Week in Homeschool #13

 Here's what our homeschool week number thirteen looked like.   11.05-11.09

Our Theme of the week
Gratitude

This week we didn't read any special stories to go with our theme.  Instead we brought out our Thankful Tree.  A tradition that started 7 years ago.  Each Thanksgiving we write what we are grateful for on a paper leaf with our name and the year.  It's wonderful to bring this out every year and see the things that meant so much to us in years past.  Every year we watch our tree grow a little bit fuller.


Letter of the week
L

Poem of the month

Art
We worked with 7 different "autumn" water colors. 

We painted blends on both sides of heavy paper.   

I traced leaf shapes from a printed template.

 
Now we have beautiful new fall leaves for our Thankful tree.
I LOVE these leaves.

Art Study

Cave Painting from 15,000 B.C. Lascaux, France


History
This week we reviewed the past 10 chapters of Story of the World, book 1.  We reviewed Ava's notes, and I asked her questions based on a combination of those notes, and the student guide book.  They colored review cards, which we laminated to keep as a hands on timeline.

Math

 

Nature Journals
This week the kids each wanted to make turkey pictures.  Ava chose watercolors, and Cyrus used markers.   Cyrus also included an owl carrying packages.  (an homage to  Hedwig, I'm sure.)

I also asked Ava if she would paint something in our new natural environment that she's grateful for.  She painted images of our backyard redwood tree.  She came up with the idea to paint the tree in several different times of day.  First you see the purple gold of sunrise, the light blue of afternoon, the pink of sunset, and the dark blue of evening.  Oh my goodness.  I love her.

Peace

I asked each of my children what Gratitude means to them, and then to list 5 things that they are grateful for.

Cyrus: "Being Grateful.  Helping each other.  And when you say good things about other people's things."
*Dad's cooking.  Pizza, pesto, peach cobbler, and teriyaki.
*Honey Crisp apples
*Harry Potter books
*Candy, and presents
*Pretzel my cat

Ava: "Being grateful for the things you have, and saying thank you"
*That we read the first 3 Harry Potter books, and watched the 1st movie
*A Place to live
*My own room
*Beautiful garden
*For little libraries scattered all over the house



Field Trip

 

We headed out to the Cafe Gratitude.  This is Ava's favorite restaurant and I can understand why.  The food is so wholesome, that it just makes you feel good. 

This post has been sitting in my drafts list for ages.  I never got around to writing the technical aspects of the post, and now weeks later...  I just don't care!  I remember it was a great week.  I remember feeling grateful, and that we were very happy.  So really, who cares which math lessons we covered?