Summer School Week 4

Week 4 Field Notes


Bird Call:  Common Grackle - because they're everywhere around us!

Classical Music: Handel's Water Music - YouTube's playlist has been a huge help in reviewing our previous week's songs, thanks, Rachel, for telling me about that!!

Picture Study:  Monet, "Water Lilies" - of 250 water lily paintings I chose this one, because if you squint it looks unbelievably three dimensional, also because up close you can see all his brush strokes and get a feel for impressionistic work.

Animal: Hippo - don't you just want your own baby hippo? We slacked on three subjects this week and this was one of them.  This subject will culminate in a big trip to the Pittsburgh zoo later this Summer.

Insect: Spittle Bug  aka Froghopper - the former name is for when they're nymphs and the latter when they're proper bugs.  We always see the spittle "foam" on our strawberries every year, so they made our bug list.  Found most of our info in library books and on Wikipedia.

Flower: Peony - we love that ants have to bite these open.  For fun, last Saturday, we stopped by Kingwood Center where Ben proposed to me oh some 17 years ago and just next to the gazebo where he asked me, there's a peony garden with gorgeous peonies dating back to the 1930s!  I've seen rose gardens, but never a peony garden.  In May when he proposed, they wouldn't have been in bloom, not that I would have noticed that day anyways!

Tree: Oak - 2nd subject we missed - now we're two weeks behind on trees!  I think we'll live.

Fungi: Chanterelle- Read lots in the the mushroom field guides about these.  Evidently, these are a favorite among mushroom hunters.  Known for their peachy aroma and amazing flavor.

Rocks: Pegmatite - The pink glittery one in the box we got.  :-)

Constellation: Andromeda - no dot to dots found for this.  My plan is to make flashcards up for all of the constellations we do, so I can quiz them easily.  But, since I haven't done this yet, this is the third subject we neglected this week.

Dinosaur: Triceratops - from the Cretaceous period - Dover library has books on many dinos individually.

American Sign Language: Q-V

Sea Life: Squid, Octopus and Cuttlefish - These just had to go together, but not all are cephalopods or eight legged!  Most interesting facts about these guys is their skin color can change instantaneously via electric impulses!  Here's an awesome Nova video on how God made these amazing creatures to camouflage themselves.  Ezra is obsessed with the sea life subject and wants to try eating every one we learn about.  Once a month, we do this, but can't afford to eat seafood in our landlocked Ohio Valley every week.

Biography: Thomas Edison

Fiction Summer Must Reads: Pilgrim's Progress for kids - slow going on this one, it's good though!


We're definitely in Summer mode here and not making school such a priority as we do in the school year.  It's fun to see their minds working though and hear them asking really good questions about the world around them.  My favorite from this past week though has little to do with Summer school, "Mom, how do you know the right person to ask to marry you?"  That was my big, almost seven year old , whose front top tooth is so loose today I think he might swallow it in his sleep during naptime today!  For the record, he only gets a nap when he needs it (about every 2-3 days), but Mommy requires the kids have quiet time EVERY DAY for one hour!!  She also plans to continue the quiet time tradition as long as earthly possible.

I'm enjoying our Summer school subjects far more than I do normal academics, but I'm getting an idea of how to plan ahead and expound on the core subjects we will do in Classical Conversations in the school year.