By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge
the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. ~Proverbs 24:3-4
• Nov. 20, 2009 - Blog Not Forgotten
I haven't forgotten my blog, just been busy hanging out on Facebook instead.
Change is in the air ----
Mark has finished Algebra! He ended up with a high B. I am going to have him spend the rest of 2009 reviewing word problems. We will start Jacob's Geometry in January.
Mei finds her LA to be very easy. So we are going to add to it by doing the Total Language Plus study on Courage of Sarah Noble. The spelling is much harder than what she is doing now. It uses some of the kinesthetic methods of learning spelling, so I am curious to see how she does. She will still do the basic grammar, writing, and cursive handwriting from WP's LA3.
We have pretty much dropped Mei's science but will pick it back up in January. She will be learning about weather. Mark has asked to sit in on it.
We will also be finishing the Sea portion of Sea & Sky by Christmas, so the new year will start with Sky.
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. I am doing the ABCs of Thanksgiving on FaceBook. I may post them here after Thanksgiving.
• Oct. 24, 2009 - State Fair and Pirates and The Flu
Last week the state fair opened and we went on Preview Day. We got the kids wristbands that allowed them unlimited rides, which was a good deal. We usually go with a friend of mine and her daughter. The girls have been friends for over 5 years. We had a great time and yes, we ate some of that yummy fair food!
Mei and her friend Jamie at the fair, waiting in line for the ride wristbands. The girls loved milking the cow. We went back on can day for a few hours and they milked the cow again!
The next day I woke up feeling horrible. I felt even worse when I realized I probably exposed my friends to the flu. Turns out she was already sick, but had just thought it was a head cold. Then James got sick, followed by Mei. Mark waited until Tuesday to get sick. He is missing his Boy Scouts Court of Honor tonight since his fever spiked back up last night. We didn't get tested, so we don't know which flu we had. Paul has escaped so far. We saw him for only a few hours last weekend and he has been hiding in his room this weekend.
Mei got well just in time for me to take her on the field trip to the Pirate Exhibit. Mark had to stay at home. It was pretty cool. Very good mixture of facts and artifacts with interactive items for the kids - like computer quizzes, a cannon game, dress-up clothes, and a pirate play ship. Our state science museum is next to the history museum, so we popped in there for lunch and a quick visit. We decided to go back the week of Thanksgiving and spend a whole day visiting the IMAX, the pirate exhibit, the history museum, and the science museum.
They had many recovered pieces from Queen Anne's Revenge - Blackbeard's ship. They also had a skull that some claim was Blackbeard's. (Sorry no pictures of the skull were allowed.)
Seat of ease - made of lead with a wooden seat cover. This one is collapsed. Wanta guess what this was used for?
We have been doing school but we have also been taking field trips! I love the outside ones this time of year.
Last week, we went to a local state park that is along a river. The rangers did two classes for us - one on identifying trees and the other on animal tracks. Although they did not find any tracks, the kids made their own by pressing molds into sand. It was a beautiful fall day and great to be outside.
Don't you wish you were this excited over cedar trees?
Yesterday, we went to a School Days event put on by a local Native American tribe to educate children on what Indians were really like in this area. Perhaps the most surprising thing I heard was about the animal populations in our state:
- there are more deer now then there was prior to first contact - i.e. early 1700's
- elk and bison used to live here but they became extinct in the early 1700's
- wolves are pretty much gone here
- coyotes and bear are on the rise and they estimate there will soon be more of them than there was in the early 1700's
So maybe those bear and coyotes can start controlling the deer population, but only if we don't mind the bear and coyotes in our backyards in the cities.
Demonstration of Indian hunting weapons.
Women's Dance by Elder of the tribe.
Storyteller - her dress weighs 45 lbs. The jingles are made from the lids of chewing tobacco cans.
I let the kids get slingshots, but they have strict orders to only point them at squirrels, deer, and non-living objects such as box targets and trees. These pictures are at the tribal grounds, but they have been practicing at home too.
Kids & I learned that you can use arrows in sling shots, so they were trying with sticks.
In school news, Mark is loving his General Science. I got this Knex Educational Kit on levers and pulleys for the chapter he just finished. It was a great review.
Mei is zooming ahead and I am considering adding additional Language Arts to her work. She is so efficient in getting her work done that she distracts Mark from his.
I would like to think I am more Charlotte Mason like than other schooling styles, but we never seem to get around to nature studies, or art, or music, or .... So I must be eclectic.
However, we do love nature and are often side tracked by it. Here are some recent examples:
Our hummingbirds of course - but can you see the spider hiding in the corner of the door?
Here she is up close:
Everyday she spun a new web across the door or across the deck -- until one morning when I was in a hurry and forgot to look for the web. I walked right into it and got it in my hair. The spider is no more.
Her web:
Then occasionally we just happen to look out the window and see this fellow (or his look alike) booking across the backyard. He likes to see what our treats our compost pile has to offer.
Of course, nothing can compare to Mr. T and ...
Sally the goldfish. We got her for an experiment last year and she has down quite well.
James finally convinced me that Mr. T is a red slider with yellow spots instead of the usual red spots that sliders have. We have been putting him outside for sunning and swimming every day. He really likes it. Soon he will be able to climb out of his current house, so we are in search of cheap new home for him. Plus in another couple months, it will be too cold for him to be outside.
James is also playing around with the meal worm beetles in hopes they give him more meal worms. Yuck! We have banished them to the garage since their rotting food is attracting fruit flies and smells.
Of course, we also have lots of birds and deer in the back yard. We even the occasional rabbit too. So nature just seems to come to us, rather than us going out to look for it. Does that count?
The girls loved milking the cow. We went back on can day for a few hours and they milked the cow again!
Seat of ease - made of lead with a wooden seat cover. This one is collapsed. Wanta guess what this was used for?
