Week 20, day 5

Friday: Geography. After doing all our daily review, we started studying Spain. We marked it on the Markable Map as well as reviewing the locations and names of some of the other countries we've covered so far. We then read 3 picture books: "The story of Ferdinand" from the 20th Century Children's Book Treasury, "The Four Brothers" from Stories from Around the World, and "The Contented Priest" from The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book. One of the library books I found this week on Spain was close to the kids' listening level (at least P's, E played quietly while I read), so we read that one and looked at the pictures in the other. After lunch, P made her book. She was reluctant to start, but quite happy once I made her choices clear: today, her aunt, uncle, and cousin weren't going to be around all day, whereas tomorrow they would, and she'd rather play with them than do today's schoolwork tomorrow. She wrote "Spain" on the cover, drew the major colours of the flag (I drew the central coat of arms), coloured a map I drew, and drew flamenco dancers, a bullfighter (we watched examples of both flamenco dancing and bullfighting on YouTube), a cork tree, olives, and Columbus asking Ferdinand and Isabella to fund his voyage.

In the late afternoon, my sister-in-law dropped off my nephew (15 months) for us to babysit while she sings in "Aida" and Ari's brother watches her. They'll come here late tonight, spend the night, and we'll all hang out together tomorrow. I was trying to cook a Spanish dish ("tortilla", but nothing like what I think of when I hear the word) with potatoes and eggs, but Ari wanted to do some astrophotography and I was running after all 4 kids and dinner started burning. E and my nephew got to watch as I moved the frying pan off the burner and oil that had spilled onto the burner caught dramatically on fire. I quickly hauled out a pot lid and clapped it on top of the fire, making practical use of the science principle I taught the kids on Tuesday. It's always good when this actually works, as it did this time, but I don't think it improved my nephew's opinion of my ability to care for him. Right now Ari is being a wonderful husband (isn't he always?) and cleaning up the kitchen for me - hooray! The non-burnt parts of the "tortilla" were delicious. I'll make it again, but perhaps not while babysitting and not using the evil burner (there are 2 good and 2 evil burners on this oven).