On our final day of school before the holidays, we studied A Visit from St. Nick (1822) by Clement Clarke Moore (commonly known as The Night Before Christmas) and the origins of Santa Clause/St.Nicholas. The kids did a sweet little play of the poem and we made pop-up Christmas tree cards. Additionally, we conducted a survey asking for other's favorite Christmas traditions inspired by the life & work of St. Nicholas.
The options were...

- Candy Canes (represent St, Nicholas’s bishop’s staff) - Stockings (hung by the fireplace to dry each night, apparently gifts thrown in the windows in secret often found here or in shoes left to dry as well) - Oranges in Stockings (represents the gold St. Nicholas gave in secret…often in stockings) - Secret Gift Giving (St. Nicholas usually left gifts for the needy at night and in secret) - Charity (our tradition of helping the needy at Christmas came from St. Nicholas’s ongoing actions as bishop)

The front-runner changed over the course of the day, but the winner was Stockings left by the fireplace. The graph included shows what the kids found in their research. Whatever your favorite...we hope you have an enjoyable, blessed, peaceful holiday. Mery Christmas!

Arts Week!

This week we crammed all of our regular school work into 2 days and spent our time in the theatre. On Wednesday the kids and I went to see THE SNOW QUEEN by Lexington Children's Theatre. It was loud and abstract. The costumes were gorgeous and there were lots of devils & imps (Oscori sp?) running around moaning & screaming...Reeves liked that part. Today, Embree & I left the boys with Daddy...dressed up...and went with friends to The Nutcracker by the Lexington Ballet. One of Embree's friends appeared in it and was quite excited to have friends in the audience. It was our first full viewing of the ballet and Embree loved it. Like me, she thought the male lead was the best...he was fantastic...so strong and athletic. Very impressive dancing. Also, we enjoyed the dances in The Land of Sweets, and the angels. It was a nice outing for mom & daughter. We hope to make it a holiday tradition. Tomorrow we are off to Brice's reading club at the library, then to make gingerbread houses. Busy...fun days.

Snow Day

The kids were indignant this morning when they found out that the public schools were closed because of the snow...but they had school!!! They don't understand, or more likely care, that they will finish earlier this summer...they just wanted snow day. I finally gave in and gave them 1/2 a snow day. No one can claim I'm the Grinch...completely,anyway!

Happy snowball fight!

The Iliad

Today, we began studying the Iliad by Homer in our study of Ancient Greece. According to Reeves it is about "The Trojan war. It's a war over a girl." Embree says, "It's about a war. They fight for the most beautiful girl in the world. King Zeus decides thee needs to be a war so he starts a war by rolling a golden apple on the table of the goddesses and saying 'Whoever is the most beautiful gets the apple.' "

Reeves' favorite part.."the wooden horse is so big and cool...it has big hip-hop cool dudes inside."
Embee's favorite part..."the horse was really big & pretty."

Interesting take on the story...we are on to the Odyssey next...kids already think the Cyclops is the coolest! They love the gruesome parts!