homeschool daybook: Romeo, Juliet and rutabaga

October 19, 2011

Fitting in a bunch of odds & ends in our lesson plan today:

• We watched the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.  The power of this story always surprises me.  We know what's going to happen, we've seen it happen a million love stories since Shakespeare and still we hope it'll end differently!

• Natalie chose a portion of Shakespeare's play to memorize, wrote the stanza out on parchment and pencilled in a decorative border.

  

• Natalie went grocery shopping with me today, helping to find items, calculating our total (keeping me on budget!) and learning the great skill of couponing.  (her Aunt Kaley will be so proud).

• We went to a different store for our produce.  Andrew has a job in the meat department at an organic market, Sunflower Farmers Market.  We get our produce and meat here and share Andrew's employee discount.  Before heading in, Nat and I re-read the first part of chapter 1 in The Roar on the Other Side, a guide for student poets.  The first suggested writing prompt is to visit a produce section and observe -- really see -- the variety of fruits and vegetables.  Notice the names and colors and shapes and textures.   She took the camera in the store and enjoyed photo-journalling some of the produce.

• Natalie selected blackberries to eat at home and then write a descriptive paragraph full of sensory detail.  I love what she wrote but don't have permission to share it here.  :)

This evening we attended Kendra's first concert at Bowie High School.  I didn't tell Natalie this was considered "school" but since we experienced gorgeous music and dance from all over the world, there's no way I could resist adding the activity here.  I was so proud of Kendra and wish you all could have heard her.  The variety of songs, much of it sung in languages other than English, and level of complexity to the rhythms and harmonies, much of it sung a Capella and all of it memorized within the first nine weeks of school was stunning.

For the next few class days, Brian and Andrew will be helping Natalie with her school work.  As I highly doubt any of them will want to update this blog, I'll see you all next week!