There's lot o' Irish in the Gifford house. I'm a good Gaelic girl whose name was Kane (which was actually O'Kane, once upon a time), and Sean's got some of the Emerald Isle in his family tree, too. We even went so far as to eliminate every non-Irish name from the list of candidates when we were choosing a moniker for our first child (now you know why his name is Kellen).
So St. Patrick's Day is a holiday in our house. But not a non-schooling holiday, of course! Instead, today's lessons are all Irish-centric. We've studied the history of Saint Patrick, read excerpts from favorite Irish writers (Jonathan Swift, George Bernard Shaw), listened to Irish music, and done a brief survey of the history of Ireland itself. But our FAVORITE activity, by far, has been the writing of limericks. The boys really got into, writing a half a dozen each, but these are my two favorites:
KELLEN
I once found a beautiful flower
And saw that it had magical power.
I pointed it at Wyatt,
Who wouldn't be quiet,
And he was silent for over an hour.
Apparently that's wishful thinking on Kellen's part. I don't know why but that one made me laugh and laugh.
WYATT
I once went swimming at Aurora.
I brought along my favorite fedora.
I got water on my hat
and was so mad I spat.
And to calm myself I listened to Pandora.
Yes, seriously. Wyatt was bent on writing about Aurora. I told him there weren't any words that rhymed with Aurora, and he was determined to prove me wrong. Thank you, God, for my strong-willed child.
Not to be outdone by my children, I decided to write a little limerick of my own.
For my children I wanted the best.
All the learning, but less of the stress.
Though it may not be cool,
We love our homeschool,
Three cheers for GCDS!*
*My clever friend Amye referred to our homeschool early on as Gifford Country Day School, and it stuck. I'm thinking of printing school spirit T-shirts, actually. Maybe we could put the limerick on it.
HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!
