Week 15 ~ Another Celebrated Dancing Bear

On My Mind ~ It is so nice to have an entire week that concentrated on hearth and home and school!!  I am hoping to continue this trend for the rest of December.  I didn't get any painting done this week (big surprise ~ LOL), but we did get our favorite contractor on board and he starts work next week.  Maybe having renovation work going on around me will get the painter in me to work ... maybe.

Our School Week ... FIAR ~ We had a great week.  We enjoyed the FIAR book, Another Celebrated Dancing Bear.  This is a sweet fictional story about two bears in Russia before 1917.  One is a famous dancer and the other a doctor.  The doctor becomes jealous by his friend's fame.  They resolve this issue in a wonderful way.

• We used the lap book from Homeschool Share.
• We learned about the freezing point and boiling point of water.
• This led to exploration of the freezing point of all kinds of household products.
• We watched YouTube videos on St. Basil Cathedral, Russian dancing styles, Russian Orthodox high church music, the Russian ballet, and a tour of Moscow.
• We had a tea party.
• We played All Things Russian Bingo and Russian Vocabulary Lotto.
• We played with nesting dolls.
• We studied Russia on a map.
• We learned about onion torrents and made our own buildings with them!
• We listened to lots of Tchaikovsky. ♪♪

Our favorite activity with this FIAR book was going to a tea room in our city and trying some unique teas.  We picked the seating on the floor in what I would call the India room and looked through a whole book of teas to choose from.  There were more than two hundred choices!  We chose Plum tea, a plain, hearty black tea from India; Golden tipped tea, which tasted a little like chocolate; and East Winds herbal tea, which smelled so good.  Everyone received their own tea pot.  They also carried lots of gluten-free and grain-free tea cakes, so Tom Sawyer was able to have lots of lovely treats.  We will be going back again!  We were able to have Grandma along for the field trip, which added to the fun.

The Rest of School ~ We also enjoyed an Advent book each day.  The kids' favorite books this week were The Legend of St. Nicholas, complete with waking up to shoes filled with new socks and the book, Amazing Grace, leading us to set up our nativity.  My favorite Advent book was The Last Straw. We started our Jesus character Advent and did a drawing page in Draw to Learn: The Life of Jesus.  There was plenty of math and reading going on as well.

Places We Are Going ~ Besides going to the tea room, we attended a special library program about card making.  We had lots of fun making cards.  The kids also did shoe boxes for Meals on Wheels this week. Everyone had dance this week, and Tom Sawyer tested out a ballet class.  He is hoping to add it to his schedule this coming spring.

Family Health ~ There is a tummy bug going around our family.  It hasn't stopped most of us in our tracks but is making us feel a bit yucky.  Timothy is feeling much better and now is just itching all the time.  This is part of the healing process and should pass soon.  He started back to his special needs college class this week.

What a complete week.  There is actually more going on, but I think that is enough for this wrap-up.  I am joining Homegrown Learners.

Blessings, Dawn