Weekly Round-Up: Week of April 8-12

We're on a spring break of sorts here in our household.  My daughter's art and theater program is on break until Fall, and our long course swim season doesn't start back up until next week.  With that, we've had some time to breath and enjoy some free time.

Read Alouds:

We're almost through with Poppy by Avi.  Two of my children love it, one hates it.   We're reading through the book of John this month. We'll be done with it on Easter Sunday.  The kids are enjoying some of the children's stories in Mostly Magic. (Through Glass Windows anthology)  They still enjoy picture books, but haven't heard some of these childhood favorites in a long time. My 11 yo loves this large animal encyclopedia published by DK & Smithsonian. I read aloud from it just 1-2 paragraphs a day. It keeps him happy. 

Weekly Booklist

Small Group Activity:

We met with our small group for art and a science activity. We discussed photography, composition and integrity using our Schola Rosa lesson plans.  One thing I'll miss about Schola Rosa was how it easy it was to plan out activities for our small group. We are finishing our 3rd cycle and taking a break from the program next year.

Demonstrating integrity in photography. 

Field Trip:

I am not a spontaneous person at all, but we've had cabin fever  and last week was rainy and cold.  We decided to drive into Boston to visit the Museum of Science. We hold a membership there and it is a perfect place to meet up with friends and take a break from the routine. My 11 y.o. is a sponge when we got to these types of venues.  Watching his face light up with interest as he reads every last placard in the museum makes me so motivated to find things to help expand on the knowledge he's getting. 

The goal was to make the marble move on the screen through the maze by using your body weight.

Something New:

My daughter decided to try something new this week. Using a fountain pen and ink we worked on calligraphy together. Getting used to the pen was really the goal of this particular lesson. We hope to play around with different nibs over the next few weeks so that we can get a little bit fancier with the lettering. She's been into lettering for a while, but this is her first foray using a fountain pen.  She is using the Calligraphy Project Book  that I picked up at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago.  I'm hoping to find her some books that break it down a little better for her, but it served its purpose. 

She loved using the fancy fountain pen! 

Scruffy Hospitality:

Our home is lived in. Messes happen as soon as I clean up.  I love having people over anyway. Its not often we have friends come to dinner, but our regular game night got canceled and we still had an extra fish & chips from our parish fish fry for a special friend of ours.  He decided to come over anyway and we enjoyed a lovely meal and conversation.  My 14yo especially loves games.  On the agenda that evening were: Dominion and Carcassonne. 

We included the River Expansion with this game of Carcassonne. 

Fish & chips on our wedding china. 

Overall it was a great week! I was able to spend some time planning out Holy Week and was able to go into it feeling refreshed and ready for Easter.