This week at our house...

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to this week:

We are loving our Latin Primer lessons. On Monday we had a "pre-test" to see what we all needed to work on, and today we took our first Latin test - with pretty good results.

We continued with Story of the World, Volume 3: Early Modern Times. This week we learned about the Turkish attempted invasion of Austria, and how the Turks used tunnelling to try to get through to Vienna. The Viennese were warned to report any strange "tunnelling sounds" coming from underground. It was a clever baker who heard the sounds and alerted the German soldiers. The Turks were driven back via their own tunnels!

Legend has it that the Viennese bakers invented croissants in honour of their defeat of the Turks. The crescent shape on the Turkish flag had inspired the shape of the croissants! We also learned that the Turkish sultan at the time loved tulips. He had tulip bulbs sent from Holland and planted a huge tulip garden complete with streams filled with turtles carrying candles on their backs.

Our big girls, Bethany (12) and Emily (11) signed up for brass instrument lessons! Bethany will be learning to play the Tenor Horn, and Emily the Cornet. It was interesting how the tutor looked at the shape of the girls' mouths and teeth to decide which instrument would suit them best.

Instead of our usual art/nature study get together with friends, we decided to take a day to visit the Esplanade, which is a beautiful park near the bank of a river in our nearest city, Palmerston North. We enjoyed checking out the bird aviary, the greenhouse, and of course, playing on the swings and slides!

A Wild Banana plant. Don't those flowers look like parrots' beaks!