Totally Out There Post for New Year's Eve

I was looking at some other homeschooling blogs, and it suddenly dawned on me that I never blogged about the boys' theatre class.  At least I don't think I did. . .  I'm getting old, so my memory ain't what it used to be.

This fall, the boys took their third theatre class with Mr. Dustin at the Solon Center for the Arts.  Instead of putting on a regular play at the end of the session like they've done in the past, the kids wrote their own radio play and performed it before an audience.  It was recorded for posterity, too.  They had sound effects and everything.  I loved how they threw the script pages to the floor when they were finished reading them.  Mr. Dustin had told them all about Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio show and how radio used to be a popular form of entertainment before TV.

Holiday Week

Wow, it's been a while since I posted here.  We've been fairly busy.  This week, though, we are taking it easy, school-wise, and are having a Holiday Week.  Monday, the boys did a Chanukah crossword puzzle, a Christmas maze, and a worksheet called Mitten Math.  There were mittens with multiplication problems on them and mittens with answers on them and you were supposed to color the matching problem and answer mittens the same color.  This one kind of threw Andrew for a loop, but he finally figured it out.

After the worksheets, we read a picture book version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Eight Wild Nights: A Family Hanukkah Tale by Brian P. Cleary, and started two chapter books- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ("What's a pageant, Mom?"- Andrew) by Barbara Robinson and Jason's Miracle: A Hanukkah Story by Beryl Lieff Benderly.

Tuesday, we did a Hanukkah word search, a math review sheet with addition problems in Christmas trees, read Heart of a Snowman by Mary Kuryla & Eugene Yelchin, and continued reading our two chapter books.  We also made a bûche de Noël, for which, the boys did most of the work.  It was pretty tasty and gluten-free, so Mom could eat it, too!

Wednesday, we did a narration of the Nativity story, about which Ed was having an attitude problem, so his is slightly hostile:

Then we did a subtraction review sheet, in which the problems were all in presents, and colored a couple of Hanukkah pictures.

Somehow, I printed off a regular menorah, and not a hannukiah, but whatever!  Then we read Nate the Great and the Crunchy Christmas by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Craig Sharmat and Hooray for Hannukah by Fran Manushkin.  We also read more in our holiday chapter books.

Thursday, they did a page of Christmas math word problems, and a page similar to the Mitten Math, but this time with Gingerbread Men.

Then, they did a page where they had to find the differences in a scene featuring an elf with toys, followed by a lesson in the ways different languages say Merry Christmas.  Then, we read Demain, c'est Noël by Claire Masurel,  Marvin's Best Christmas Present Ever by Katherine Paterson, and The Trees of the Dancing Goats by Patricia Polacco, along with the chapter books.  This was a beautiful story that had me in tears!

For Friday, we will read The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, as well as finish up the chapter books.