Once upon a time there was a piece of wood.....
Our week has been spent reading Pinocchio. Not the Disney version of Pinocchio, but the crazy story written by Carlo Collodi. In this version, Pinocchio is not the cheerful little puppet who desires nothing more than to be transformed into a real live boy. Nope...in this version, Pinocchio is a very rotten misbehaved little wooden boy. Just to give you a clear picture of the real Pinocchio, when Jiminy Cricket (who is really a minor character in the book and is referred to as the "Talking Cricket") scolds Pinocchio for rebelling against his father, Pinocchio bashes his brains out with a hammer. I have come to the conclusion that the moral of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio is this: If you behave badly and disobey adults, you will be bound, tortured and killed. Not exactly what I had in mind when we started the book. I mean, I expected some differences, but not a completely different story all together.
Kristen's writing curriculum has us reading the classics. It's optional, but I thought if I could get the books from the library why not read them. Last week we read The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was the most boring book EVER. We finished it just because I made myself, but we were all completely bored. So, when Pinocchio was listed for this week I was super excited. Until I started reading it. It was nothing like the Disney movie. In fact, I found myself reading it thinking, "Who thinks of these things then decides to put them in a book for children?" Paul heard a little snippet of it and even commented on how weird it was, so it wasn't just me and my exhaustion. Kristen did say she hoped she didn't have bad dreams about cats getting their paws chewed off. That's when I decided to not read anymore and check out the Disney movie from the library. A much better story...so thank you Walt Disney for recreating this very disturbing story into something kid friendly.
The kids watching Pinocchio
Luckily, our week was spent doing other things than reading Pinocchio. Our washing machine was possessed this week and decided to keep filling up with water, even after I turned it off. Quick thinking Michelle did get the water turned off in record time (and I unplugged it just in case it decided to come back to life), but not before it flooded into the kitchen. There was so much water that when I put my hand down to try to get the water up, it covered the tops of my fingers. Talk about overwhelming. I cried...well, actually I sobbed and Kristen finally said, "Can't we call someone to help us." Which made me laugh and cry even more. The water was at that weird level. Too little that you couldn't use a bucket, too much that towels seemed pretty useless. Anyways, we got the water up and Paul fixed the washing machine and I got to rewash every single towel in our house.
Our week of school went good. I am so happy with my planning. It makes our weeks so much easier. Kristen had her first real math test and got them all right. She didn't do as well with her spelling test, but we are going to do a re-test and see how she does. I am not too concerned because the word she got wrong is on next weeks helper word list for her reading, so she'll get it. The other word she got wrong because she capitalized her P. She does this a lot, so we are working on using lower case p's.
In her language arts we are talking about proper nouns/names. In her composition book she had to write down the names of all of the people in her family. When I went back to check her work she had also drawn a picture of all of us and included God on a cloud praying.
Lauren has three more letter sounds to learn and then she is finished with alphabet! I don't know how long we have been working on the alphabet, but I am so glad we are almost finished. I am so so so very proud of her.
We ended the week making a craft. I cut out leaf patterns on card stock. Put red, yellow and orange paint in a gallon bag and let the girls mush the leaves around in it. Took them out and let them dry. I did have to do some touch ups. Then, we went on a branch hunt and found these nice little pliable branches that I am pretty sure are not from a tree so they are probably not branches. Stuck them in a vase and viola...a pretty little leaf decoration.
