This week's Unplugged Project  theme is: CATS!

We decided to be a little zany with this project.  We made Dancing Cats!

With magnets, this cool cat dances! 

you will need a handful of washers & nuts

Cut out the cat pieces from a cereal box

 make the eyes and buttons with washers/nuts -- hot glue then; I attached the two cardboard cat pieces with a paper fastener/brad

add them to the hands and feet as well

  make 4 paper clip chains, 4 in each

connect the hands and feet the paper clip chains

make a background from the other half of the cereal box and attach the cat body with the same paper fastener/brad

attach the paper clip chains/hands and feet to the cat

Now, if you take a magnet, and put it behind the cereal box where the washers on the hands and feet are, they will move!!

A dancing cat!

We had a nice crop of dried corn stalks that were just hanging out in the garden. My girls and a friend decided to try their hand at Corn Husk Doll making.

 I happened to have a book from the library ( newly written, 2009 book, click the book to get more info ) with the idea in it, I said, 'here's an idea for all those husks.'  I let them be and when I returned, sure enough, they had made them! They even took pictures for me!

Bravo Girls!

To continue on with the Autumn Series Challenges ~ we moved on to Oak Trees & Acorns.

We talked about the two classes of Oak Trees ~ the White Oak and the Black Oak classes; there are several Oaks in each class.

White Oak:

• leaves have rounded lobes
• leaves are rough & light colored
• bark light in color
• acorns have sweet kernels that mature in one year; which means no acorns are on the trees in winter

Black Oak:

• leaves end in sharp points/angular lobes
• leaves are smooth
• bark is dark
• acorns have bitter kernels that take two years to mature; which means there will be acorns on the trees in winter

We used Anna Comstock's book ~ of course!

my tree climber, Jayda, trying to find acorns

  pointed leaf lobes

 dark colored bark

lots of acorn caps

a double blessing! River found this, they are stuck together 

the tree has to be 20-50 years old before it can make acorns

They can be 200-400 years old! It is said there are Oaks that are alive from back when William the Conqueror reigned.

a few acorns still on the tree

So based on our finds, this is a Red Oak, which is in the Black Oak class.

 See River?

Here's a notebooking page from the Autumn Series Challenges.

 We finished up Sounder today. The kids and I enjoyed this read. We especially loved all the references to Bible stories and the lovely hymns 'the mother' would sing.  One thing the kids brought to my attention is the characters have no names, they found that a little odd. The main character is referred to only as 'the boy.'

But a good read!

Here's a picture narrative from Sounder

Our next read will be Amos Fortune, the true story of a man that was kidnapped into slavery at the age of 15, in the year, 1725. We will use this book as one of our Living History Books and compare Amos' life to that of Ben Franklin. They were born only 4 years apart, but of course had very different lives.

 Here's our poem of the week...focusing on trees

The Oak is called the King of trees

the Aspen quivers in the breeze.

The Poplar grows up straight and tall,

the Peach tree spreads along the wall.

The Sycamore gives pleasant shade,

the Willow droops in watery glade.

The Fir gives useful timber,

the Beech amid the forest lives.

~ Sara Coleridge

I decided to head back over and revisit Unplugged Mom @ Unplug Your Kids and see what her theme was for the week -- we really enjoyed these when we were doing them regularly, so hopefully we can continue on.

This week the theme is: purple

We tried our hand at homemade candles....they were supper easy and super fun -- a little messy!

We shared the adventure with friends, also fellow homeschool blogger.......I think they enjoyed it as well.

You will need glass wax, wicks, color & scent, oh yes, your glass jars too!

Here we are cutting the glass wax so it can be put into a pot

Taylor is trying her hand at cutting the wax & Jayda is looking on

  We took pencils and wrapped the tall wicks around it to hold the wick in place

The color above and the scent below, after chopping ( kids chose Ocean Mist )

The wax, the color and scent are melting in the pot. We needed to wait til the temp went down to at least 175 before pouring it into the jars.

Aren't they lovely?!

They came out so well, we were all very pleased.

And purple popcorn balls for the littles.......

Today, we listened to Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G

One of my children said the piece made her think of 'A Nice Day.'

Here is a wonderful list of living books on Bach.

Our favorite book are the Opal Wheeler books : 

 The Boy From Thuringia.

In continuing with our Autumn theme, thanks to the Autumn Series for including this, we went with this lovely piece.

Well, Millstone and Cistern Under Trees, 1892 by Paul Cezanne

 A couple of the kids' recreation ~  taking a break from our usual watercolor median;

one done with markers and the other colored pencils.

We've taken a look at several of the trees in our yard over the last few years and have drawn them through the seasons.

The second challege in the Autumn Series is just that -- a seasonal tree study. Just taking a peek at a tree in autumn and recording what you see. Then of course you will want to revisit that same tree in each season and draw what you see. My children really enjoy this!

Kaden is using our Snow Thyme Crabapple ~ here is his notebooking page, once again, these pages are on the Autumn Series website.

We decided to jump start our fall nature study by using the Autumn Series Challenges.

The first challenge is Season Cattails. Although we have looked at them before and did a little study, HERE and HERE, it was in another season so this was a perfect spot to begin.

We learned by reading in 

The cattails will die if there is a flood ( or too much water ) as well if there is not enough. They can bascially drink themselves to death....odd thought, eh?!

Also, we found it neat how God made this plant's seeds to utilize the wind and the water to scatter their seeds.

 There is a notebooking page given as well

 There was quite the change from spring & summer til now for our beloved cattails.

They are pretty much on their way out til Spring.....sadly.