As it was our last day, we did not do a whole lot. This will change next week when Saara will start her ballet class and the choir and hand bells group will kick of the week after that. They are looking forward to it very much. So, the precious 'free' time will disappear and we will have full days till Christmas.
Among the other important and big things today, Andrew took his first Math test and scored 148 out of 149.
Today's 'free' time was actually spent at the library. Our 'loot' is getting heavier and heavier. I am seriously thinking of making some special library totes for Andrew and Saara.
Here's, however, a little scoop of what we did today:
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| Bible. First off, we had a puppet show about Isaac blessing Jacob. |
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| Andrew and Saara actually kept straight and serious faces throughout the whole play and the retelling of the story ... |
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| ... but as soon as I said that we were done, they started goofing around. |
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| Music Appreciation. We moved on to learning about the tempo. A big 'thank you' to the Little Einsteins show on the Disney Channel - Andrew and Saara were familiar with words like 'presto', or 'allegro', or 'adagio'. The only new word they learned today was 'the metronome'. Also, "Peer Gynt" and Edvard Grieg. We listened to the story of Peer Gynt and to the two most famous pieces from Grieg's work: "The Morning" and "In the Den of the Mountain King" The above site is sfskids.org Both kids had fun while learning and experimenting with different metronome settings. |
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| The two trolls listening to the story of Peer Gynt. |
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| Detour. On our way to the library, I dragged the kids over to another building in downtown. I tested Andrew's knowledge of columns. He could remember the three different designs of the ancient columns, but failed to name them. Not a problem - back at home, we looked them up, and I am confident, Andrew will recognize the Corinthian columns anywhere now. |
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| The end-of-the-school-day snack or mommy-has-a-bad-sweet-tooth-ache cookies. The kids and I whipped up some delicious ginger cookies after school. Recipe below. |
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| We made our own version of the Mountain King's Den. I hauled out a dust covered disco ball and the kids had a blast until they were breathless. |
2 1/4 cups flour
2 teasp. ground ginger
1 teasp. baking soda
3/4 teasp. cinnamon
1/2 teasp. ground cloves
1/4 teasp. salt
3/4 cups butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tablesp. water
1/4 cup molasses
Preheat oven to 350F. Sift together flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. In another bowl cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg, then water and molasses. Gradually stir flour mixture into the molasses mixture.
Shape dough into walnut sized balls (roll in some sugar, if desired).
Bake for about 8 - 12 minutes (it really depends on how big the 'walnut sized balls' are. The center of the cookie should not be 'liquidy' or 'slushy', but rather on the firmer side.)
