Picasso, boats and Don Quijote

Cedrik drew a picture of Picasso and Jordan.

He wanted to learn about boats so we've been learning the major parts, hull, bow, stern, main sail, mast, rudder. They've been loving it and decided to make their own boats during lunch one day-without any prompting from me. Cedrik told me the different parts as he built it.

We learned about Jesus helping Simon Peter catch fish. They thought it was awesome! We had to replay it several times and watch the video of it too.

We learned about Don Quijote and it was by far their favorite thing to learn from Picasso, technically it was Cervantes, but Picasso has a painting of his view of the story.

Cedrik was Don Quixote, riding Rocinante, I played Dulcinea and Freddie was Sancho Panza, riding his donkey. Both had "swords" and fought the giant windmills. They LOVED it. Cedrik drew a picture of Don Quixote riding Rocinante and then wrote their names. Fantastic artwork.

He signed this, Cedrik-picasso. 

He almost drew Don Quixote with only one ear, like Picasso does in a few paintings (because they are side-views) but at the last second decided to add the other one. He did however, make Rocinantes portrait a side view, notice only one eye. :)

The Pond

Jordan helped move his mom's pond, he laid all the rock too. It looks awesome.

I made salve. I'm going to have to do something though, because as soon as it gets a tiny bit warm inside, it melts. So, more beeswax probably needs to be added. But it smells amazing.

Golden Spike

We took the boys to Golden Spike-the spot in Utah where the transcontinental railroad was joined. We've read about this countless times in our train books.

They were so excited. They brought two trains in that they've made for these reenactments-the Jupiter and the 119. Interestingly, both of them weren't supposed to be the actual trains there that day which I find fascinating-back in 1869. The trains that were selected both had problems and these were brought in last minute.

Steve was selected to help with the reenactment because some of the actors couldn't make it that day. He read the longest speech of the whole program. It was pretty funny.

We got to talk to the fireman and the engineer. Cedrik saw the engineers watch and asked a few other questions. We saw the steam and both of these trains burned wood. Very cool. V.e.r.y. c.o.o.l.

There were women with parasols which was perfect because both of the boys knew what they were and pointed them out to me!

Grandma Porter bought the boys tshirts that they try to wear daily. :)

We bought a couple of books too that are big hits.

I would totally go there again. I wish there had been some type of covering outside though because it was super hot, but that probably adds to the effect.

Crawling, Pulling, Standing

And next is walking. She is getting up the stairs now. She has to be watched constantly when she's awake.

She has started her separation anxiety phase, so I'm feeling the love finally. She has been so focused on Jordan, it's nice to get a little attention from her now. ;) She gets so mad and screams mama when he puts her pajamas on instead of me, not sure why-probably because he doesn't like doing hers because she fights it so much.

She can sign "more" and is very vocal when she is done with anything, food, milk, the boys, etc. She is also good at saying no.

Haystacks & Golliwogs

We finished up our study of Monet and Debussy with his painting titled "Haystacks" and Debussy's Golliwogs Cakewalk. The boys recognized the song because Jordan was learning it about a year ago. 

They confused the haystacks with rocks but then I showed them a real photo of haystacks, it made more sense. 

I had them create art with food. What kid (or person) doesn't like food art?

We have been learning about new instruments and YouTube is awesome. We can search any instrument and get demonstrations of them and hear some really amazing things. So far we've learned about the harp, harpsicord, triangle, viola, bassoon, cymbals, and gongs. Really cool. I found some nomenclature cards so we organized them into their respective categories and Cedrik did really well. The only ones he had a hard time with were percussion, because we hadn't gone over them and the organ. Even Jordan wasn't sure which category that fit info. 

Cedrik is still doing his reading lessons. His incentive (that he decided himself) was that he wanted to read so he can play monopoly. Or he has to wait until he is 8. Big incentive, he loves board games. 

We celebrated pioneer day by listening to a few pioneer hymns  and songs during breakfast-big hit. We walked to a lady's house to see her new kitten and on the way pretended we were pioneers and each time we crossed a road we pretended it was water. We sat under a tree and Cedrik scouted for Indians, found some, but informed us that they were nice.