Weekly Update

Here is another weekly update. We had a great week for school this week and are enjoying our current unit on the history of Christmas.

Math: Ellie got 2 lessons done and then we paused to review her multiplication and division facts. We'll probably do this again for the first couple of days next week and review her long division. She really needs to get her facts down. She is doing well with the multiplication but is having a little bit harder time with the division. Kara got 3 lessons done this week. Next week I hope to get much more done.
Spelling: Ellie reviewed the words she missed last week and took the post test. She still missed several (it is a list of homonyms such as bizarre/bazaar and oversees/overseas) so we will review it again next week.
Latin: Ellie did lesson 10 this week. We are using the Latina Christiana curriculum for this. On Mondays she watches the video lesson, on Tuesdays she does an online review, on Wednesdays she does her workbook and on Thursdays she does Ludere which is a book that has puzzles that helps her put her Latin into practice and takes a quiz. She practices her new vocab words each day and learns several derivatives of her Latin vocab.
English: Ellie finished the chapter on imperfect verbs and will take the test on Monday. Kara did several lessons in OPGTR.
Reading: Ellie continues to read the Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. She'll finish that up next week and write a book report.
Science: This is on hold until after Christmas.
History: We have decided to put The Story of the World on hold until after Christmas. Instead we are studying the history of Christmas and Christmas traditions of other countries. This week we studied Christmas in the Philippines (we'll also study Mexico, Switzerland and Russia). They learned that the most common Christmas decoration in the Philippines is the parol. The girls each made one (Ellie's is the red one and Kara's is the yellow one). They also learned that instead of evergreen trees, Filipinos often use palm trees for their Christmas trees. The children also go around the neighborhood singing Christmas songs and collecting coins.
Aside from the Philippines, we are also learning about how Christmas came about. We learned about the Roman holiday of Saturnalia where the slaves and masters traded places. During this time of celebration in December, people exchanged gifts, usually candles or dolls. In 274 December 25 was celebrated as natalis Solis Invictus (the birthday of the unconquered sun). According to the Roman calender, December 25 was the winter solstice so the festivities on this day celebrated that the days would be getting longer.
Early Christians did not celebrate Christ's birthday or any birthdays as they thought it worldly and pagan. Instead, early Christians celebrated the days on which martyrs died. Christians did not begin to celebrate Christmas until after 313 when the edict of Milan was issued which granted toleration of Christianity. Christians in those early years chose December 25 to celebrate Christ's birth because they were hoping it would provide a way to evangelize to the followers of Mithra (a sun god).
We also learned about the origin of wassail and the yule log. Wassail was often served only in wealthy people's houses in England. It was made of ale, crab apples, beaten eggs, sugar and spices. Sounds gross. The yule log was present in several European countries and was basically a large tree that was burned on Christmas. There were several superstitions surrounding the burning of the log that were thought to bring good luck during the next year. The girls have asked to make a yule log cake this week so we may do that.
The kids also learned that Christmas trees used to be decorated with gingerbread men and edible treats. Taking down the Christmas tree used to be a day that was anticipated since that was when they could eat the treats. We are going to wrap up some small candies and put them on the tree (we didn't get to it this week) and we made some gingerbread ornaments. We still have to decorate them and hang them up.
Art: We learned the true story of Good King Wenceslas and sang the carol. We also read about Rembrandt and memorized his painting The Feast of Belshazzar. In the Oxford First Book of Art, they saw pictures of imaginary creatures and drew an imaginary creature of their own. They each drew fairies. Ellie's is the first one.