Rowing Along

We've been plodding along, Hannah and I read Another Celebrated Dancing Bear and really enjoyed it.  He had tea, Russian style by taking little bites of sugar cubes with our hot tea.  Class has been hit or miss between family visits and holidays.  Next week, we start up again with one of three books that we checked out from the library this past week.  It should be good to get settled again.  Hannah has been doing her own copy work, her penmanship is pretty good for her age and the instruction she has received (which is very little in the formal department), but she has no interest in learning to read (STILL). 

I have been NaNo-ing and I only have three days left to complete about ten thousand words.  Part of me wants to do it and the other part just wants to take a huge nap, wake up and clean my bathroom (something I have been wanting to do but putting off because it's November and I'm noveling, If you NaNo you understand, if you don't then just say "Ewwww GROSS!" and we'll leave it at that) 

A modge podge

Joel and Hannah finished up Papa Piccolo on Saturday by counting pairs.  She really got the lesson, as she was able to count in pairs today.  We have started Cranberry Thanksgiving.  Today we talked about setting and created a couple of play settings during class.  I think we are going to have one big lesson day where we do math, science and art buy making some bread or a pumpkin pie.  We also got to see a replica of Bleirot's plane that flew over the English channel at the Henry Ford Museum.  I totally wish that we had gone after reading the book, as she would have enjoyed the reality of what it was much more, but all the same, we had a great time at the museum, as it was Macy's 2nd Mondays and there were a ton of children there, and Hannah adores crowds.

Sing Songy

We were reading Papa Piccolo today.  Hannah was making more connections between the show we watched on Venice and the pictures in the book and the location.  Pretty cool.  We decided to make up songs or lullabys for different things.  I think Hannah sang one for Scooby-Doo, one for Ralph our cat, one for me, and one for Papi.  But I'm pretty sure she liked the Scooby-Doo song the best.  I'm thinking tomorrow we are going to break out the water colors and have some fun doing our own waterways.

Map it!

I took it as a very good sign, that Hannah reminded me this evening that we need to do school.  I don't expect that she will do that very often in our time together, so I'll take it when I can get it. 
We're still reading Papa Piccolo and enjoying it.  Tonight, we located Venice on the map and then I turned to our old friend, Netflix, to find a movie.  I was looking to see if The Italian Job was on instant, because I was being lazy and did not want ot find the DVD and put it in the player.  It has some great shots of Venice and the pilings of the buildings, much better than Ocean's Twelve in regards to city highlights.  It was not available, but I did find an A&E special on the Canal's of Venice and we watched bits and pieces of it.  Helped Hannah realize that it's more of an island than a city in the traditional sense. 

Out of the corner of my eye

Today, we skipped ahead to Papa Piccolo. It is a delightful story about a cat that adopts some stray kittens. I decided on starting the week the science lesson and we talked about peripheral vision. I don't think Hannah got it because she kept looking at my finger instead of my nose :)
It's a busy month. I'm not sure how often I'll be posting about class because we are also having guests galore and I'm working on a novel for National Novel Writing Month, but I am definitely planning on doing classwork

Four all together :D

We've been reading Grandfather's Journey this week.  We've done some simple origami for art, looked at our map for social studies, talked about the days of the week for math, and even discussed poetic prose for language arts.  I haven't been on the actual computer much lately, which explains why I haven't been keeping the log up. We did skip the last lesson in The Glorious Flight this past Saturday.  And things have been crazy good here lately, what with Presbytery meetings, monthly Bible study, costume making, trick or trunk decorating and pondering on NaNoWriMo plots. 

It's all about perspective

We did our art lesson today from The Glorious Flight with a camera. Since the lesson was on perspective and viewpoint, and because I didn't feel like getting all the paints out, we used the camera and different objects.  We took pictures from high above, down below and on eye level.  Perspective is very important when taking pictures and art in general.  I didn't want Hannah to get frustrated with trying to draw/paint different perspectives, as she has been very easily frustrated this week, so we went with the camera route. 
I also found a Smithsonian book on the shelf this morning.  It has pictures of Bleriot as he took off from France and during a parade that occurred after the flight.  I will have to do some more reading in the book tonight in preparation for our science lesson on Saturday, which should include a trip to the flight exhibit at The Henry Ford Museum.