What I’m Reading: Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad and The Wanderings of Odysseus: The story of the Odyssey by Rosemary Sutcliff
My husband’s favorite books are Rosemary Sutcliff’s Eagle of the Ninth series. I will eventually get around to reading them, but I thought I’d start with some familiar stories first. I read The Iliad and The Odyssey in high school and college. My son is reading the Mary Pope Osborne Odyssey aloud to me while my daughter is in her ballet class. I’m enjoying these summary versions of the stories as they are reminding me of the full story. It is also interesting to see which aspects the authors choose to tell. Rosemary Sutcliff versions are story driven rather with little to no dialogue. I don’t think I would have noticed that these books are missing dialogue if it hadn’t been for the Mary Pope Osborne version. If you want a summary of the full stories, I think these are good books. However, I do look forward to reading the full poetic version again in the future.
What I’m {commonplacing}:
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1, Duke Senior
Co-op
We have a couple weeks off from co-op, but I did have a board meeting. It’s fun getting involved with leadership since I really enjoy our group and want my kids to really feel like they’re part of a good community. I will be helping with membership/registration. It fits well into my past life experience.
Fourth Grade Highlight
We are in full preparation mode for co-op family night. Piano song(s) have been chosen and crafts are being designed. We also had some great moon viewing in the morning hours this week.
We did end up having one day with a longer than usual math lesson reviewing all the problems my son got wrong in his lessons this week. Most of his misunderstanding came from not reading the problem well and not giving his full focus. Some of the concepts are tricky too and I can see that he’s relied heavily on his memory or a formula rather than learning the concepts for himself.
I’ve increased the copywork time from 10 to 15 minutes. I did the same with his grammar only because I handed him the worksheet to do on his own. He seems to be doing fairly well labeling all the parts. We also fit in a couple games of geography BINGO.
Kindergarten Highlight
My daughter completed her very first potholder this week. It was fun to see her thought process as she began her second. She has about a 15-20 minute attention span for working on her potholder. Even though I only have it on the school schedule for every other week, I may start pulling out the handicrafts for other times to give her more opportunities to work on her potholders for the family night sale.
My daughter also had her first lesson with coins. She loved it. I don’t know how much she’ll remember, but it sure was fun!
Travel
We ended up taking the puppies with us on our family road trip. We found a family friendly Vrbo and brought them along. It worked out so well. One of the pups is more nervous than the other, but she did well in the end. It was such a delightful experience for us to snuggle with them during the drive and all the downtime we had during our visit.
mylittlemullings.wordpress.com 