The Scarlet Pimpernel" this week as an illustration of mob rule versus the rule of law, which was a fun wrap-up after finishing Maybury's book the previous week.

Our composer for this week was Haydn and even the little ones enjoyed this fun book about "The Farewell Symphony" before we listened to several examples of his music.

In the practical arena, Briana got her driving permit and has been racking up the hours on the road. We are all pretty happy with this cheap little 1993 Buick we bought and are enjoying the savings on fuel costs compared to our gas-guzzling van.She does pretty well with driving, although I have to admit my foot frequently stomps a little hard in the passenger floorboards. I wish there was a brake on my side of the car!Here is a little hint of Alan and Destry's woodworking project. . .It's so incredibly cool and I love it so much I will have to do a whole post about it. Can't you just imagine what it will look like when *I* am done with it?! :DThe highlight of Easton and Kiana's schoolweek was making kites.
They had great fun cutting and coloring and designing.

They didn't fly very well, so Daddy suggests next time they need to be bigger and use a lighter covering, such as newspaper instead of a brown paper bag. We'll see how it goes next time!
And I just have to share this video of Destry playing the Peanuts theme song since it's something I had to listen to all week. He thinks it is the coolest song, but it's pretty difficult. If you know the song, you'll notice he edited the most difficult part from this rendition. It's a work in progress, so if you'd like to hear what my house sounds like, play this video about 20 times--but crank up the speed. I'm glad he loves music. . .but I'm also glad that keyboard has earphones so he can sometimes play without me having to listen! :D (And I apologize for the videography--I was holding Tyrell and he was trying to get to the camera! chuckle)