Aug. 31, 2009 - We're back
After a very odd year of not keeping up with pretty much anything, we're finally back to the swing of schooling. I'll be posting here on a regular basis again.
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Aug. 17, 2008 - Ladies and Gentleman....
..... we have a classroom!
After working off and on in this room for the last two months, it's finally done. And in plenty of time for our September 2 start date.
Now if we only had chairs.....
The desks were built by FIL last month.
The blue/brown table is our art table.
Books and stuff
Both of those small wooden dressers are full of art supplies. And yes, those are both closets (Praise God!)
This is the front of the classroom... aka, my messy desk. That's a 4x8 sheet of tile board behind it.
So it's not entirely done, but as soon as we have chairs, we'll be good to go. Besides, it's not like we'll spend much time in here anyhow, since the boys prefer the living room floor to anywhere else when it comes to school time. But at least now I have a central location for everything. Just call it my command center ;).
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Jul. 5, 2008 - First Trip to Silver Dollar City
Since Terry and I have season passes, we decided to take our older two boys to Silver Dollar City. It turned out to be a lot of fun and a great learning opportunity. If you've ever been to SDC, you know that the park sits on the location of an old mining town. The cave that was mined is called Marvel Cave. The tour is an intensive 1 hour walk through some pretty difficult terrain. I was nervous about taking the boys, but they did just fine. Here are some of the things they saw along the way.
Eli is decided less adventurous than his younger brother. While Quin was happily riding the swings with me, 
Eli was only interested in cuddling the stuffed dog he had won earlier in the day.
Matter of fact, Eli didn't want to ride a single thing. Quin, on the other hand, wanted to ride everything he could see.
Ultimately we were rained out, but we bought Eli a season pass so we can take them back again soon.
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Mar. 20, 2008 - St. Patrick's Day Lapbook
This one was a little more challenging that our previous lapbooks. Eli had to copy quite a bit of St. Patrick's Prayer. He also had to locate and label Dublin on a blank map of Ireland. He did it, though. He had tons of fun gluing the parts of the flag on (which required him to read the labels of "orange" and "green" so he knew where to put the strips of paper). His "special words" were vocabulary words that included "Holiday", "green", "clover", "Irish", and a few others. We've been practicing reading those words all week. His "If I had a pot of gold" picture is of a museum. He said if he had all the money in the world he'd go to a museum everyday! I was so proud.
Most of the pieces of this lapbook came from Homeschool Helper. Others I made myself (like the pocket and shamrocks).
We went with the standard file folder fold this time because, well, because I was being lazy. lol.
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Mar. 8, 2008 - Our first Flat
Three weeks ago Eli and I went to see a live performance of Flat Stanley. He LOVED it. Though he didn't entirely understand the whole flat traveler concept, he was eager to try it out. To my joy, a fellow member at Home School Spot was asking for hosts that same afternoon. Flat Cowboy arrived the other day and we've been having fun with him ever since. There aren't a lot of grand things to do around our city, but we've taken him along to enjoy our lives.
First stop was to ride horses. Figured it would help put Cowboy at ease. He's a young guy, so doing something familiar to him seemed like a good idea (as I suspect this is his first time away from home).
It was 74 degrees last Sunday when we went riding. But our weather frequently turns on a dime. Just three days later we were blasted with 8 inches of snow. Now there's something a Texas Cowboy doesn't get to see every day. He only stayed outside for a few minutes though, since he wasn't prepared with appropriate winter wear.
Hopefully we'll get to take Flat Cowboy to a couple more places this weekend before sending him back to sunny San Antonio.
The boys did make their own flats, too. Eli made a Dragon, Knight, and Thomas. Quin made a King, Nemo, and Pirate. Dragon is the only one still at home. I'll be keeping you all updated on the adventures of our Flat Travelers, as well as those of the Travelers we're hosting.
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Feb. 10, 2008 - Pinewood Derby v1.0
Eli's first Pinewood Derby race was yesterday. He and DH started the car in December, so this has been a long time coming. Too long, I think. By the time it was ready for the decals (which happened only as recently as Thursday) Eli had lost almost all interest. He lacked the understanding of the event, so the process didn't hold as much meaning. However, after yesterday's race, he's all gung-ho about the next one. He already knows how he wants to decorate his car. And he has plans for a car for Quin. The only problem is that the next race is in three weeks! DH sure has his work cut out for him.
Eli's Superman car took 2nd place in each of the three heats. They only gave ribbons for the first heat. We left before the over all rankings were posted, so I don't know where he placed.
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Sep. 17, 2007 - My boys were in the news
My older two children are taking a brand new art class offered by the regional arts council. The newspaper and one local news channel did stories on the class. Here are a couple of pics where Eli and Quin are seen doing their arty thing.
The boys are in the top left corner. Yep, they're the only boys in the class.
They are soooo cute!
I'm excited that Quin gets to take part, as well. He gets left out of so much now that Eli is a big "kindergartner". Eli has a HS Kindergarten playgroup (that is very opposed to younger siblings joining in), homeschool academy classes, etc. This allows him a taste of "big kid life".
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Sep. 16, 2007 - A typical weekend around here
If you know us, you know that we're not exactly "normal".
Our family is involved in a troupe that does jousting at Renaissance Faires. We also play a little in the SCA. Mostly, though, we focus on the faires. This is a job, of sorts, since we get paid for the performances, so we spend a great deal of our time on it. Our boys are also involved (as much as a 5, 3, and 20 month old can be). Our 5yo will start with official squire duties in April.
A small portion of our troupe met yesterday to take promotional pictures for fliers and websites. This is one of them. Aren't my little men cute in their garb?
(FYI, we are a Polish Hussar military unit. The history of the Hussars is quite fascinating, spanning hundreds of years. Their last cavalry charge was against Panzer Tanks in WWI. The time period we play is about 1575, when Polish-Lithuania was ruled by King Stephen Bathory. You want to talk about democracy? Read about King Stephen! And if you love the Renaissance, read about Prague. It was the cultural center of Europe at the time. Too bad brick and mortar schools don't bother to mention it)
Today, our fearless leader and her fiance came over after church for lunch. Terry and Brian went out back to beat on each other with swords while Trasi and I worked out an outline for our new show (I am the theatrical director). When it began to rain, the guys came inside. Eli and Quin decided they needed to try on some armor, too.
Here is Quin wearing a fauld. It's supposed to cover the abdomen. 
It fit Eli a tad better, but not much.
Eli also wanted to try the gorget.
In some ways I can't wait until they are old enough to have their own armor. But then I wonder if they will have any interest in reenacting at all. I pray they do. We have so much fun and I'd be willing to bet they will know far more Medieval and Renaissance history than the majority of kids they'll go to college with.
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Aug. 22, 2007 - Our first lapbook
With some encouragement from friends at Homeschoolspot, I decided that lapbooking might be a good idea. It only seemed natural that our first creation would be on Creation.
I found most of the pictures by Googling coloring pages. The mini-book (which you can hardly tell is actually a book from the pics.. top left corner inside) came from DLTK.
Cover:
Inside:
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Aug. 19, 2007 - Building a Jeep
For his birthday, Eli got a kit to build a wooden Jeep. He was so excited about it that he and daddy stayed up a little late to put it all together.
We talked about time since it was past his bedtime. He learned a lot about following directions. We had some reading lessons mixed in with interpreting pictures. He learned some great woodshop lessons; things like which way to turn the screw and what "clockwise" means... and that lots of screws + holes that are little too small = a sore arm. Of course it all came together.
What a great life! I mean, putting together a new toy counts as school!
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Aug. 17, 2007 - Dino Mural... the end of a unit
We finished our study on dinosaurs today. I think the boys had a lot of fun. I was pleased that I found enough content to keep Quin occupied, as well. If you haven't looked into it yet, check out Learning Pages. They have full unit studies by subject and grade level... and they are FREE!
This mural was part of the US. As you can see, we all colored parts, even Xander (though he only made tiny marks that his brothers covered over). It may not seem like much, but when we were putting it together, I was hit with a strong dose of sentiment.
This was our very first family school project. I realized how blessed we are to be able to "do school" as a family. If the boys were in ps, they would never have classes together, never be encouraged to learn together, and never have the opportunity to really teach each other. And I'd miss out on their ah-ha moments. There were several of those today as the boys worked together to arrange the pieces (I intentionally neglected to mention that I had "directions" to assemble it). I feel a scrapbook page coming on.
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Aug. 10, 2007 - Our First Field Trip
We started our unit study on dinosaurs this week, so it seemed logical to take a field trip to the new Dinosaur Museum. Perhaps "museum" is a bit of a misnomer. There were no fossils, no artifacts, not even a cool rock or two. There were just life sized models like the T-Rex shown here.
The Velociraptors and Oviraptor where a lot smaller than he thought they'd be. It was great to be able to compare the sizes of the different dinosaurs. 
And it was fun for Eli to see how they compared to him. This is an Iguanadon, in case your curious.
Here's my little paleontologist in the learning center.
We ended our tour with a trip through the Mirror Maze. Eli started to get a little anxious near the end. Fortunately for him, momma had her eyes glued to the floor. It was easier to see where the mirrors where that way.
All in all it was a great field trip. I learned a lot about how to make a trip successful that I'll be sure to implement next time. I think he learned tons and we'll both be better prepared to learn even more on our next visit.
