This was our third week of the new school year.   E17 had her 12th Day of the 12th Grade photo taken for our yearbook.

Now that the kids photos in front of the chalkboard wall are finished, we’ve been able to start on the next mural.  We’ve got a lot left to do on it, but so far we’re liking it.

J10 and Z8 have been working on their pirate lapbook.  I like to put the booklets on the bulletin board as we make them.  Later, they will be transferred to a file folder.E17 and B15 have been researching pirate facts and superstitions for their notebooking assignments.  Some of the things they are learning are pretty strange.  For example, when a pirate said “Shiver me timbers” it was actually a request for another pirate to shave an especially difficult to reach portion of his back ( “shiver” means “shave” and “timbers” means “lower back”).  Now if only the research could help us in answering why would a pirate need his lower back shaved because that was the question we had.

We’ve been reading more pirate themed books.  Our movie of the week was Muppet Treasure Island. 

The movie lead us to our next pirate lesson, music!  We all enjoyed the soundtrack as we listened to identify instruments and applied what we have been learning about music theory .  This was the most popular sing along of the week.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltWirB6jKh0

Next week we’re looking forward to more pirate adventures as we continue with our first unit study of the school year.  And I’m looking forward to finishing the mural and getting the dust mess cleaned up, argh!