Exam responses: Antony, Cleopatra, and Herod

From Dollygirl's spring exams (as written, uncorrected).  Book studied:  Augustus Caesar's World, by Genevieve Foster.

1. Tell the story of Antony’s meeting with Cleopatra.

One day Cleopatra sailed over to see Antony. She invited him to dinner. So he came sailing over, and found that she had prepared a feast for him! So after he had come over a couple times he came one night and found a feast like no other! During that feast Cleopatra took a pearl off of her necklace and dropped it in her golden goblet of wine. It melted, and Antony and all of the other guests stared at her. Antony thought it was amazing that she could be so rich!

2. Tell what you know of Herod.

When Antony left, Herod came rushing into Cleopatra house, “I must see Antony!” he cried. “What is the matter?” Cleopatra asked, “Antony’s gone!” Herod was very upset. So he told Cleopatra his story. His land had been invaded and the high priest’s ear had been cut off. He had to see Antony! So finally after much traveling he came running into where Antony was staying. “Herod, what in the world are you doing here?” asked Antony in bewilderment. Herod hurriedly told Antony his situation. Antony finally told him that he could rule over Judea.

Dollygirl's Grade Six: School for Thursday

What did we do for school on the 31st?

Started with Proverbs 31, since you hardly ever get a month with 31 days!

Chapter Two of Crystal Mountain.

Augustus Caesar's World:  "Antony and Cleopatra."  Wow, this is some storytelling!  Right down to how much Cleopatra admired Mark Antony's muscles.  Not sure which historian Ms. Foster drew that from.  Anyway, Dollygirl appeared to enjoy it, and she used toys and props to dramatize the chapter afterwards.  I noticed that she included a lot of little details from the chapter, such as Cleopatra's slaves waking her up the morning after her first "dinner date" with Mark Antony, and the fact that she was in an unusually buoyant mood.  Dollygirl had her Cleopatra wake up singing about "spring is coming," something that's understandable around here on dark, wet days...spring can't come too fast.

Archimedes and the Door of Science:  the second half of the chapter on "King Hiero's Crown."  This part of the chapter was about water displacement, and we did the suggested experiment using big and small containers, a wooden block, and a kitchen scale. Also, Mr. Fixit showed Dollygirl his automotive hydrometer (also called a hygrometer), and told her a story about a friend of his who bought a used car when they were in high school.  Mr. Fixit suggested that they should check the antifreeze, and offered his hydrometer, but his friend shrugged it off.  When the weather froze--so did the engine.  Oops.

Key to Decimals:  Just one word problem, about sports averages.

First-week-back school thoughts

So how are the winter school plans working out so far (after two days)?

Best resource we have right now:  a backyard full of snow.  Snow forts!  Snow digging!  Snow sliding!  After a dark, bleak, and mostly snowless December, a cold but bright week with lots of snow definitely feels like a new start for January.

Best books so far:  Augustus Caesar's World, which we had just started before the holidays; and The Pushcart War, which we're reading together as well.  A couple of the others, I'm not sure yet, or we haven't actually started.  Ponytails and I read Augustus Caesar's World two years ago, so I remember it pretty well, but I'm still impressed at Genevieve Foster's ability to bring some potentially dry and hard-to-tell-apart characters to life.  It's not every writer who could handle introducing Cicero and even manage to include some of his backstory in a convincing way...although he's basically her Voltaire (from George Washington's World) in a toga.  I photocopied the two character pages from the first pages of Part One, and gave them to Dollygirl to colour while I read a few sections today.  (I notice she spent most of her time colouring Cleopatra and Octavia, the only women on the pages.)

Best idea for a short project:  make a coupon clipper booklet on the topic of Ancient Greece, while reading through a small stack of daily-life-type books.  The Apprentice did this years ago for a study of the Romans...I still remember the ads for "toga dry cleaning" and a "private academy for boys--we promise not to beat them too hard."

Best math question:  there's a photograph of a man in a hard hat standing beside the business end of what looks like a giant mechanical shovel, or something to chew things up anyway.  Estimating the size of the man, determine the scale of the photograph, and use the scale to figure out how wide the shovel actually is.  (It turned out to be about twelve feet wide, if the man was about six feet tall.  Although we had to figure that in centimeters.)  Bonus question:  what do you think the piece of machinery is?

It turned out to be one of these--only a contemporary version. A gravel pit shovel!