With anticipation we took the nature path from the visitor center to Colonial Williamsburg.  It is fun to walk across the bridge and read the signs that take us out of the 21st century into the 18th century.  We were excited about visiting a new part of the Colonial experience: Revolutionary City. (Be certain to visit all of the hyperlinks for video and audio clips and podcasts.  They are incredible!)  This is where the visitors get to actively engage with the interpretors on the Duke of Gloucester Street near the Capitol.  There are 3 key days that rotate through the week.  I planned our vacation to hit these appropriately.  Our first day there was Monday, where the focus is on vignettes of the various people of the era from 1775 to 1793.  They portray how the Declaration of Independence affected them...or not.  Very interesting.  We were privileged to get an inside look at what freedom meant to different people...and to consider what freedom means to us today. 

When we arrived it was 1775. Patrick Henry was speaking in front of Raleigh Tavern, sharing some key events and parts of his famous speech.  He's a different actor than the one we met 4 years ago, but he was appropriately "on fire" for his beliefs. =)  Whenever I listen to Patrick Henry, I'm inspired to take action! Huzzah!

Then we went behind the coffeehouse and met one of the  Randolph sisters.  It is now July 1776. She was reading a letter that she had received from her brother, who has been arguing for freedom for the colonies.  She, herself, was arguing with her brother that the freedom he was fighting for did not include women!  As I recall, she was a widow and had difficulties dealing with her husband's property after his death, a situation many widows of the time faced.  One of the purposes of Revolutionary City is to actively engage the visitor.  When she began her discourse, she came to our side and asked us if any of us had a brother with whom we had disagreements.  

Then we went to the Capitol to await the arrival of Mrs. Washington. The timeframe is now August 1777. To our surprise a herald quickly rode up to the Capitol, loudly announcing the arrival of Lady Washington!  None of us had time to get our cameras ready, so here he is  in the background awaiting her arrival.  

We think the man in the cream colored clothes is Edmund Randolph.  He greeted Mrs. Washington.

Mrs. Washington shared greetings from her husband and received honors in his name.  

Then we saw a soldier, home from one of the battles, who's leg had been injured.  He had been writing Congress for compensation but getting none.  (My dh is in the USAF so a lot of this sounded familiar!)  Mrs. Washington overheard and gave him some money to get the medical care he needed and provide for his family, and told him to write to her husband.

Afterwards, we returned to the back of the Coffeehouse.  Now the time was 1793.  Gowan Pamphlet, a preacher for the black Baptist Church, gleefully announced that he had gotten his papers of freedom and that his church was being accepted with the other Baptist Churches.  One of his parishoners, a slave, protested that he was turning his back on his brothers and sisters.  He promised her that he would never forget where he came from and that this was a door to help empower his people.

Finally, we returned to Raleigh Tavern to meet President George Washington! As I recall it was near the end of his presidency and he shared his memories of the events leading to freedom and his hopes for our country.  I could clearly hear overtones of exhortation for us to make prudent decisions regarding our freedoms in the 21st century,  

Wow!  This was a wonderful experience.  By now it was noon so we sat on the benches under the trees of Raleigh Tavern and watched the hustle and bustle on the street while we ate our lunches.  Then we took our time to see some of the buildings and trades.  Before Revolutionary City we  had taken a tour of the Capitol.  It was interesting to hear where the term "bar" came from! 

Earlier that morning, our first tour had been of the Governor's Palace. (After having read so many GA Henty novels, I wondered if the dc would see the "powerfulness" of the entryway.) When we were in the upstairs bedrooms, the kids had fun looking out of the window of Patrick Henry's daughter's room.  At least according to the book we read, it was the one overlooking the Palace Green.   This gorgeous palace was home to many Governor's for the King of England, until independence was declared and the colonies became states. Then Patirck Henry was elected the first governor of Virginia and lived here.  The next governor was Thomas Jefferson, who lived there until he moved the capitol to Richmond, because of the impeding British invasion. 

On the Palace Green we saw these oxen.  DS had read about them at the CW website for a science lesson while we studied the American Revolution.  He was thrilled to see them up close. 

The kids wanted to do the maze, so we returned to the Palace after lunch.  DS is waving to me from the center.  I should have gotten a close up!  The hill on which I stood to take the picture has an icehouse underneath!

I had learned from a friend that children who come in costume get a little more attention.  Hmmmm.  Remember the costumes I had sewn?  Might as well get some use out of them!  LOL I told the children about it and left the decision to them.  I didn't know if they'd feel too old.  Or too hot!  LOL  After all it was August and we did have a couple of 99 degree days!  They decided to wear them and they were so glad they did!  They got lots of compliments (well so did I on my seamstressing and tailoring...but they are not truely authentic.  However, I must admit, that when we met the Marquis de Lafayette the next day, I was elated that the sleeve cuffs on his shirt and my son's were nearly identical!  If we lived in the area, sigh, I would probably purchase the real patterns and really try to make authentic costumes.  Authentic patterns are in their shops!)   Here is dd in the Palace Garden...

Here is ds walking through the gardens...

After running through the gardens, the maze, crossing the bridge over the pond and checking out the kitchen, we went to a nearby shop for some ice cold refreshment.  While we were outside the shop, an interpreter walked by and noticed the costumes, so he spent some extra time with them and taught them their "courtesies".  This is where we get the word, "curtsy" today.  When you notice the gentlemen extending their legs in their "courtesy", it is to show off their great calve muscles, proving that they ride horses and are therefore men of wealth!  If they are single, they especially do this to show off to the girl they want to marry and prove they have wealth.  Wherever the children went, other costumed interpreters would do their "courtesies" and give them a little more attention, and my children knew exactly what to do next!

Then the interpreter invited them to play colonial games.

After that we went to see the basketmaker.  Ds was carefully examining the work.  I know he was comparing it to our basket weaving efforts last spring!

While waiting to go into the George Wythe house, the costumed "gatekeeper" was pulling apart seed pods from the Catalpa Trees from the Palace Green. We asked lots of questions about that.  He was looking for worms to use to go fishing that night.  I thought he was doing this as a 21st century person, because the "gate and doorkeepers" talk about any time frame.  But when our group was called for the tour, he heartily complimented our questioning and getting involved...oh, we were talking to an 18th century person.  It's a little hard sometimes in Colonial Williamsburg to know when one of the interpretors are in the 18th century and when they are in the 21st century.   =)

At the George Wythe house, where Thomas Jefferson learned how to be a lawyer, the children got to practice their penmanship with quills and ink. This left an impression on ds so that he bought his own set at the print shop later with the money my parents had given him to spend at CW.  He got the clay inkwell, parchment paper, quill, stamp with his initial, ink and perhaps more.

Here is dd...

After touring the Wythe house, we toured the Geddy House.  He was a silversmith and we learned a little about the different objects he'd made.  It was like a guessing game figuring some of the pieces out.  Then we looked at the foundry. There was an area for children to do watercolor paintings, using pictures of fruits and flowers that were commonly hung on the walls in that era.  DS worked long and hard on his and mixed the paints to get the right shading. The teenage costumed interpreters were impressed with his watercolor. 

Day was coming to an end.  Some ladies who were costumed doorkeepers at some of the shops were enthralled with the kids' costumes.  They said we had to visit the milliner, who liked to rave over costumed children. The milliner  is dd's favorite. We went in but the milliner was not there, however the tailor was. By listening to all the visitors asking questions, I learned a lot about fabrics of the times.  The tailor pulled out samples that would be used for a gentleman, and those that would be for a lady. Interestingly, the tailor was dressed differently from everyone else in town.  He wore a turban and a robe and slippers.  When dh asked him about that, he said it was of Eastern influence.  Many things in town were, had we noticed?  Yes, we had seen Eastern fences, bridges, paintings, plates, furniture.  The Dutch were importing with the Far East back then and would trade that with England and then the colonies.  Homes of influence would buy these items and display them.  Although Colonial Williamsburg definitely has a strong colonial style, there was that little touch of Eastern influence which was subtly used.  Part of the influence was the dress.  The robe was a kimono, worn loosely.  Then there was the turban.  The gentlemen would  often relax like this in the evening.  There was a famous painter from Boston during this time who had painted many influential people of American dressed like this.  Had we ever heard of John Singleton Copely?  While that name rang a rusty bell in my head, ds spoke up.  Yes, he knew that name. He painted the famous portrait of Paul Revere holding the silver urn.  The tailor was impressed! (Yea TOG! That was in the Esther Forbes book we read on Paul Revere last spring!) The tailor got his Copley art book out to show the pictures of people wearing the robe and turban. Then ds asked if he could look through the book and he found the Paul Revere portrait. The tailor was of Tory leanings, so he said even though his politics didn't agree with my ds (a patriot), at least they had a common bond in knowing the works of Copley!  =) Well, the shop had closed, the tailor was kind to give us extra time, but we had to drag ds out of there.  =)

We walked to Christiana Campbell's Tavern for dinner.  That was fun.  Once again the children got extra attention due to their costumes.  The colonial musicians came to our table.  And the costumed interpreters came to our table too.  They asked if ds was going into a trade or higher education.  Oh, higher education, definitely.  How old was our dd?  Fifteen.  Oh, she was of marrying age!  DD giggled about that!  George Washington has written about the wonderful seafood he had in this tavern, and we quite agree!  We wanted fresh seafood, being on the Atlantic Coast.  I'm not a big fan of friend seafood, but that was the plate that looked most interesting for dd and I to share.  It had a mix of shrimp, scallops and cod.  The waitress asked if we'd like all that and I confessed we weren't fans of fish.  So instead of the cod they gave us more of the good stuff...the shrimp and scallops!  They were delicious!  Much better than any I've had anywhere else, even fried! They were very light and plump and fresh.  After our meal the children got sourvenir pins and I got a pamphlet of their recipes.  DH got the bill!  LOL  

After dinner we leisurely walked back down the back roads of CW.  This area is more pastoral.  Lots of fenced in areas with different animals.  This time we saw the gorgeous horses used to pull the coaches.  I would love to live in one of these homes back here.  My favorite is a large house on a hill behind the gaol.  Another favorite is one that has a rippling creek running through the backyard.  It is so quiet and peaceful back there.  We just took our time enjoying the sites and taking pictures (I'm saving all the garden and architecture and pastoral pictures for a slide show later.)  It is fun to catch a glimpse of a costumed interpreter walk down the streets, seeing the colorful birds hop around, hearing the rippling brook.   Sigh.  I wish I was still there.

After 2 full days driving from hot and humid Texas, we arrived in beautiful Virginia to refreshingly cool temperatures!  We had lunch here, overlooking the beautiful and aptly named Blue Ridge Mountains.

With great anticipation, we had only a couple of hours drive left to arrive in Williamsburg.  By 3pm we arrived at this charming motel, only blocks from Colonial Williamsburg. 

The red bridge is reminiscent of the one at the Governor's Palace at Colonial Williamsburg. 

There was even a duck pond, like the one at the Governor's Palace!

When we planned our vacation, the children told me that as much as they wanted to see and experience all the history, they also wanted to do Nature Study. This charming spot proved to be not only a fun place to view nature up close, but it was also "a wonderful scope for the imagination"! Every morning I made sure we got seats in the motel coffeehouse for breakfast near a colonial style window with a scenic spot!  

To our delight, when we came back from getting our CW tickets and eating dinner the first night, dh had to slow down the van in the motel parking lot  to "make way for ducklings"!  Seven of them! We couldn't wait to get out of the van and meet them! They were spread all over the place, so it was difficult to get a family portrait!  LOL

Mama duck was sweet and allowed us to hang out with them.

This is the best family portrait I was able to take.  All of her babies are the brown fluffs in the grass.

 Each morning, before the motel coffee shop was open for breakfast, we were up and ready for the day and did a little nature study.  The second Handbook of Nature Study assignment is to use words.  Although we had our nature journals with us, we never had time to do any drawing.  So we merely practiced being silent and listened to the sounds.

We went to the pond, stood on the dock and looked and listened.  Funny, there were lots of ducks, but none of them hung out at the pond much.  But we did see fish and turtles.   The words to describe what they heard were "twittering, splashing, singing."  Words to describe what they saw were, "TALL trees (In Texas my dh says we have mere shrubs!), fish, turtles, ducks flapping." A word to describe what they felt was "solid dock".    

After a while at the pond, we went to the red bridge to see the ducklings and their mamma.  DS asked if we had any bread, so I went into the hotel and got my hoagie roll that would have been my sandwich for the day.  I decided it would be worth the sacrifice to feed the sweet babies and eat other foods myself for lunch.   Well, they must have enjoyed that hoagie roll, because the next morning, those babies saw me coming and came running to meet me, their little webbed feet flapping on the pavement as they cried, "peep, peep, peep!"  They were so precious!  They couldn't wait for the bread and pecked at my shoes!

They pecked at dh's shoes.

DS worried that they might start pecking at his toes!

After they were fed, we washed our hands and ate our breakfast.  When I left the motel coffeehouse for the motel room, I met the babies at the foot of the bridge, content and snuggled together.  Aren't they cute!?

Proverbs Mom of 3, Ginny, has given me the Arte y Pico Award, dedicated to those who nourish and enrich the spirit of creativity. Ginny, herself, is deserving of this award for all the writing prompts and posts she does about homeschooling.  She was also the first to discover my blog and encourage me, as well as giving me wonderful tips on how to use html code to change up the look.  Thank you, Ginny! I am humbled that she is honoring me with this award.  She said that I have "the very best ideas to make history come alive.  Her sharing of the Tapestry of Grace celebrations they have are inspirational."  Thank you for those lovely comments, Ginny! 

Humbly, I must admit, I did not always enjoy history.  Reading textbooks in school was b-o-r-i-n-g. After I received my teaching degree, I found myself with a classroom of fifth graders and I had to think of something to make American History interesting. Struggling for ideas, I saw a glimmer of hope the following summer while on vacation in upstate New York.  (My boyfriend took me there to meet his family and propose.  I accepted!)  While driving around town, I noticed signs that said Loch 7, Erie Canal with directions to get there.  What????  The Erie Canal?  It's real?  We could see it today?  It's more than a little paragraph in my history text about something that was built in the 1800's?????  I had to see it.  DH couldn't see what would be so fascinating about a canal because he was used to them, having paddled his canoe through some on boyscout trips.  LOL To make me happy, he took me to one of the locks and I was fascinated. Ever since, every trip we make to upstate New York, we take a boat ride in a canal lock.  A few years ago we took our dc on a replica of the original barge pulled by mules on the original Erie Canal (Mohawk River) and we even sang about the mule named Sal! LOL  We also took a boat ride on the Champlain Canal (Hudson River) near Saratoga Battlefield.  We got to ride in a turn of the century craft like Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn's in "African Queen."  Ever since first experiencing the canal, I have taken lots of pictures to show my students that history lives on today.

Then the first summer we were married, I got to go to Colonial Williamsburg for the first time!  There is nothing like experiencing history at Colonial Williamsburg!  The costumes.  The food.  The experiences.  The art.  The music.  The geography.  The history.  The people.  The architecture.  The government.  The buildings.  Incredible! I was inspired to become more hands on in the classroom.  Surely only a project here or there would be acceptable.  Anything more would be crazy, wouldn't it?  When we started using Tapestry of Grace a few years ago, I quickly saw that their encouragement of doing unit celebrations brought to life my dream, a Colonial Williamsburg type of homeschool!

I had to smile when I read Ginny's words about bringing history to life. This has been on my mind a lot the last two weeks that we've been on our family vacation to Virginia.  We went to Monticello, Montpelier, Washington DC, Mount Vernon and.....Colonial Williamsburg!!!!!  There is nothing like bringing history to life than going to the original site of history. My dc had been to Colonial Williamsburg at ages 11 and 8.  We mainly focused on all the trades and met Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson.  This left vivid memories in their minds as we studied the American Revolution last spring.  I told them we needed to prepare for our return trip to CW this summer by studying the history and politics of the times.  We would enjoy whatever trades we could, but we all agreed that this time it would be a thrill to actually engage with the events of the 1770's in Revolutionary City and with the re-enactors.  Mission accomplished!  It was incredible!  Their favorite was the Marquis de Lafayette, who nicknamed my son, "the young historian" after getting a unique question from him. We saw the Marquis on 3 more occasions and every time ds had questions.  The Marquis would say in his French accent, "Ah, the young historian has returned!"  Stay tuned for the details!  LOL  In addition, I did a little shopping while I was there, looking for inspirational items in the print shop for hands on interest at the rhetoric level the next time we cover the American Revolution.  The dc peeked to see what I was purchasing and they excitedly exclaimed that I had made excellent choices!  LOL 

I've been going through over 2000 pictures the entire family took, to whittle down and find the best to share here!  It was a truely incredible time! How we wish we were still there!  It's been extremely difficult for me to return to the 21st century after a few incredible days in the 4mph society of Colonial Williamsburg!  I could easily make Colonial Williamsburg my home and a place to work someday, a place where history is alive! 

I would like to pass this award on to  BChsMamaof3 who also blogs at NatureNotesFromAbove.  I enjoy seeing her ideas and pictures of her  wonderful activities, indoors and out, for children! 

A sweet friend e-mailed me one day earlier this summer and asked if I'd like to borrow an extra copy of her CD: The Phonics of Drawing.  I had been reading her blog and seeing some nifty results.  So I elatedly said yes!

We completed the first few lessons before we left for vacation.

We practiced drawing shapes...

and more shapes.

We learned a little about perspective. This was cool because we read about this technique when we studied the Renaissance last year.  Here is ds'... 

Then we learned about light and shadow while drawing teddy bears...

Here is dd's...

Mine...

and ds'...

We used charcoal for all of these, which is extremely messy.  I was excited about doing the perspective exercise because we learned about it when we studied Leonardo da Vinci in TOG Y2U2. We had hoped to see one of his pieces in Washington DC but we ran out of time to do that particular museum. 

We actually did the teddy bears twice because one of the supplies we used was the wrong one!  This was a rather frustrating project at the time, but now we think these bears are cool.  Also, while on vacation in Virginia, we took pictures of many things that entailed light and shadow.  So I guess this charcoal lesson sort of rubbed off on us!  LOL

I'm going through over 1000 photos from our vacation.  We went to Colonial Williamsburg and got to meet George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, who nicknamed my son, "the young historian"!  We also went to Mount Vernon, Washington DC, Montpelier and Monticello.  Stay tuned!      

About a month ago, we realized a mockingbird had a nest in the crepe myrtle by our back door.  Whenever we stepped out of the house, she'd fly from her nest to the nearby fence.  We had to wonder if she knew that it was a little late in the year to be nest sitting.  Well, we figured she knew better than us.  So we kept an eye on her with delight.  She seemed like a friendly bird.  She had great trust in us.  She'd allow me to get the big clippers to reach up high to snip off old seed pods to make way for new blooms.  Amazingly, she never dive bombed me like many a blue jay has done. 

Imagine our surprise when the children realized the babies had hatched!  We discovered this last week.  The nest is up a bit over our heads, but when she'd return to the nest, we'd see their little heads bob up with their beaks pointing to the sky, their mouths wide open, waiting for dinner!  We'd be all atingle with excitement!  The best part of each day was watching this.  Eventually we figured out that there was a daddy bird helping too.  

As  a result of all this, I pulled out a huge book I had purchased in preparation to join The Outdoor Hour Challenges.  The Handbook of Nature Study  is huge.  I picked it up at the bookstore a few weeks ago and was shocked at the size.  It didn't look fun. It was overwhelming. I was seriously considering returning it to the store. However, these Mockingbird's raised my curiousity. I looked to see if they were in the book.  They were!  We learned that they hatch 3 broods a season.  Ohhhhhh!  They do like to build their nests near humans.  They especially like gardens! =)  Mockingbirds are a lot of fun.  They get their name because they can imitate other birds.  We also know from first hand experience that they can imitate any sound they hear, such as house alarms and car alarms.  A few years ago we had a mockingbird in the neighborhood who imitated alarms all the time!  Well, this is a variation of the first Outdoor Hour Challenge. 

Then last week Hurricane Dolly blew in to South Texas.  The next day, after she became a tropical storm, we got a heavy downpour, over 3" of badly needed rain.  The winds ferociously picked up, blowing the rain sideways.  Oh how I wanted to get that nest and bring the mockingbird family safely inside. Mamma bird sat on top of those birds in that nest, bracing herself while the winds furiously blew and the rain poured down.  It was amazing how tenacious she was at protecting her young ones.  Later we found out there was a tornado warning during this time.  Thankfully there was no damage.  The temperatures dropped 20 degrees and Mamma bird stayed with her babies through most of the afternoon before she started getting more food for them. They must have been starving!  

That evening, ds decided to video tape them with his camera.  Unbeknownst to me, dh told him to use the tripod to reach the camera high above the nest.  After successfully getting a video, ds delightfully showed me the tape.  I couldn't believe he did that.  As charming as the birds were, I told him never to do that again.  He could have lost control of the tripod and knocked the babies out of their nest.  Oh. He was sad. He had never thought about that. In addition, that was teasing to put the camera up there and make them think Mamma had come with food.  Oh.  He didn't think about that. Also, messing with wild babies like that can cause a mother to turn away and leave her brood for good.  Oh.  He had no idea. He was really sad. We went down stairs to check on the nest through the window.  Thankfully, there was Mamma bird, sitting on top of her babies again, this time looking around in full alert.     I told him that Mamma bird must be keeping an eye out for that little boy.  I warned him she might punish him like a blue jay does and start dive bombing him.   But she never did!  What a trustworthy and forgiving bird.  

The next day, we started hearing the babies chirping.  Every time Mamma bird came back with the food, we could hear their high pitched voices...."me, me, me, me, me!"  It was so sweet.  Every time we'd hear them we'd get a big smile on our faces.   

With vacation coming soon, we began to fear they'd leave the nest while we were gone.  Then on Sunday afternoon, I realized I hadn't heard a single peep.  hmmmmmm  I looked out of the back door and lingered there a while...waiting...watching.  Nothing.  hmmmmmm  Later ds went outback and came running in all upset.  One of the babies was in the middle of the back yard, dead.  DD ran out back with ds and I.  Oh how sad we were.  It was heartbreaking.  How fragile life is.  I told dh about it later and he said he saw Mamma bird carry the baby out of the nest and it looked like it fell.  That was earlier in the morning when we were getting ready for church.  We haven't seen the others at all.  We hope they are all safe and sound.  

Cooler evenings thanks to Hurricane Dolly and part of another Saturday allowed dh to complete a file drawer unit.  All that is left is sanding and painting.

The other file cabinet still needs the drawers. 

It took him a long time to figure out the perfect dimensions to make the drawers work.  Then he got on a roll, and now he has to stop. The tools are put away, since we'll be away on vacation soon. 

Sooooooo, the wall unit is not done before school starts, as ahem, dh promised me!  I tease him about that and he laughs.  After the vacation the school room will soon be disassembled. We'll need to take out the old cabinets and make room for the new. I'll have to find a place to store the things in those cabinets now.  In the meantime, I am storing all of our curriculum for next school year in our bedroom.

I don't like to clutter our bedroom like this, but I don't trust it in the dc's rooms, I don't want to haul it downstairs, so that means our bedroom.  I need everything where I can find it to do lesson plans, assess for lessons, etc.  I even have our new microscope stored on my vanity.  

In the meantime, I've been busily sewing my heart out.  DD and I have our new summer wardrobes finally. DH has been hoping I'd clean out a large portion of the fabric stash closet.  I did manage to do that.  I also found some large pieces to sew duffel bags for dirty laundry on the trip.  They are color coordinated for whites, lights and darks.  If we are low on clothes, I can quickly throw a load into the laundry while we are on vacation. 

Then I packed up my sewing machine.  It is ready to go to the sewing machine store to get cleaned while I am away on vacation.  I do this yearly while on vacation.  Since I am always sewing with it, it always needs a cleaning and I can't bear to part with it.  Sending it to the shop is a good thing to do while I am away too.  It is particularly full of lint this year, from the medieval costumes I made!  Also the light bulb needs to be replaced (and I don't know how to do that), the automatic needle threader is busted, and the cord doesn't plug into the machine very well anymore.  My Pfaff has gotten a lot of mileage!

While doing this unit, I added a DVD I've always been wanting to see.  Faith Lessons on the Promised Land  takes us on a trip to Israel with Ray Vander Laan.  He is a born again Christian who helps us with a Western world viewpoint understand the culture and history of Israel from their Eastern world perspective. This was a wonderful addition to our TOG studies!  This makes a wonderful Bible study as well! 

The costumes for dd and I are made the same as the  directions for our Egyptian costumes.  For ds, I used a Bible character pattern since he wanted a vest.  He chose shades of purple since he portrayed a Phoenician trader of purple dye. 

DS was quite particular about his costume.  He painted a dark purple band at the bottom of the robe.  Then he cut the fringe.    

Our Ancient Greek fresco painting was fun. I saved styrofoam trays from frozen meat that I cleaned up in soap and water, then clorox. (Actually I did that for dd.  DS form was a round styrofoam plate.) Then I had the dc plan what they wanted to paint. Fresco painting must be done wet and dries quickly...at least ours did.  So they sketched and colored on a sheet of paper their design.  I let them choose any design they wanted.  It did not have to be a copy of an Ancient Greek design, although that certainly would have been interesting.  Then I mixed and poured plastic of paris into the trays.  As soon as they started to set, the dc used their water colors to paint on the wet plaster.  After it completely dried we popped them out of the trasys. 

For Indian (the country) pottery, the dc paper mached a blown up balloon.  Then they painted in shades of brown and orange.  This time I did have them try to imitate some of the ancient designs using a black marker.

For the Mayan pottery, I had the dc use Sculpy clay that we baked.  Then they did a Mayan design with a black marker.

These silver cups are simply styrofoam painted silver. Then the dc etched a design on them.

Here are some Phoenician projects.  DD dyed fabric in red cabbage that had been boiled on top of the stove.  We cut up several strips in 2" widths, and took one strip out after 10 minutes, another after 1 hour, another after 5 hours, another after 11 hours, and the last after 22 hours.  After they dried we pressed them and stacked them on top of each other to form a color graduation from light at the botton to dark at the top.  We cut the strips into graduating sizes so that the different shades would show.  DD put it on black card stock and topped off the fabric with a couple of purple beads.  

DD also made a necklace with purple beads. 

DS made the murex seashell out of sculpey clay, that he baked and painted.  This is the shell from which the purple dye is collected.   From the way it is laying, you can see the purple inside.

We had fun making casts from molds.  

First the dc sculpted a form out of sculpey.  We did not bake this.  We wanted it to stay flexible.

Then I mixed up plaster of paris to pour into the molds.

When they were dry, the dc painted them with copper paint to represent some of the ancient art.  This is actually how some of the art was done, even back then.

We kept both the mold and cast for the unit celebration to explain the process.

As I planned for our Y1U2 celebration, I thought I'd build on ds' last minute idea for the Y1U1 celebration. I had the dc give speeches for their chosen character.  I was Deborah (from Judges), dd was Ruth, and ds portrayed a Phoenician merchant of purple dye who came to know the one true God through some Hebrews he met while trading.  I had the dc write KWO (process of prewriting from IEW) and practice their speeches.  They wanted me to do it too, so I did my best to set a good example!

After we introduced ourselves, we ate!

I decided to feature some foods of the regions and spices to make the table prettier.

After we ate, we had show and tell.  The dc showed off all their projects and answered all of the guests questions.

Here is the table on Ancient India:

  Ancient China:

Here is dd showing off her lantern after the unit celebration:

Ancient America:

The Hebrews:

Ancient Greeks:

The next entries will share how we did some of the projects.

While studying creation, I thought the dc would enjoy doing a mixed media type art project, pulling out all of the odds and ends from our craft box.  We cut the pages for each day in graduating sizes. These are the pages from ds' book.

Day 1-Cut 2" wide.  Colored black on top and white on the bottom.  Days are numbered on the bottom inside of clouds. 

Day 2-Cut 3" wide.  Colored dark blue on the bottom and lighter on top.  Cotton used for clouds.

Day 3-Cotton for clouds.  Green yarn for tree tops.  Yellow yarn for ???

Day 4-Yellow yarn for sun.  White yarn for moon.  Foam stars.

Day 5-Yellow yarn for sun.  Green yarn for seaweed.  Fish stickers.

Day 6-Yellow yarn for sun.  Green yarn for tree tops.  Foam turtles and frogs. Fish sticker.

Then we bound the outside of the pages with scotch tape.  

I didn't expect to do many field trips that relate to Y1U1, since we don't live in the Middle East or Egypt!  lol  But we did manage to get out to see some cool stuff! 

The IMAX was showingMystery of the Nile which was really interesting. There are also teacher materials and a DVD to purchase. 

The museum has an interesting exhibit on mummies.  We saw lots of cool stuff that we had studied, as well as how modern technology is used to identify mummies.

See if your local area is hosting The Tabernacle Experience.  I have heard that there has been one in my state, but we have never been able to go to it.  This looks pretty interesting! 

We are awaiting much needed rain from Dolly, who hit the Texas coast at noon yesterday.  We have the clouds and 1/4" of rain.  Oh please let it rain, Lord!

One nice thing Dolly has brought us are cooler temperatures.  DH came home and after dinner he went to the garage to work on the wall unit. 

There is a file cabinet in the making....

Here is the tricky part...making sure all the measurements are correct. 

DH and I have an awful time creating from scratch. Usually something goes wrong and it doesn't work.  We are much better at reading someone else's directions (as long as they are well written LOL) and following them.  We are approaching the moment of truth here...will everything come together???  

Quite frankly, overlay map projects confuse me and I need step by step instructions.  But I was able to figure out how to apply the idea to a project which would interest us.  When we studied the Great Flood, we learned about mountain building and the massive erosion that created river beds, piles of fossils crushed into each other and covered with mud, huge canyons, etc.  We decided to do overlays on the major geographical features of today that probably resulted from the Great Flood.

We started with a base map of the world. This can be printed on paper or cardstock, although I didn't realize that and printed it on a transparency.  When I did that, I realized I needed a paper backing of some sort so it would stand out. 

Then we got a fresh transparancy, hole punched that and added that to the 3 ring binder, on top of the base map.  The dc colored with a yellow sharpie, the deserts of the world. Then on a piece of yellow paper (lower left corner) they numbered and listed the major deserts.  Then they were numbered in black on the transparency (so they could all fit.)   The dc glued the yellow paper with the key to the desert information onto the transparency in a place where it would not be in the way of any information.

The next layer is for the mountains.  They used a brown piece of paper to list the major mountains of the world.  Then they used a brown sharpie to number these locations on the map. They could have even drawn some upside down v's for mountains.  I think they didnt' do that because there were already some on the base map that I used.

The next layer is for the rivers.  They used a blue piece of paper, with a list of the major rivers.  Then with a blue sharpie, they drew in the rivers and numbered them.

The final layer was for the Oceans.  For these they did not use any color coded paper.  You see a blue paper but that is the one for rivers showing from underneath.  For this layer they took a dark blue sharpie and wrote in the names of the oceans.

For our resource we used A Beka's 5th grade history text, Old World History and Geography.

We have immensely enjoyed the books suggested by TOG.  However, I wondered if ds would have any interest in them, since he was hooked soley on the Boxcar Children.  Thankfully, TOG books opened his eyes to a whole new world!  We have enjoyed additional resources as well.

When we studied Egypt, we were frustrated with our timeline dates that did not match up with a Young Earth Creationist viewpoint.  I did some research and found Christian archeologist David Down at  Answer in Genesis.  Thrilled, we used his suggested dates which made a lot more sense.  A few months after studying Egypt, a brand new book hit the Christian bookshelves, Unwrapping the Pharoahs How Egyptian Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Timeline by David Down. We were excited about using this book the next time we do Y1U1 at the Rhetoric level.

When we studied Creation, we added  Dinosaurs by Design and  The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible.  Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation was another terrific resource.  We saved chapter 2, on evolution, for our study of Darwin in Year 3. 

 When we studied the Flood, we included The Geology Book by John Morris from the Institute of Creation Research.  This book helped me put all the pieces of the puzzle together about Creation, the Great Flood and geologic processes.  We also read Footprints in the Ash: The Explosive Story of Mount St. Helens, a beautifully photographed and fascinating book by John Morris and Steven Austin.  Scientists learned a lot from Mt. St. Helens.  They learned that gorges and canyons form quickly over a matter of hours to days.  They learned that peat bogs form in months.  In essence, they learned that big destruction causes big changes.  They brought some Old Earth Scientists to the newly formed canyons and bogs and asked them when they were created.  The OE Scientists took out their tools and determined these fascinating geological places were formed millions of years ago.  When they were told they were recently and quickly formed by Mt. St. Helens, and they saw the evidence, they were silenced.  Now the OE Scientists are having to change some of their theories.  =)  Because of discoveries and observations from Mt. St. Helens, New Earth Creationists are now showcasing the Grand Canyon through new eyes.   Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail has been selling well at the Grand Canyon bookstores, much to the dismay of the Old Earth theorists.  This gorgeously book has stunning photographs of the Grand Canyon, with excerpts from Young Earth Creationists about the clues found in the canyon. 

Then of course we watched The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston.  It  helped us make connections between Egypt and the Israelites. It was so cool to actually see all the stuff we had read about.  Also, it was fun to pick out any errors.  It's been almost two years and I can't remember any errors.  There might have been but it was pretty accurate. 

I was asked the other day how I sewed our ancient costumes. These are the basic steps I used for costumes for dd and I.

First I measured each of us, from the neck down to however far we wanted the garment to fall. DD and I wanted them to go to our feet so I measured to our feet.  I multiplied that by 2.  That is how much fabric I need.  Then we went to the fabric store and purchased their cheapest white fabric. Now when fabric comes off the bolt, it is folded like this:

The selvage is the factory finished edge.  The cut sides have obviously been cut with scissors.  When we got home, I refolded the fabric to lay like this:

I smoothed out all the wrinkles. Then I cut a semicircle in the top for the neck opening and sewed up the sides almost all the way...like this:

The solid line shows where I cut the neck opening.  If I estimated that too small, I can always cut it bigger. The dashed lines show my seam lines.  The arms go through the opening above the seam lines.  I did not do any hemming or finish work.  After all, these are ancient costumes!  I tucked in the sleeves so the raveled edges wouldn't show.  If the raggy edges showed on the hem, I told the dc to say that came from miles of walking!  We were ancients after all!  LOL 

Since the Egyptians liked to wear gold, Dd and I wore gold belts.  I took out some gold lame fabric from my fabric stash and tied them around our waists.  Done!

I bought some cheap gold jewelry for me to wear.  DD made her own out of Sculpey clay.  She just followed directions in some of the craft books we had.

For ds, I just got a smaller piece of white fabric, wrapped it around his waist and used a safety pin to hold it in place.  Then I got a strip of white fabric to wrap around his waist for a belt.  I had found a web site with some color sheets for Egyptian collars.  I forget where this was found, but that is the neck ornament ds is wearing.  He made a band for his arm too. 

Then we all put on dark brown eyeshadow for Kohl.  I think that's how simple our costumes were.  Oh, we did go barefoot too!

 I used to do costumes for the children's choir at church and I learned tons about making the most of the biggies for the greatest impact and not sweating the small stuff!  Really!! So for Egypt, the key elements are white fabric and gold accents. 

These are the student books I purchased directly from Latin Road to English Grammar.

I was always buy 2 at a time, one for each of my dc.  My son starts with Latin I this year and I only had to pull out the one I had waiting for him.  I was not sure if this curriculum would change any and I didn't want yet another learning curve!  lol  Also, we have to pay with PayPal and I need dh to help me with that, since our account is in his name and his secret password.  Also,  I can't figure PayPal out...and quite frankly, dh only has it a little more figured out than I do.  It is such a pain to move the money from our savings to our checking (which is how he set it up) then wait for a week for the money to make it's way to Pay  Pal.  We did this for the initial teacher and student order I thought I'd need to make.  But then I found Rainbow Resource for the teacher set...so we didn't need all that money we put in Pay Pal.  So now it's sitting in there, it's paid for the student order and we have money left over. 

We are waiting to be charged by Ebay, which was a total failure for us this year.   Nothing sold.  DH was determined to make a certain amount, but I think the shipping option killed our chances.  But we couldn't figure out how to set up the media mail.  Two years ago we sold all our A Beka stuff (minus the teacher keys due to Ebay policy, sigh) for grades K-6 for all subjects.  We have continued with A Beka math the last two years, so now I have math grades 5-8 to sell.  In fact I have a perfect 6th grade workbook (I bought an extra by mistake...sigh). 

Since I can't figure out how to determine Media Mail, nor do we understand Pay Pal, I don't know how to sell my things.  I could just take them to Half Price books and get a few bucks for the whole lot.  I am a member of a list where I could sell these, but how????  I'd be happy with a check from the receiver, but how long should I wait to make sure it doesn't bounce before I mail the items?  I think that is the purpose of Pay Pal but whenever we get in there and start making decisions, we are so lost and confused.       

A bit of another night, in 100 degree heat and blazing sun, dh struggled to figure out the hardware for the file cabinets.

Apparently either there will be no bottom to the file drawers...or there will be bottoms but I cannot have any tabs on the files in order for them to fit.  ugh.  Also, he has a hair of a measurement to work with...meaning I might not even be able to open the drawers.  double ugh.  How about we buy a file cabinet, faux paint it and have shelves in the other spaces????  Nope, he's not to be deterred.  All day Saturday he produced a drawer...

There's a hanging file to prove that it works. He was elated and so was I! Uh oh...when I took these pictures while he was at work the tab rises above the drawer.  Hmmmmm, not good.  I meant to ask him about it but I keep forgetting when he comes home.  Anyway, he is ready to make more drawers.  One of my prayer requests is that all of these components work once they are in place!

My mom was the only person game enough to accept our invitation! lol  She was shocked to see us!  (At this time, ds is 10 and dd is 12.)

Here we are with Slipper kitty.  Moments before Mom's arrival, ds suggested that we come up with a brief introduction of who we were, with a testimony that we had changed our faith to the one true God of the Hebrews.  Slipper posed as the Cat of Bubastees, one of our favorite books written by GA Henty that I read aloud to them.  Mom never dreamed we would be dressed up!  She loved it!

After our introductions, ds opened the unit celebration with the shofar he made out of paper mache. 

 Then we ate food typical of the various cultures we had studied.

Our favorite was the pomegranate.  I have never used these before.  I had to google instructions on how to use them.  They are full of seeds and these are what you eat.  They are filled with a great liquid.  I also found a wonderful recipe!  First you roll the pomegranate on the counter top to smash the seeds inside.

Then you poke a hole into the fruit with a skewer and insert a straw.  The world's first soft drink!  LOL

Then we showed off our projects.  Here is one of ds' seven page flip books on Creation.  We made each page a different size and they increased by one inch as they got bigger.  This is the day the stars were created.  We already had a million foam stars someone had given the dc for crafts, so we pulled them out for this project.

 Here's his page on the day the frogs and turtles (more foam shapes) were created.

 Here is one of dd's pages.  Don't you love the flamingo?  I think she used a stencil for that, the cat and the flower.  And she used cotton for the clouds. 

Scanning the table from right to left you see...

Here are overlay transparancy maps.  We did these for the Great Flood. I used numerous Creation resources to study geology and the Flood.  From looking at recent big floods and volcanic eruptions (like Mt. St. Helens) Creationist Scientists have seen that big floods create huge canyons within days, not millions of years.  After all, when do you see the greatest erosion, over years of peaceful weather, or after floods?  When we first moved into our house, there was no grass and we had a hill.  That was fine, until it rained and the harder it rained, the more erosion I had.  I needed to hurry up and put grass down before my yard washed completely away!  We've had 3 different hundred year floods in our area since our dc have been born.  The one flood caused waters to go over the spillway of a dam for the first time ever...creating a new course of direction for the river and a new canyon. After the flood waters started to recede and the river road was passible again, we drove down and were shocked at the change!  Using this as the baseline for our theories, our transparency maps reflect these changes.  I think my next blog article will feature how we did some of these activities.  I'll do a close up in the next article as well as some of the resources we used which were not part of the TOG curriculum. 

 These are the salt dough maps of the Nile River.

My dc were just learning how to use IEW and KWO with simple paragraphs.  So we took one of our paragraphs and made a pop up book!

Another pop up book with a paper boat... 

Our major art project was the tabernacle.  I knew this represents our relationship with God and is referenced over and over again in the Bible.  Therefore I prioritized for us to understand this better.  And how better to understand it than to make a model?  I'll detail how we made it in the next blog entry.

Here is ds lifting the different covers to the tabernacle, explaining the significance of each one.

Here is the inside from the top...

Today, we can sketch out all the pieces and what they are and what they represent!  This is an extremely meaningful project!

Well, at the end, Mom was quite impressed!  She said she was going to tell everyone they needed to come to the next one..when would that be she asked?  This was not fluff she said, as best as I can remember.  But she was really impressed and wanted us to do another one!  For the record, my mom has come to all of them (8 now), Dad has come to the next 7, my MIL has flown in from 1500 miles away to 2 (at the end of each school year).  My dad's cousin was visiting during one and she attended the Elizabethan one.  We now e-mail these blogs to my ds' former Sunday School teacher who has been a wonderful encourager to us!  I've been to shy to invite them!  Should I?  ;)  I should also add, that although my mom is incredibly impressed with this and could sit and just ask questions all day and listen to every book, every story, every detail, my dad gets lost...and so do I!  I also quickly saw the opportunity to do speeches and recitations.  So I add something new that is higher level to each one, trying to make them more creative and interesting, building skills my dc need to build anyway.  I am open to the idea that this could be boring for someone who is not a grandma or grandpa, so I've been hesitant to invite anyone else for fear of boring them to tears.  That was one reason I had the "walk through the museum" idea, but that has never happened.  Our guests are always ready for us to tell our story of HIStory.  To God be the glory! 

The other day a TOG Mom sent me an e-mail, asking where my Year 1 information was.  Well, I designed this blog a few weeks after finishing Year 1, which was last summer.  My blog's first year anniversary came and went and I forgot all about it until just now!  (gasp)  Last summer was quite a learning curve for me, learning how to blog, use a digital camera, and how to do html code for my blog template. This summer I assured my new TOG friend that I would catch up with looking back at some highlights of TOG year 1.

Before we started TOG, the dc and I were involved in Children's Choir at church and I worked behind the scenes, primarily on costumes.  This was an outreach ministry and we had a blast serving the Lord!  When I found Tapestry of Grace, which blended history, literature, geography, Christian Worldview, arts and crafts, and performance, we knew it would change the course of our homeschooling!

TOG highly recommends unit celebrations for closure on a unit and to celebrate all the hard work that had been done.  It is also a time for family members to come and see what the dc have been learning.  These are usually done in a co-op setting.  Since we were not part of a co-op, I studied what others did for their unit celebrations and planned out what we could do to make ours special.  I was a bit hesitant.  Were we weird?  I did not know anyone who did anything like this curriculum.  I was not yet part of the yahoo support group.  Surely we were nuts.  I prayed about it and in faith, ventured forth with the family to make plans.  Then I invited my parents and brother and his family, who live nearby, to come and see what the children had been learning.  Following is the invitation I sent to them: