The week began beautifully with the scent of Autumn in the air! Tuesday was the Autumnal Equinox and the nights have begun to draw in..
But back to Monday…Monday saw our Pond study. It was a glorious afternoon, sunny & warm. We had been at the pond a little while, then suddenly a duck came scuttering out of the reeds, clearly in distress. Its head was bobbing under the water, then its whole body would follow. It was a very sad sight to see. Ellie quickly pulled of her boots & tights & waded in with a net & brought the poor fellow out.
He was in a poor state; a small wound to his neck, his head he could not hold up, and he was exhausted.
We made him as comfortable as we could in Rosie’s jacket & drove to our local vet.
The vet confirmed my fears. His neck was broken & he was put to sleep. We were all very upset. He was one of the baby Mallards. This would have been his first winter.
Rest in peace Jonathan Puddleduck
In happier home education news, Ellie took a break from her regular Latin book & worked in her Latin Words Sticker Book. She has made flash cards for the new words, so we can practice those with the rest of our memory work.
As we have been memorising square numbers, I got the girls to make a model with cuisenaire rods of the square numbers to 10. I have to confess that until recently, I did not know why square numbers were called square…
Rosie has done quite a lot of watercolour this week. We had a good play with our palettes, seeing what different colours we could create.
I have decided to change up how we are studying science, so after a little research I have decided to go with the Building Foundations Of Scientific Understanding Series. I have purchased the first two books, but at the author’s recommendation, we will be starting with book one (even thought this is for K-2!) It is very parent intensive from what I understand, so I am looking forward to spending the weekend reading through the introduction & planning out the first ‘thread’ of the book that we will be following.
We have begun a demonstration from Cool Chemistry Concoctions ~ hopefully making stalactites & stalagmites!
The girls also painted their batiks that we began last week. Once they are dry, we can wash out the glue.
Some of the books we have been reading this week:
The World of Columbus & His Sons
D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths
Various comic books
Lots & lots of poetry ~ focusing on Beatrix Potter & Walter de la Mare.
Rose is really taken with Beatrix Potter’s Tales right now. She has been playing with our old dolls house in the attic since re-reading The Tale Of Two Bad Mice. She has a little stuffed mouse that has become ‘Tom Thumb’ so I picked up my knitting needles & got cracking on knitting a Hunca Munca for her. Hopefully she will be done this weekend!
We are off to our home ed group meet up this afternoon to spend time with friends….
Happy Weekend!
I love Rose’s watercolour paintings. They’re very good! It must have been quite a sad moment to learn of the duck’s unfortunate condition, but good on you for rescuing it in the first place and taking it to the vet!
Thank you so much! Yes, we were very sad to hear about the duck, but glad that we had come long when we had. Most likely he would have drowned 🙁
The paintings are stunning
Thank you! She can be very hard on herself. She says all artists are like that…
Her pictures are really, really good.
Sorry to hear about the duck. We did a whole one year pond study and my children became very attached to the ducks and would have been devastated to have had one put down. At least it is in no pain any more.
Thank you Claire!
I will need to check out your pond study for inspiration, thank you.
What beautiful pictures – don’t let her stop!
Poor little duck and how traumatic for you all. I think that he spent his last few hours in the most pleasant way he possibly could have.
Thank you for linking up:)
Thanks Pru!