Tipperty Toes

The smallest elf.  He's a lesson in red, watercolor painted by Misha.

I'm nursing a cold so my lovely husband is making this tremendously wonderful cream of chicken soup that I love.  Just the anticipation of eating it makes me feel a little better.  A little.

Even with a my cold we've had a productive day.  Liza is reading Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree (we've read this before but she loves to read it every autumn.  It's a children's book but really quite creepy.  She read about ancient Egypt and wrote definitions for her vocabulary words (note to self: the children's dictionary is no longer sufficient for her.  I must dig out the collegiate dictionary).  Shortly I'm going to take her to the library (trying not to breath on anyone) so that she can gets some books for a research paper she is going to write about mummification.

Alyosha read about Jamestown and the journey to America aboard the Mayflower.  He wrote definitions for some of his vocabulary words (I only assign him half on Mondays; he will finish tomorrow).  We read a chapter from Hatchet.  He did a worksheet from his Saxon book; we still need to do his lesson.

Misha painted the picture of the elf.  We had Circle Time (Seryozha joined in), did his language arts lesson in OM1 (we drew Ee in his main lesson book) and copywork, and we played with these wonderful acorns I found at Michaels.  I use them for math manipulatives.  We added and subtracted with them.  It's all review but is good for him.  We read another chapter about the Cyclops in his Odyssey book.  

We still have our afternoon block to do but I was enjoying a quiet moment eating baba ganouj (one of the best batches I've made) and toasted pitas.  I have my first exam of the semester tomorrow--math--so I really must get the kids involved in their studies so that I can do some studying of my own.

The weekend was quiet and rather enjoyable.  Saturday began the new semester for the kids' Russian class.  There are several new children, four of whom have lived for the last three years in the Ukraine.  Another group of siblings speak only Russian at home.  Then there are some children from last semester and, of course, my three biggers (Seryozha sometimes plays with Masha, a little girl his age, but otherwise has no interest).  Then Liza's semester for dance company (a performing arts troupe she's a part of) began as well.

Yesterday my husband had to work all day so my mom and I took the kids to the park for a family member's birthday.  It was very enjoyable, a nice gathering before the cold comes.