Chapter 24 has an intriguing title: The King and Il Duce. First, I had to explain the title to the kids. We will study about the first king of Egypt and then we will travel to Italy to learn about Mussolini, whose nickname was The Leader or Il Duce in Italian.
Fasces craft – no dowels or straws in my house, so we used pencils.
Then, we proceeded with the reading as well as we could while the new kitten, Smoky, was running around the classroom. He is a big distraction these days, but I try to be accommodating. The children love him and they have never had a small pet like this before. Our previous pet was an old cat named Izzy. He was 15 by the time we lost him. There was not much action with Izzy, but Smoky runs and plays all day.
Now and then, he wants to take naps. We let him, so we can get some school done. But, he keeps us up at night if he naps too much during the day. So it is very much a balancing act right now. I really did not need this complication to our daily routine but I look at the bigger picture and stay positive.
Our children love something outside themselves. They take good care of him and do not want to stay in front of a screen to be idle. They would much rather play with Smoky. I do not have to clean the litter box or feed or water the cat. They actually fight over these chores. We had to come up with a schedule to keep it straight.
For the craft, we made a fasces. I remember making one in volume I for a chapter on Roman history, but they did not. It was four years ago, after all. My daughter was four and did not participate as much as my son. He was in first grade. Which reminds me, we need to wrap this volume up fast. I was planning on going through ancient history in fifth grade for him. At this speed, it will not happen.
