Report from Ondine:
On Feb 29, the kids voted to stay outside that morning, so they huddled together on a blanket that we spread on the porch, and Elizabeth recapped the previous week's story, which gave her the opportunity to reuse Scott's joke:
"Who helped Odysseus by giving him a magic scarf?"
"Ino!"
"Great! What her name was?"
"Ino!"
"I know you know! What's her name?"
Lots and lots of giggles and feigned exasperation. Because truly nothing is funnier to a kid than a confused grown-up.
Elizabeth then began the story of Odysseus' return, while the kids listened, asked questions and acted out what they heard in big and small ways.
Athena disperses the fog. Twelve tiny arms swipe at the air.
Odysseus, realizing where he is, falls to his knees and kisses the ground. They immediately drop their faces to the blanket!
Athena turns Odysseus into an old beggar. Imagined magic wands descend on neighboring heads, and suddenly, the kids are old people. They wrinkle their brows, tightened eyes and lips, and hunch shoulders.
Odysseus goes to the hut of the swineherd. N asks, "What's a swine?" MG and R answer in unison, "Pigs."
Athena instructs Telemechus to return home. "Wait," the kids protest. "Where had Telemechus been?!"(In case you were wondering whether they have been paying attention and following all this from week to week, they have. In the interest of time, Elizabeth had glossed over that part of the story; the kids noticed. So she quickly brought them up to speed on Telemechus' activities and got back to the story at hand.)
Athena reveals Odysseus, and father and son are reunited. The kids fall over hugging each other!
(E didn't care for the enthusiastic hugging and said very politely and sensitively to R as she went in for the big embrace, "Oh, no thank you. I don't like that very much." And then he said, "Don't stab me in the eye." Elizabeth said, "Oh, R was just going to hug you," to which he explained, "No, I was talking to my this eye. My this eye was telling my other eye not to stab it." With that resolved, all eyes playing nice once again, we were back to the story.)
Odysseus and Telemechus make a plan to rid the palace of the suitors. And we will find out this week whether or not it will work!
We went inside. ("Shhhh! Don't wake the cyclops!" In this way, the kids know that A is napping and so tiptoe quietly down to the basement.)
First the kids tested the raft. "It floats!" Success!
The kids have some free time to work on an art project of their choosing that relates in some way to any of the stories. V made cyclops eyes for everyone. C made a beautiful model of Clypsos' island on a tiny paper plate using markers and tissue paper. MG drew at the easel, and R helped her mom with a paper trojan horse. The coffee filters were big sources of inspiration. N made a drawing of Odysseus' raft on one and a helmet for A on another (which he wore. He's a good sport.) And E used one to make some stinky cheese for the cyclops.
Here is E's recipe for stinky cheese:
1. Take a coffee filter.
2. Paint on it.
3. Draw on the wet paint with markers.
4. Dip it in water and squish it into a ball.
5. Wrap it in string.
6. Dap it with glue.
7. Go back for more string.
8. Hang it in the bathroom for a week. Because it needs to rot. And mold!
Viola! E's stinky cheese.