City On a Hill Academy

• Aug. 31, 2006 - Fortenths the Monarch

The day after we arrrived home from our month-long road trip (More about that another day), I was catching up on my email, when I looked out the window.

Fluttering around our milkweed was a monarch butterfly. I noticed that it would land briefly, and than take off, land briefly again, and take off. Having my suspicions, I gathered the children, and we went outside to observe.

My suspicions were correct, and it was a female monarch, laying her eggs on my patch of milkweed! (Hurrah! And to think, that after 7 years of no monarchs, I had contemplated mowing the patch down

...Boy! Am I glad that we didn't!)

We watched carefully, to see what the eggs looked like, and where they were laid. Then we collected a few leaves.

Over the past 3+ weeks we have been observing the one egg that hatched.

Introducing Fortenths the Caterpillar

Baby Fortenths

Growing Fortenths

He's big enough to hold!

and he likes to hang on!

On Wednesday he was in "J" formation before we went to the beach

And here's a close-up~

Sorry that the color isn't better...

You'll have to wait to see what we found when we got home... my dialup has done all the uploading it can tonight! (SLOOOOWWWW!!!) Oh, and I'm still figuring out how the sizing thing works.... sorry that the pics are so oddly sized... at least they show up on the page now. :)(They were HUGE before!)

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• Aug. 28, 2006 - Monday at the Museum

Today was Bill's first day of "not going to work on a work-day" of this vacation. Due to the length and expense of our previous vacation, we are staying at home, and doing day trips.

Today was the perfect day to check out the Portsmouth Children's Museum.

We have never spent much time in Portsmouth, so it was fun to see what a small old "port" village it was at one time. Tiny, winding streets, and interesting houses and old cemetaries!

The Children's Museum is housed in the old town hall/meeting house. (I think.. I really should check my facts before publishing them on the internet. ;) )I thought I'd tell a bit about some of our favorite things there.

When you first enter, there is a neat musical wall, with wooden shapes, which, when lightly pressed emit a sound of one sort or another. There are lights that are connected with the sound, as well as a monitor, that shows the soundwaves. Pretty fun... we'll have to play with that more on another visit.

The next place to visit is a "castle" that is filled with "patterns". A wall that is carpeted, so that the "masons" can velcro the stones to the fireplace, a floor with pattern block carpet shapes, to create a lovely floor, and a plexiglass window with triangle "leading", and a veritable rainbow of vinyl triangles to decorate the window with. VERY fun! (I could have spent some time here, myself!)

Rebecca and Joshua enjoyed checking out the "Yellow Submarine", which is a nice energy consumer, especially for smaller children.

The second floor is where we spent the rest of our time, and indeed, most of it was at one table... but before we got there...

There is a room that is all about Kaleidescopes, mandalas, and repeating patterns. There is a triangular mirror set up (kaleidescope of sorts), that you can duck under/into, and see yourself into infinity! (Kind of made Bill a little queasy, but I liked it! ;) )There is a computer for making designs... I didn't check it out fully, so can't report on that much.

The next place is where we spent about 2 hours! There was a sturdy triangular table with a crate of "blocks" next to it. I recognized them as Kapla blocks (because our friend Kathy D has a small set). These are so very cool!

The blocks are precision cut, with each piece being 1x3x5 of the unit that they use (perhaps a 1/2 centimeter? I'm not sure). At any rate, apparently because of their particular configuration, and the precision with which they are cut, they are able to balance extremely well! We had some pretty neat structures going, and Kathy has said that her children have built towers and/or bridges on the floor, and the yhave survived regular "living" around them for a few days before falling down!

I will try to post a couple of pictures later of a few of the structures we built. But I will say... Joshua was going for the Frank Lloyd Wright (please tell me that my mommy brain got the architect correct!) look, Rebecca was going for triangular stability, and I had fun with rotating design and height (I built all the way up to the ceiling)

These blocks are incredibly neat, and they immediately found their way onto Rebecca and Joshua's Christmas "Wishlist". :)

As for the rest of the museum... well, we didn't have time to check it out, so that will have to be another visit, although I'm sure that we'll spend some time with the Kapla blocks again, as well!

After the museum closed, we wandered back to our car via an old cemetary and an overflow pond, where the kids collected acorns to use for flower fairie dishware.

We then went downtown, to eat at an Indian Resteraunt~ YUM! and then continued to explore~ windowshop~ the streets of Portsmouth for a while longer. On across the bridge to Kittery, and the outlets for about 1/2 hour, and finally to the Kittery Trading Post on our way out... where Joshua made the "only" purchase... of $1 for 15 spent bullet casings! ;) Funny boyo!

So... there's the first day of vacation... and it was a good one!

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• Mar. 3, 2006 - Maple Sugaring

This morning we went to an Audubon Sanctuary to take a Maple Sugaring Tour with some of our local homeschooling friends.

The tour began in "The Barn" where we found out some of the facts and figures about Maple Sugaring.

Amy the Tree preparing to be tapped

Amy the Tree being "drilled"

First we found out how to identify a Maple Tree in the Winter:
The tree's branches create an egg shape
The branches are opposite one another
The buds are chocolate brown, with 3 nibs
The bark is rough and brown

Second, we learned that 40 is an important number in Maple Sugaring.
The Tree has to be 40 years old before it can safely be tapped(Without stressing it).
It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.
It has to be 40 degrees F for the sap to run regularly, and well. Today it was below 40 degrees, but the sap was just barely dripping on the "sunny side" of the trees! (that March sun is STRONG!)

Because of the weather, we went to the last place first, so that the lady who was pouring out the maple syrup samples didn't have to wait in the cold for us to get back from our walk.

The "Evaporator"

We went to the Sugar Shack, where we saw the evaporation process. It was chilly and steamy in there!

Next we tasted our samples of Maple Syrup (mmmmmm ...... Sweet!)

Finally, we got to take a walk, and find some Maple trees that were tapped. Along the way we saw a bunch of chickadees, a blue jay or two, and an Eastern Blue Bird in the distance.

The sap in the buckets was frozen! (I told you it was cold today!)
We got to taste a bit of the sap that had melted in one bucket. It was clear, almost like water, and tasted just a teeny bit sweet. (Mom thought it tasted like the liquid from inside a fresh coconut)

The trees also had a bunch of "Sap-sickles" hanging from their branches. The chickadees were trying to get some of that. (Unfortunately, the camera didn't focus fast enough, so we don't have a picture of that.)

After the chilliness of outside, we bought little packets of Maple Sugar candy (YUM!), and went into the Resource building, where there was a lovely set of picture windows, looking out on the bird garden.

We saw a number of different varieties: Blue Jays, Cardinals, Dark Eyed Juncos, Tufted Titmice, MANY Chickadees, Sparrows, Crows, 1 Red Winged Blackbird, and

a female(?) Downy Woodpecker was polite enough to come visit right by the window, so that I could get some good pictures.

So, there you have it! Our morning Maple Sugaring.

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• Mar. 3, 2006 - Regrouping :)

Well, Here I am again, and hopefully this time I'll have a little more frequent "presence" at my blog.

January was filled with the rest of Advent, our 16th wedding anniversary, snow, and generally keeping warm!

February had birthdays, art shows, Valentine's Day,....we finally took down the Christmas Tree, and of course the Olympics!

We downloaded Amanda Bennet's Olympic study, after using the 1st week that was free here at Homeschool Nation's e-newsletter. My daughter absolutely LOVED it!

We also stayed up every night till 11:30 pm to watch all of the coverage. This is pretty odd for those of us that generally don't watch regular broadcast TV (Or much of anything else... we still have rabbit ears... no cable).

So, life was very busy, which may have something to do with why I didn't spend much time here!

Now, March has arrived, and we are breathing a huge breath of... spring and organization(Although spring is still a long ways off, and organization in my household seems to be even further!)

We've begun a new "start to our morning" routine. This is what it looks like~

*Read the verse for each day from our Sunday School paper

*Go over the next 4 verses for each child in their AWANA handbook (This works great... it's Friday today, and they both know their verses!)

*Pray for one person or family that we know. We got this idea from a fellow homeschooler on the FIAR boards. We have all of our Christmas cards in a basket, and each day, we take the card from the front, pray for that family, and then place the card in the back of the stack, to be cycled through. We will add the various other cards that we receive through the year as well. I'm very excited about this, as I had been looking for a way to make prayer more meaningful and less "rote" for my littles.

*Read 1 Chapter in whatever our "spiritual growth" book of the moment is. We started the Year with "Little Pilgrim's Progress". Now we are going through "The Chronicles of Narnia" in chronological order, and utilizing the study guide "ROAR" to encourage discussion, and bring out scriptures that coordinate with some of the themes.

Following our reading, we go to math/phonics/writing for each child, and then we do our current FIAR book/study.

Well, that will do for now... I'm going to add one more blog today, with some pictures from our Maple Sugaring Field Trip this morning.

See ya!
Lis

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• Jan. 1, 2006 - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

2006 is here, with a fresh start, and a new beginning for all who choose to take it, and turn over a new leaf (or new snowflake, as it were).

We celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas in our home, so while the New year is a New Beginning, it feels like we still aren't quite finished with the past! We still have packages to unwrap under our tree, (And, quite honestly, a few more to wrap as well!

).

Today dawned snowy and chilly. We made our way to church, after Bill shoveled the 3 inches of fresh snow(not *too* terrible). After a Sunday School lesson and a Song service that emphasized worship in its total sense(Not just singing and prayer, but **Obedience** to God, among other themes), we enjoyed the first Lord's Supper of 2006.

After church it was off to "Not Your Average Joe's", for a delightful dinner with our friends.

Now, for some random thoughts:

How will I ever get this house organized???

I think I need some containers, and a few trips to the Salvation Army!

Time to start getting ready for school this week!

Oh, yeah... lesson plans! I remember those!

Hmmm... wonder if I can make a menu plan on a monthly(?) basis, and stick to it? (Life can be interesting when you tend to be "Spontaneous"

).

I saw some neat craft ideas from a fellow-blogger~(Is it ok to link to her here? http://jenanddavin.blogspot.com/2005/12/thursday-thirteen-10.html ) Now I'm getting the knitting and dyeing bug! (Maybe I can even get the old warp off my loom, and start weaving again!)

Oh, and Christmas Presents.... is it possible to actually start on gifts for family, and be DONE by Thanksgiving 2006? That would truly be a miracle.