Things we did for school today, and a Dollygirl photo link

Just another (cold) homeschool Tuesday?

Well, it is Shrove Tuesday so we had pancakes and sausage and strawberries (thawed ones) for dinner.

But oh yes, school.

We sang John Bunyan's "pilgrim" hymn "He Who Would Valiant Be.". I asked Dollygirl to define a pilgrim; she suggested "an adventurer."

We read about "Prudence" in Charlotte Mason's Ourselves.  Alexander the Great scolded his men for their post-victory indulgent, excessive lifestyle.  Some of them apparently even had special mud shipped in to rub themselves with (beauty or health treatment, I'm not sure which).

Anyway, Alexander warned them that too much leisure and self-indulgence can bring its own form of enslavement.  Which is a timely thought since Lent starts tomorrow.

Dollygirl read about pilgrimages from a Reader's Digest book of Bible history. (That wasn't planned to go with the hymn--just serendipity.)

Dollygirl dd two of the hardest-type Gauss math problems, and got them both right, earning herself an early "morning recess."

After the break we moved upstairs where it was warmer.  Dollygirl checked the progress of a weeklong science experiment (does yeast make things decompose faster?), and then we studied two pages about cell structure and organelles in the Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Science.

We read a poem about wild horses, and most of a cheerful chapter (for once) in The Return of the King.  (Book VI, Chapter Four.). After all that gloom-and-Mount-Doom for pages and pages, people and hobbits and wizards are back together and singing happy songs.  I can't explain exactly why I liked this chapter so much; it felt a bit like the last parts of The Last Battle, when the children finally get into the New Narnia.  Frodo's friend Sam says, "but then I thought I was dead myself.  Is everything sad going to come untrue?" I like that.

After lunch, Dollygirl did map questions on a map of Ukraine.  She also read a description of teaching English in a Ukrainian school, an essay I found online.  Charlotte Mason says that students should be aware of "places coming into the news," so that's what we're doing.

She also finished the "verb review" section of Easy Grammar Plus, and had a chapter to read in Watership Down.

Later in the afternoon she watched The Magic Schoolbus (her choice, not assigned), and I helped her just a bit with the dress she is making for a dollhouse-sized doll.  

And that's about it.  How was your day?