As is usually the case in December, this has been a crazy week!

In addition to our regular religion studies this week (everyone is still in the Old Testament, although Chickadee is getting close to the New Testament, which is very appropriate for Advent!), we spent some time learning about Nicholas of Myra and Ambrose of Milan, since we observed both of their commemoration days this week. The fact that they lived around the same time, and dealt with the same heresies in the church, makes them very interesting to study together!

In math, Turkey and Bunny found the volume of rectangular prisms and cylinders. They are both continuing to excel in this area of math! Ladybug has been working more with time, in addition to always practicing her long division skills. Chickadee has been practicing her addition skills!

Science was a little overwhelming. Turkey and Bunny learned about aerobic cellular respiration, which left me wanting a nap! Ladybug finished learning about rodents, and rodent-like animals, which included the platypus and echidna, which are always fun to study!

In history, Ladybug learned about some of the things Turkey and Bunny were studying last week…Homer, the Greek alphabet, and the ancient Olympic Games. Turkey and Bunny moved on to Assyria and Babylon, where they studied Tiglath-Pileser III, or as they call him, “TP3.”

In addition to Beowulf and Heidi, we added in our annual December literature study of A Christmas Carol. I always look forward to reading that book with the children! We’re also nearing the end of Ramona Quimby, Age 8. I hadn’t intended to read that whole series out loud this year, but it certainly has gone by fast…just a few more books after this one!

We also had our annual “Nutcracker Day” this week, which is a fairly recent re-addition to our December school days. Once we had more than two productions to watch, I used to stretch our Nutcracker watching out for a week or more (we’re up to six different versions from ballet companies all over the world!), but in recent years, with how busy we’ve been, I’ve needed a weekday in December to bake cookies for our church’s cookie walk. So, after a few easy subjects yesterday morning, we went back to the way we used to do it…we read a few Nutcracker tales, including my favorite picture book edition, The Nutcracker Comes to America, and The Day Before Christmas, and then settled in to watch the ballet, and take notes on the differences between the various productions. We only made it through three, which surprised me, but at least we saw our three favorites: The San Francisco Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet, and the Royal Ballet performances. Hopefully we’ll find time in the next month or so to watch the rest of them!

Just one full week of school left (hopefully) before our Christmas break…I hope I make it!