Advent Week Two

 Sunday evening candle-lighting.

 The nature table gets some plant-life!  We added evergreen leaves from the fir tree in our front yard, a perfect addition to Sariah's kindergarten story about The Little Fir Tree.  We also added moss in spots around the table and are in the process of forcing some bulbs--paperwhite narcissus, a traditional holiday flower that should hopefully bloom by Christmas.  Mary and Joseph continue to travel down the path to the stable each day.

This week, as we looked at "Holidays of Light", we learned about the winter solstice.  Our curriculum materials had a fun little play about King Sun coming to claim his reign over Lady Moon.  The kids had a blast practicing for the play, and today we even made props--sun/moon wands and crowns, cut from watercolor paintings.  Dallin apparently has a flair for the theatrical and has especially enjoyed choreographing Mom's part (representing the people).  I get to sing the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun", which we have been singing each day as part of our circle time.  I also get to do some pretty darn crazy dance moves, all made up by Dallin.  I think Dallin should have been alive and dancing during the disco craze of the 70's, that's all I can say!  We decided to today to wait and perform our play for Daddy on the actual night of the winter solstice.


I told the Welsh legend of Pryderi, The Boy Who Was Called Trouble, which takes place on the night of the solstice.  In the story, a farmer discovers that every time his mare gives birth, the colt is stolen in the middle of the night before he can even see it.  Finally, he decides to wait in the stable to catch the thief.  Just as he sees a clawed hand reach through the window to grasp the colt, he takes his sword and cuts off the hand.  He goes outside and finds a baby laying there.  The colt and the baby boy grow up together, and eventually it is found that the boy is the son of Rhiannon the Queen, who has been stolen away by wicked fairies.  Of course they are reunited, on the night of the winter solstice.  Dallin loved this story because it had plenty of drama in the form of the mysterious claw .   Instead of a regular main lesson book page, we made a "moving picture".  We cut out the colt, the claw, and (at the bottom) the baby from another piece of paper, then cut slits in the page so those things could "move".   I gave Dallin a break this week and didn't require a summary to be written, though we did practice spelling and grammar.

Since this was plant week, we made pomander balls out of oranges and lemons, studded with cloves.  This was a bit too hard for Sariah, though she had fun poking huge holes in her fruit with her fingers.  Dallin turned his into people.

 I have to end with some cute pics of Preston, who is currently discovering a love of cooking!