The week in review

Tuesday, the girls had LCG. Soren did more recorder and a little bit of knitting. The teacher told me that Soren is the most advanced reader in her class.

Here's Lynn's note about the Evergreen class:

Hello parents,

Another full day for the Evergreens has passed.

We started with our opening and some songs, and then sat down for a little "tribal council." I shared with the class my "motto" that I'd like us to live with this year-- "Honor one another." Then we came up with a gentle gesture that can communicate this. The hope is that we can use the gesture when we need to remind one another to honor each other.

I don't want to over-stress this, but I do want to gently address and re-direct some of the energy that at times pulls us away from our tasks at hand.

Today we got our first chance at watercolor painting-- we did a color wheel, first putting down yellow, red and blue. I noted the characteristics of each through a color story-- yellow is dancing all the time, red stomps around and blue is sad in the corner. Yellow then proceeds to dance with red to make orange, and with blue to make green, and red and blue make purple. We made some beautiful paintings. Many thanks to paint parent Jaye Nitschke (Emily's mom) for help in setting up and cleaning up-- made my job much easier.

At handwork time Melissa came in and showed us the finished blanket that we had helped to sew together. She is going to donate it to Isaiah House, a hospice in the city. The woman she spoke to was very touched that Melissa (and Danielle) had thought of them.

Then we began crocheting, first doing finger crocheting. All of the children became adept at this, and a number of them moved on to using their crochet hooks. We will continue chaining for a week or so, then move into our first project-- a thick neck wrap. As we get going on that the children will need a button to finish it. We have some buttons for the children to choose from, but you might also see if you have any-- about 1 to 1 1/2" in diameter. I'll remind you again as we get closer to that step. I was so pleased to see them take off with crocheting!

After snack we went right into our main lesson story of the week-- the story of the creation of the Iroquois League of Nations-- telling how the Peacemaker and Hiawatha brought the five nations together. Don't forget our field trip next Wednesday-- I'll send directions as we get closer.

We ended our day down in Fellowship Hall practicing our St. Michael songs with the other classes in preparation for the fall festival, re-scheduled for this Sunday from 12-3. We need to reserve a different shelter, so check your e-mails later in the week. We will gather at 12:00 for lunch, then have our story, dragon fight and singing from 1:30-2:00. We can spend the rest of the afternoon playing and socializing.

Snack/clean-up for October:

Oct. 4 Hammond
Oct. 11 Kilmer
Oct. 18 Milligan
Oct. 25 Nitschke

Hope you have a good week.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thanks,
Lynn

Yesterday, the girls had Camp Arrowhead.

Soren did water ecology and enjoyed trawling around in the creek, learning about dragonfly nymphs, boatmen and other assorted creatures. The did "Spiderella" in theatre and brought home the script to work on. Soren is Spiderella; Annie and Audrey are the evil sister ladybugs; the teacher is the fairy GodMoth, and the boy in the class is the prince. She was just so enthralled with it and has been reading and practicing her lines a lot!

Emma worked on the rescue course, which they did individually (on the low ropes course). She loved her middle ages class, where they talked about serfs and peasants.

Today we read some poetry by e.e. cummings and also by Shirley Rose (Alfie series). Then we went back to the Middle Ages book. We read about nobility and vassals and serfs and peasants. Then we read about democracy vs. the feudal system and how that compared to linking and ranking.

Emma noted that in J.K. Rowling's biography, Rowling had "ranking" in her school class, where children were seated according to how bright or stupid the teacher thought they were. I thought it was really neat that she made that connection.

They each wrote a legend about King Arthur, which then inspired soren to write a play and star in it herself as all the parts. She rode off with her knights and proposed to Guinivere. Then that inspired both of them to write a story together about getting married. Here are King Arthur and Guinivere.



I forgot to mention that Soren got her hair cut to shoulder length on Tuesday and now wants it even shorter!