Learning Curve: Weekly Wrap Up

This is stage week and we are in full swing “Nutcracker Crazy”. We’ve been at the stage all week, most nights until 8:30 or 9:00pm. Between the three of us, we’ve logged in 38 hours of practices and backstage working (I always help with costumes). We’ve had a couple of near misses with the weather this week. Snow and ice have had our schools closed but thankfully things have cleared up enough to have practice in the evenings. Needless to say we’re tired, but excited as production is this weekend!

I managed to snap a few photos back stage during dress rehearsal. Lindsey is a mouse and baker this year. Here she is in both costumes (she’s the larger mouse in the first photo).

Olivia is in the the Sugar Plum Fairy Court. She’s having fun, as you can tell.

We did managed to get our Christmas tree up and most of the decorations. We sill need to put up our school room tree, but it most likely won’t happen until next week. This is one of my favorite little pops of Christmas cheer. This arrangement sits on the coffee table in the sunporch and just looks so bright and festive.

We have really been enjoying our Revolutionary War unit study. We’ve spent the first two weeks focusing on famous men of the war. Nathan Hale, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin and George Washington have been some of the girls favorites.

Olivia moved on to a new unit in math this week, Graphing and Statistics. This 5th grade math is a lot different than back in the dark ages when I was in school. I don’t remember what we learned in 5th grade, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t graphing and statistics. Olivia is loving it though!

Lindsey also moved into her next math unit. This unit is on telling time, and I expect it to go really quickly as we focused on this a great deal over the summer.

We finished up our 15th spelling list of the school year this week. This puts us halfway through the year already! Woot!

Last week I told you about the girls beginning on sewing projects for their American Girl dolls. These capes/shawls are very simple. Take at 13x13 piece of felt of heavy fabric and fold it in half, then in half again (ending with a square). On the side with the open pieces cut through in a arch. Then, on the pointed end that is all connected, cut another small semi-circle. When you are finished open it up and it should look like a donut. Then cut a straight line through one side, and this well be where you open/close it on the front of your doll. Add trip to the top/bottom edge and then some ribbon to tie it closed at the front. Here are the finished products.

Lindsey finished her project up pretty quickly. She hemmed the top and bottom edges and then added ribbon to the front to tie the shawl closed.

Olivia’s project took a bit longer as she added a ribbon edging around the top. Originally we were going to try putting a button/buttonhole in, but Olivia decided to add a ribbon loop to go over the button instead.