Our Week of Learning

Our week of learning was a bit abbreviated...

Early Monday morning, Raizel came in and swiped my glasses before I was fully conscious and before I knew it they were utterly broken. It took until 11:00 that morning to find a somewhat-functioning second pair that allowed me to drive us all to the m-m-m-mall (I call it getting "malled") so I could get a replacement pair at one of those one-hour places. The insurance had just paid for the last pair a few months ago, so first had to go get a copy of my prescription.

We had a delightfully unexpected visitor call on Sunday to say that she was driving up on a whim from the Bay Area. JK stayed for two nights and got to meet Avi and Raizel for the first time. It was a fun, if brief, visit.

Then papa had Thursday and Friday off. Thursday we went to the zoo with 25,000 other people who thought it was a great thing to do on a rainy day. We thought it would be empty, but it was packed. Didn't realize it was free admission day! A&E were very excited because, since there was no parking, that meant we got to take the big yellow school bus from the satellite parking lot. I hadn't packed lunch, just a few meager snacks, and everything took longer than expected. We came home really hungry!

Friday, I finished cooking (but I got most of it done earlier in the week... YAY!), and papa did a run to the dump and Good Will. He was also going to take 4 boxes and 3 bags of kid clothing to the resale shop, but it hadn't occurred to us that they would be closed. Oh, well. It was a nice try!

So....... our learning!

We did tefillos and parsha. Amirah's new Hebrew books arrived, so we eagerly dove into the first few pages of those. It's exactly what I hoped it would be. We did one morning of alef bet with Eli and Raizel. Our mitzvah of the week was derech eretz (basically, good manners) and we will continue that this coming week since it's a biggie and we only spent one session on it. The melacha of the week was m'amer (gathering, i.e. sheaves of wheat). We only got to that once, and it really needs to be studied daily for a week to get into (our!) brain. Amirah finished four reading lessons. I think we did writing one day and math one day. We have finished Little Town on the Prairie and couldn't find the next book, which I'm almost certain I already got from the library... have to check.

On Monday for art, we did print-making. This is a GREAT activity that we've done before. You take a hard surface (cookie sheet or, in our case, shoe boxes) and paint a very light coat of black paint on the box. With a finger you draw a picture or design in the paint then you press a piece of construction paper or card stock onto the paint and lift the image off. If you do several, you can tape them together into a big poster. Eli loved this one, and Amirah's friend N joined us too. They had a good time. After that we did music class with Amirah's friends N and L. It was great fun. I'm so glad we're doing this. Avi loves playing the drums, and he even keeps a steady beat! The other kids seemed to enjoy it a lot. It's going to be great having this every week.

That's about it for now! I spent Friday night reading The Well-Trained Mind and daydreaming about 1st grade materials. I'm also starting to think how to fit everything in (Jewish studies and secular) and not get overwhelmed! Learning is such a smorgasbord. :) It's also nice to get into my head we're we are headed to next year. What a ride.