Arts Week!

We having Arts Week! We're so excited - it's like a little learning vacation in the middle of other subjects. I decided to keep a diary of the day instead of the usual format.

5:30 AM The alarm went off, but I couldn't bear to leave the warm bed. Anna got up, however, to grab the shower first and get ready to go off to TeenPact for the week. Rachel went along, too, for an appointment at the orthodontist, so she was running around as well.

6:00 AM I'm up and getting dressed for the day. It's not so cold this morning, so I made Kitty-Kitty eat his breakfast outside instead of the comfortable laundry room. He didn't really want to go and stood in front of the wall heater, just looking at me while I was opening the front door and trying to lure him outside with the plate of cat food. Then I started our breakfast: bacon, eggs, and leftover ww rolls from yesterday. Emily and Thomas were up and helped with the table and Katie, whose vacation has ended, got up early, too, with Carrie. Abby was still snoring away.

7:00 AM David and the girls left for the day. Everyone began doing chores and checking email and Facebook and Abby got up and had breakfast. Thomas finished chores early and began straightening his clothing drawers.

8:00 AM We started school a whole hour ahead of time. Wow! Great for a Monday morning!
First, we studied our Bible verse from Proverbs. We chose Proverbs 1:4 today and looked up the important words and talked about the meanings and application, then prayed together. Abby sat in my lap while I read a chapter from Winnie the Pooh and we talked about greed (Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's front door today) and about Pooh's lack of thinking skills (but he's sooo endearing). We finished the first chapter of Laddie (long chapters!) and discussed the characters.

9:30 AM Everyone is starving this morning and had to have more rolls and Carrie went to change out the laundry while my voice took a break from reading. Thomas went to finished the drawers and start cleaning out from under his bed (a veritable mine field!) while Abby went to draw and listen to her Heidi CD. Carrie and I read from The Hiding Place and had a short talk about the character traits of Father and Betsie and Corrie.

10:00 AM Joshua called and said he needed to eat lunch early, so I fixed some potatoes to roast in the oven and, since David was gone, I had decided that I wasn't going to really cook, so Abby and I mixed up some baked beans and I got out some hot dogs to cook with the beans. Carrie started on her geography, which is a unit study written by Rachel to go with Around the World in 80 Days and she's also doing Around the World in 180 Days. It took Thomas a long time to clean out from under his bed, so Abby and I read another chapter from The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz, in between running to the kitchen to do various things to lunch. David's closet was a mess of half-filled Rubbermaid boxes and a huge stack of suitcases, so I straightened it all out, too, while lunch was cooking. Won't he be surprised that he can actually reach his overcoats now?

11:00 AM Rembrandt was the artist of choice today. We had a lesson about drawing faces in shadow - the kids drawing in my shadowy bedroom while I folded several baskets of laundry. If you follow the link, you can see how he painted many of the faces in his portraits in shadow on the right side of the painting. We looked at paintings on some different websites until Joshua came home for lunch.

11:45 AM Our composer for this week is Brahms. We read about him from Lives of the Musicians and listened to some of his works while we ate lunch. Emily, who had been studying history for a CLEP test all morning, washed the dishes since it was Anna's job and she's gone. Thanks, Emily!

1:00 PM Thomas took a break. Carrie practiced fiddle for an hour. I read a couple of picture books to Abby: You Silly Goose by Ellen Stoll Walsh, which gave us a good opportunity for discussion, and The Prickly Hedgehog by Mark Ezra.

2:00 PM Thomas and I read a chapter in Neil Armstrong, which is our Beyond FIAR book, and learned about the digestive system. He went to my room to practice fiddle. Abby and I made Good Morning Muffins for tomorrow's breakfast.

Good Morning Muffins

Yield: about 12 muffins
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup grated apples
1 cup grated carrots
2 cups flour
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease muffin tins.

Mix together eggs, sugar, and oil. Mix in dry ingredients. Fold in apples and carrots. Bake for about 10-15 minutes, or until the muffins test done and are lightly browned.

3:00 PM Carrie worked on a writing assignment for awhile. Thomas finished practicing and went outside to play. Abby and I put up the laundry, then she went back to Heidi.

4:00 PM Carrie figured out how to cover a plastic headband with fabric and since the sewing machine was out for that, I asked her to mend the fringe on a throw. Emily took a break from typing up her history notes to walk with me and Leslie Sansone (with the sound turned off - we get tired of hearing her say the same things every day). Thomas worked on a story he's writing while playing classical and jazz on his kazoo, keeping time with our walking. What can I say? He's a BOY.

5:00 PM Thomas has been listening to Treasure Island on tape, so he pulled out a pirate book and read some interesting things to me. I'm much encouraged when he reads without being prompted.

5:30 PM Emily made grilled peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Everyone started chores and baths and then read or played with Playmobil until bedtime.

9:00 PM I'm home from the ladies' meeting at church and spent some time talking to David and the kids. Time for sleeping now.... See you tomorrow!