Of Pumpkins and Dragons

Last week we stepped away from our current Main Lesson material to honor the Autumn's arrival, as well as Michaelmas. While we did not cover everything that I had hoped, the week still went smoothly and felt full and well rounded.

Here is a little over-view of some of the highlights from our week.

• Iain started his first 'Saints and Heroes' study with St. Michael. I have mixed feelings about the stories surrounding this saint. The theory of St.Michael's over-throwing of the dragon as a metaphor for Christianity's 'triumph' over paganism, is admittedly, a sore spot for me. So much so, that I considered forgoing any mention of this saint at all. However, there are other virtues there that I was interested in working with. Also, dragon fighting?? I mean come on, talk about your guaranteed hit for the 5-7 year old boy! (of which I happen to have two...) My very comfortable compromise was to work with the story in "The Seven Year Wonder Book". The focus of this lovely tale (complete with fairies and other mystical themes) is more a personal theme of over-coming our own private demons (dragons) with the an ever present chance for redemption.

• The 'Rhyme Elves' made an appearance and added this verse:
  

"Michael, great knight,
Strong and pure and shining bright.
I’ll be a knight of Michael, too,
And polish my crown to a golden hue.
Ask the gnomes the iron to mine,
Iron from the stars, from the earth, so fine,
To bring to the blacksmith, who with his might
Will make me a sword, so strong, so bright."

to Iain's Wonder Book in glittery, golden script, with a picture of a shining gold sword.

• We all drew pictures of Michael and the dragon. The boys added them to their Main Lesson Books.
• Iain wrote out the poem from that chapter of "The Seven Year Wonder Book" to accompany his drawing.

• We spent a good deal of time, over the course of several days, mastering the most difficult form drawing we have attempted to date. It was a circle, with a design in the middle that spiraled outward in four directions. It took a lot of effort and practice for Iain to be able to keep the four points balanced. It felt like a very appropriate form to work with around the time of the Equinox. We had a lot of fun with it! I required quite a bit of practice as well!
• We did some harvest-y baking.

• Elijah added a number of leaf rubbings to our nature journal and Iain labeled them with the name of the tree or plant that they came from.
• I finished my needle felted dragon (no pictures yet though).
• We did make an attempt at flying a kite, though it wasn't a planned thing, just kind of worked out that way, which was rather nice (kite flying is a common way of celebrating Michaelmas). Unfortunately, the wind decided to dye down, just as we were getting ready to launch it!
  
• We started transplanting some perennials in preparation for putting the gardens to bed for the winter.

The Chosen Ones...

• We began work on a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle of and autumnal scene. It's rather advanced for Elijah, but Iain really appreciates the challenge.
• We read several nature stories about animals preparing for cold weather.
• We spend nearly an entire day making and decorating a huge paper dragon. It turned out so large, that I had a very difficult time photographing it! I'm hoping that it is going to stay nice enough that we will be able to hang it over the play area, once the addition is finished.
• Iain lost his third tooth and got a rose quartz and an shell. Elijah lost a button and got a piece of amethyst. We talked a bit about some of the qualities that are sometimes associated with each of those stones.
• We finally began carding and hand-spinning the fleece that we spent so much time washing around this time last year. Iain is hopping to have enough homespun to make Galen's Christmas present. I'm not entirely certain that's a realistic goal, but it's worth a try!

Note: Since coming across my sister's old dog costume, Elijah is now a puppy. At all times.

• We all helped to bring in the pumpkin harvest at our CSA. Two pumpkins, perfect for jack 'o lanterns found their way home with us, along with one that was "just the right size" for Galen.

Puppy says "THIS ONE!".

• Between the CSA and shopping, we came home with a large selection of all different varieties of locally grown squashes to prepare in this coming week.
• Iain and Elijah each picked out some Indian corn to decorate the house with.
• We rearranged our living area so that it is now possible to sit around the table without someone getting scorched by the wood stove. Not very exciting, but very, very important, I assure you!

The smug look on his face? I had just suggested that perhaps tossing the pumpkins was not the best way of keeping them intact. Advice that he obviously took to heart...

I started to teach myself the song "Michaelmas" on the recorder, but did not get to the point where I felt comfortable enough to teach Iain. We also did not get around to the recorder case project I had planned. I hadn't planned on working with the fleece last week, but the children wanted to bring it out. Working with it ended up replacing some of my previously planned projects.

And that pretty much sums up our week!

Apparently, puppies are fond of popsicles.