week #33, spring #9

It was another week of coldish rainy-ish weather for us (The Map Man captured this rainbow over our pasture from our deck). But things have suddenly changed up around here, and we're experiencing typical late spring weather -- sometimes seasonable, sometimes far too warm. It's nice to be wanting to be outdoors again!

J's Spring chorus performance was on Monday (he's in the white shirt, third from the right). The performance was an ambitious adaptation of "They Called Her Moses", about the life of Harriet Tubman. During the course of the semester, in addition to learning the music, the kids learned about African-American history and the underground railroad. The performance was just terrific, the kids each had solo singing and speaking lines as well as plenty of group numbers. It was a great wrap-up to our Monday Homeschool Classes year, and the audience was quite large.

The kids both had museum classes on Turtles on Friday. (Here Zoo Boy is checking out a Green Turtle shell.)

This was the first week of our brand new Planting Flowers Adventure Circle (photos and write-up to come!) -- it was the first original (as in, not from a familiar picture book) adventure circle I've tried since my first struggled attempts at it earlier this year. But this time I was armed with the understanding of how to keep Zoo Boy interested and participating -- build the circle around a repeating verse (for familiarity and comfort), and include a lot of heavy Sensory Integration activities. It was an instant success, and the kids have been pulling the verses and songs in their play all week. Our curriculum story was "Cluck Cluck and Little Tuppen", a nesting folk tale from the Enki Kindergarten library. Zoo Boy was particularly taken by this story of a mother hen trying to barter for a glass of water for her coughing chick.

On Saturday we all went letterboxing at Penwood State Park in Bloomfield, CT. We had a fantastic time gallivanting about the woods and fields, following the clues and discovering wildlife as we searched for the boxes.

Unfortunately, upon arriving home from our fun family outing on Saturday, we discovered that a tragedy had happened while we were away. Lemon, our sweet little lutino (yellow) Budgie hen, had somehow escaped her cage and was missing. We tore the bird room apart looking for her, and sadly discovered her behind a piece of furniture, not far from her cage, dead. We'll never know what happened, or how she got out of that cage, and we are all so sad at her sudden, unexpected death. Although we've lost animals before, this was the first that the kids have been really attached to and had daily interaction with, so it hit them hard. J immediately ran to bed crying and didn't want anything to do with her body or burial. Zoo Boy held her and petted her and talked to her, helped me pick out a nice cloth to wrap her in, and selected a special rock to place over her grave. He said a few words at the graveside in our flower garden and laid her gently in the hole, sighing heavily and saying goodbye as The Map Man covered her up, then gently laying the rock over it. He was deeply saddened but didn't cry. I let J have his space while this was all going on, then went in to dig him out from beneath all his covers to give him a hug. We talked about feeling sad and crying and missing those who pass, then he got up, dried his eyes, and he and Zoo Boy got back to their usual evening play and bedtime activities. Both have been checking on the birds more frequently to make sure all are accounted for and well. Zoo Boy wants another mate for Apple, and I'll help him select one soon. Lemon had been sitting on eggs, and we are doubly sad that we never got any babies from her.