More family fun

Sydney borrowed a friend's cheerleading costume for Halloween and today we made her some pompoms out of the sale ads from Sunday's paper. The other two girls were thrilled and wanted some poms of their own. Before long they were running around the house making up all sorts of cheers.

I set up my old keyboard over the weekend and the girls have been having a blast learning how to play it. I made a scale with labeled notes for Sydney and she's been going through my old song books, their Wee Sing books and our hymnal labeling all the notes. We also labeled the keys so both she and Delaney could play a few songs. Sydney has gotten quite good at reading music already - especially considering she's been at it for all of 2 days now. Here's a sample of what she's been working on.

Blog addiction

I found this at Laura's site and couldn't resist taking the quiz. I think I would be more addicted if I wasn't so busy with kids LOL

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Fall Fun

There are very few things (besides friends and family members, of course) that we miss about living in Indiana, but our annual visit to Garwood's Orchard for fresh-picked apples and cider and a day at the pumpkin patch in Westville rank high on that list. As near as we can tell, there are no REAL pick-your-own-pumpkin patches around here. We briefly considered driving to Alabama where there's supposed to be a great farm, but we really couldn't justify a 2+ hour trip - even for pumpkins and apple cider.

Thankfully, our local WalMart was having a sale! The girls seemed pretty satisfied with the produce department's pumpkin patch, so they each picked one out and we were set to have a great Fall weekend.

This was Sydney's first year to completely carve the pumpkin on her own. She made her own design (a bookworm - so appropriate!) and all Dad did was help her carve out the words. Delaney and Sadey each did quite a bit of work on their pumpkins too and they were all very proud of the results.

We thought the pumpkins needed some company on the front porch, so today the girls helped Dad build their very first scarecrow. We have no leaves in the yard, but the pine needles were a great substitution.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 10 science

This week we decided to have one science day instead of trying to fit the week 10 experiments into our already busy days. So on Wednesday we did fairly quick math and language arts lessons and then devoted the rest of the day to "Science in the Kitchen".

The first couple of experiments were from the 'Soaked Through' lessons and dealt with absorption. Since Sydney is a 4th grader, we took some time talking about the scientific method and made sure to take good notes about our experiments. We aren't using the correct vocabulary for the method at this point. I'm more concerned with her learning the steps of scientific observation and testing and then later we'll go back and learn how to take "proper" notes for our experiments. We talked about ways to set up charts to record our results and how to form a hypothesis and write a conclusion.

In our first experiment, we tested to see how well various objects soaked up a set amount of water. We discussed how to make the test "fair" - by using the same-sized materials, the same amount of water and drying the wet surface after each trial. We went over our procedure several times to make certain that we would not make any mistakes. Then we recorded our
guesses, performed the experiment, recorded the test results, discussed and then reached our conclusion: Thicker, porous materials will soak up more water than thinner, porous products because there is more area for the water to "stick" too.

Our second experiment was to see what would happen to dots of ink when soaked in water. The girls thought the first trial was uber cool....

Unfortunately Mommy forgot that we were using washable markers so the only result was that the ink washed right off the cut strips of coffee filters. Pretty? Yes. Informative? Not so much.

Take 2. This time we used permanent markers, but not all that much happened. However the girls did notice that the yellow was seeping out of the green dot. We'll try this experiment again. After I get better markers!

Our final experiment dealt with evaporation. We discussed the water cycle, how and why water forms on the bathroom mirror during a shower and talked about how dew forms on the grass. Then we took two dish towels and got them equally damp. We sealed one in a plastic bag and left the other out to air dry. The girls guessed which would dry the most and why and then we put them on the dryer until this afternoon.

Both girls correctly guessed that the towel left out of the bag would by the dryer of the two and even Delaney understood that the other one was still wet because the water had no where to go once it evaporated off the towel.

Ahhhhh. An excellent day of science.

What a beautiful sight

On the surface, these may just look like pictures of a kid eating lunch. But if you've ever had to deal with severe food allergies, you will understand how beautiful these pictures truly are. Here is my "milk, soy, egg, potato, chocolate, raw tomato and red food dye #40 allergic" 3.5 year old daughter eating a peanut butter sandwich for the first time in her life. Notice she is also eating yogurt!

We've been trialing her on milk products for the last few months and so far she's doing great. She's never had a problem with peanuts, thank the Lord, but bread has always been an issue* because it's always made with either soy or potato (unless you want to pay $7 a loaf for the allergen free stuff). This week we got brave and decided to try some bread with soy - and she did great! She loved it so much that she wanted another sandwich for dinner last night and lunch again today.

*Yes I know I could have made the child some allergen free bread - but that just wasn't ever going to happen.

Clearly....

So you've seen the spider living in one of our dining room windows, right? Well this guy has taken residence in the other window. Clearly our house has really bad screens! The kids looooove him, but so far he doesn't have a name.

MFW 1st Grade ~ ABC scroll

This post is a few weeks late, but we finally got around to making Delaney's ABC scroll from day 12 of her 1st grade curriculum. Not bad considering we did day 22 today!

For those who don't know anything about My Father's World 1st grade...Delaney began the school year reviewing handwriting and letter sounds. Each day she practiced three letters until she worked her way through the alphabet. Each day she copied the letters in her best handwriting and at the end of the alphabet, she taped them together to make a scroll "for the king" - similar to what scribes might have done in Biblical times.

Family Fun Day

We've all been fighting some sort of bug for the last week so we decided that what we really needed was a family fun day. We had originally planned to go to the park or the beach, but it was pretty overcast so we didn't want to stray too far from home. After church and lunch, we took a nature walk in the yard. You'll notice that the kids are dressed for cold weather even though it was 85* outside. That was our failed attempt at keeping the mosquitoes away. It didn't work though and our walk lasted all of 15 minutes before the mosquitoes drove us back into the house. We did find a bird's nest, some strange looking seed pods and found the next tree we are hoping to identify for our nature study.

After bathing the kids in Calamine lotion, we made caramel apples! We've never done it before, but the directions seemed simple enough - melt the caramels with a little water and dip the apples. Easy Peasy. We did have one small casualty with the hot caramel, but it was really not a big deal. No matter what Sadey tries to tell you. Honest.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 10

Still working on week 10. There are a lot of activities this week!!!

We are reading about the Declaration of Independence this week and how Thomas Jefferson painstakingly wrote and re-wrote it until it was perfect in his (and his committee's) eyes. And then how he had to re-re-write it after the Continental Congress changed a few things. To get an idea of what a process that must have been for poor Mr. Jefferson, we made our own quill pens and berry ink.

Again, it was a simple recipe - crush some berries, save the juice and add some vinegar and salt. Simple enough.

The kids were amazed at (1) how easy it was to extract the juice (2) how many berries it takes to make such a small amount of ink and (3) how little ink you really need to write.

We cut the tip off a store-bought feather, hollowed out the end and snipped a cut on one side to control the ink flow. Then we were off and running. It took a bit to get the hang of it...

But before long we figured it out.

I wonder how long it took Thomas Jefferson to make his perfect copy?!?

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 10

We are still working on week 10, but here are the pictures from our great Hasty pudding experiment. Hasty pudding is what the colonists ate because it was quick to make (hence the name), nutritious and didn't require many ingredients. They would cook it in the morning, add some sweetener and eat it like oatmeal. In the evenings they would fry up the leftovers and dip it in gravy. It was a fairly versatile meal.

It's a simple recipe - cornmeal, milk, salt and butter.

Stir forever and a day - until super duper thick.

Delaney learned how much fun cleaning up sticky dishes can be and how much easier it is if you rinse them off right after you are done using them.

We thought it tasted like biscuit dough when eaten right off the stove and more like uncooked French toast when we added maple syrup. It really wasn't bad though. Delaney liked it both ways and Sydney preferred it plain. Sadey wouldn't eat it, but she did want to pose for the picture. We put some in the fridge and will fry it up on Monday to see how it tastes with gravy.

School days

I'm in the process of posting about the last couple weeks of school, but in the meantime, here are a few pics of what we've been working on.

This year we are studying the colonization of America and spent the last few weeks reviewing where the first, non-native, Americans came from. Sadey loves the pointing stick. Above, she was showing us where she thought Jesus walked.

Sydney has taken over responsibility for choosing our "book basket" books. Those are library books that relate to the weekly topic that the kids can read at their leisure. They are not required reading, but since Sydney gets to pick them out and because she loves to read just about anything, you can usually find her looking through the book basket in her spare time. In the picture above, Sydney is reading a book with short biographies about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. (And yes, the couch IS ridiculously ugly - but it grows on you once you're over the initial shock.)

Delaney is a 1st grader this year!!! I keep saying it over and over because it seems hard to believe. At first, she struggled with the responsibility of having to read and write more on her own, but she's settling in and has made great improvements in both areas. In the picture above, she is copying her weekly memory verse. Nothing like knocking out Bible, memory work and handwriting in one easy assignment.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 9

I am so far behind in posting My Father's World highlights! Please forgive me for being brief.

Bible ~ Matthew 7:24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock."

We discussed the definition of Psalms and read Psalm 62. I wanted to play the song on my keyboard, but I didn't have enough D batteries to get the thing running. Oh well. Another time. We did not make the pet rock or necklace as suggested for Thurday's activity but we have gone over the notion of Jesus as our Rock so many times in the last couple of years that we didn't need another visual.

Social Studies/History ~ This week we learned quite a bit about George Washington. Sydney read his biography earlier in the year so we didn't repeat it this week. We did read all about him in "Exploring American History" though. He really was a fascinating and blessed man. The girls had a lot of fun making their tri corn hats and learning about Yankee Doodle and the true meaning of "macaroni"

Science ~ Both girls were learning about the seasons this week so we had a good discussion. They seem to enjoy acting out the Earth and sun more than just about anything these days. It's funny to watch them take turns rotating and orbiting around each other.

Our read aloud this week was "Sarah Whitcher's Story." Typically Sydney does not like to be read to because she doesn't want me to stop until the book is over. She's starting to get used to it though and has been patiently waiting as the story develops. It was a little too scary for Sadey though, so we've started reading it during her nap time.

Math ~ Sydney is progressing quite nicely in math. She is almost finished with the Beta level of Math U See and is ready to move on to Gamma. She is technically a year behind in math, but we firmly believe that she is exactly where she needs to be. If she were in public school she would be struggling with math. Here at home she is acing all of her tests and has a firm understanding of what we are doing each day. I have no doubt that she will "catch up" as soon as she gets her basic math facts memorized. This is something her dad has always struggled with as well, so I think it just takes longer for those math facts to sink into her brain. Whatever. She has most of them memorized now and has a good understanding of multiplication and division so I don't anticipate many/any problems when she starts the next book in a few weeks. She is ready to move on and full of confidence. That's much better than "techincally" working at grade level and crying through every math lesson. I'll happily slow down for her.

All in all. A very good week.

Outdoor Hour ~ Challenge #5 (more like a repeat of #4)

After all our drama, and after I came to my nature study senses, I sat the girls down yesterday with the Handbook of Nature Study and told them that we needed to pick ONE are to focus on for the first few challenges. They had a hard time choosing, but in the end, and after quite a bit of dizzying back and forth-ness (like my new word?), we finally decided to study trees.

At church on Sunday, our homeowner asked if we had found any pecans in the yard or if the squirrels were eating them. Pecans? We are pretty clueless about these things and never bothered to look for the pecan tree the last time Mr. M mentioned it. So the girls and I decided that that the first order of business for our tree study would be to find the pecan tree.

We went online and Googled pecan leaves so we knew what we would be looking for. You just have to love Google, don't you? Up popped hundreds of pictures of pecan trees/leaves and my oldest daughter says, "I know where those are!" So out we stumbled into the yard. Imagine my surprise when I found that the mysterious pecan tree is only about 20 feet from the back door. Doh!


We checked out the tree, gathered some sample leaves and nuts and then headed back into the house as the crazy mosquitoes swarmed.


The girls were pretty eager to check out the inside of the nut. We got out some screwdrivers and pliers and went to work.

We didn't find much on the inside...I guess that's why the squirrels left these behind.


In our study we learned the scientific name for the pecan tree (Carya illinoinensis) and that it is a deciduous tree related to the hickory. Next week we are planning to see if we have any hickory trees in our yard. We did some leaf rubbings and in the next few days I'd like to do some bark rubbings since e have some smooth and rough-barked trees in our yard.

We did not make a list as the challenge suggested, but our goal for this study is to identify as many of the trees on our property as we possibly can. We live in the woods so I don't think we'll run out of material.

The girls did a great job with their journals.

Sydney (9yrs)

Delaney (6yrs)

Sadey (3yrs)

Mom (not 9, 6 or 3)