The Secret Garden

This year, our book group will be taking a trip around the world via classic literature. Our first stop was India and England through the book "The Secret Garden" by Francis Hodgson Burnette
After reading it for read-aloud as a family, we gathered together with others at the outdoor schoolroom of a park nearby and had some fun with projects and discussion about the book. The days activities were threatened by rain, however, we just dealt with mists and drizzle....just like the weather of a moor in England.

The parent who was leading the activities had the kids create their own "secret garden" on paper. If you could create the perfect place for you to go and hide; to ponder, think and enjoy life what would it be like? Delaney would have lots and lots of flowers. Cailin had paths, flowers, and trees within rock walls for her garden. Connor, who wasn't real thrilled about going,(the whole paper was covered in green crayon) had a meadow of green grass--great for lying on and gazing into the sky. (I'm sure that's what he was thinking! :)


Cailin was one of the child presentors this month. She drew pictures of the main charracters and then shared some excerpts from the book that she greatly enjoyed.

Finding the Garden--
Mary saw the robin land on some earth and he pecked at it. So Marry dug and found a key. "Oh man! I found the garden key!" She said "Now where is the door?" After a long and hard search she found the knob under some ivy. With both hands she unlocked the door and stepped in. "I'm in the secret garden."

Tantrum-- One day, Colin had a tantrum. A nurse told Mary to try to stop Colin. So Mary stormed in and yelled "You Stop!! You woke everyone up with you screaming! What's the matter?"
"I--I felt a lump on my back." Colin sobbed.
"Turn over and I'll check your back" So Colin showed his back "You'll see" he said.
"There's not one timy lump, not even as big as a pin!" said Mary
"Well I could have told him that." the nurse said.
"Tell me next time, Okay?" said Colin

The outdoor classroom was surrounded by a butterfly garden, so the kids helped it along and scattered more seeds for the next year.



The next fun activity, was to create a container garden. The kids had fun gathering supplies from the nearby creek--dirt, moss, sticks, flowers, rocks...whatever they wanted to make their special little garden a happy place for the plastic animals they would add later.


Ohhh, I found some moss on this rock, cool.


Although Connor didn't want to make a container garden of his own, he had fun helping others gather supplies from the creek.


So many animals to choose from....


Delaney and her finished garden.


Cailin's finished garden.

Why? Why? Why?

Lately, Liam's favorite word is WHY? Anyone could ask him something, or even tell him something and he'll ask "why?" I keep reminding him that he isn't old enough to be asking this question yet and what response do I get? "Why?"
The other day, I was late at getting dinner on the table and he came to me asking for candy. I told him no--he then asked me 'why?'-- I told him that it wasn't good for him--and he asked me "why?" --I then told him that we didn't have any candy--he then told me "Go buy some"....I kid you not, he actually said that!
Persisent--if he's nothing else, he is very persistent. (lucky for him, dinner was soon done, or maybe that is lucky for me. :)

The Field of Lost Shoes....and lucky for us, not lost tempers.

Ahhhh, field trips are always fun and this one was no exception. We headed north on I81 towards the Civil War Battlefield of New Market last Friday and had a wonderful time with our friends. Our history group is studying the time period of 1850's to the present this year. Our first projects focus time period is the Civil War.
When we first got to the musuem site our tour guide, Stacey, immediately inlisted the kids into the army and got them in formation for the days activities. From there they were divided into 5 teams and were given a sheeet of questions for a scavenger hunt. They were given about 20 minutes to go through the museum displayes and find the answers to 10 questions. They weren't very easy and required the kids to spend time searching and reading the information to find the answers. I loved this approach for time spent in the museum. I've never been on a tour that presented the information this way before. I especially liked it on behalf of Connor, because he hates to go on tours because he finds all the stop and go of the tour director with the information s/he gives rather dull, boring and long winded. I think he really liked this approach too.
Here the kids read the information of the museum displayes, worked at their own pace, learned to work as a team, all the while having fun doing it!
Afterwards the kids presented their findings and discussed aspects of the time and war.
Stacey then spent time with the kids talking about the life of the soldier. What he would have worn and what it was like for them in training.
Here are some of the troops wearing the different types of uniforms that were worn. Stacey also talked about what each garment item was for, the fabric (wool, because it was more resistent to water and wear) and what a haversack was for. ("Solider, you better have-your-sack or starve")
The battle of New Market, sadly took place on the farm of the Bushong Family, a 2nd generation farm owner. The family took refuge in the basement of their home while the battle raged about them. I'm sure that they were scared, but also dismayed at how their gardens, orchard, outdoor rooms (ie kitchen, chicken coops, ice house etc) and fields would be runined after so many years of work. Mr Bushong had recently plowed his fields for a crop of wheat to be planted. The freshly plowed soil, along with 3-4 day worth of rain caused the field to become a mud pit. Many soldiers lost their shoes during the battle in this field, thus it became known as the 'field of lost shoes' (Connor, Liam and Amber are in the ice house of the Bushong farm)
The Bushong family were considered upper middle class, here is their sitting room. We must've been very hungry because that cake looked temptingly yummy!
Here are Connor with Liam and Delaney in the outdoor kitchen.
Ahhh, finally some food for us to eat. We break for lunch and then go watch a film called "The Field of Lost Shoes" in the museum theatre. The movie is about the troops that came from VMI, a military school a few miles southwest of New Market and how the battle was won due to thier support, courage, honor and bravery. One notable student/soldier was Moses Ezekiel, although wounded, he pulled his friend, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson, to safety. He found him medical help in the home of a near by citizen and stayed with him till he died who later. He always wanted to study art and at the encouragement of Robert E. Lee he did indeed become a famous artist and sculptor. He's statues grace the battle field, UVA, and other places (one statue was of George Washington) He studied in Italy and was knighted by the Italian King.

(The Bushong Family farm is in the background of the group photo.) Last year, when we spent 4 days touring Jamestown, Yorktown and Williamsburg we learned how much Connor dispised tours, so before we left for the trip I had to remind him that this was indeed a tour and he needed to find a way to enjoy himself even though he dosen't like "tours". After a while, I had to remind Ryan that we just drove 3 hours to get there, we weren't going to leave till we saw all that we had come to see. So although, the time spent there wasn't without gripes, we didn't have any lost tempers. yea!! We had a great time and now we're on to studying about the war and developing our individual presentations to share with the group.

Backwards, Flip Flopped and Upside Down Fun

It all began with a couple pairs of 30 cent flip flops....
Cailin had begun mentally planning her birthday party 2 months ago. Yet, it wasn't on my mind so one day, while at Michael's I found a bunch of flip flops (which were meant to be decorated) for 60 cents each. I thought that could be a fun project, but I didn't know for what. Then a day later Cailin's birthday party came to mind--by the time I got back to Michael's (2 days later) the flip flops had been reduced to 30 cents a pair, but I could only find 4 pairs. Not enough, I need 10 pairs. Yet, as I scrounged around I found more--two of them were in odd places--I came up with a total of 9 pairs of flip flops. That will have to do. Cailin was excited about the craft project, now all we had to do was find a theme. The first theme of choice was a luau party, yet after a while it changed to a backwards themed party.
Cailin wrote out the invites....Come join us for an afternoon of fun, everything is not the way it normally is!!

As the girls arrived we gave them a warm...."Thanks for coming, hope you had a great time", welcome. Then we placed a name tag on them with their names spelled backwards. They had fun trying to say everyones 'new name'. They all congregated under the table and got ready for an afternoon of fun.
Normally cake and ice cream are last, so....of course it was first for us! I made a 'cake' of ice cream cones filled with....cake of course.
Cailin had fun trying to blow out the constantly re-appearing candles. She finally did get them all blown out.
By now the girls were in the spirit of things and decided to eat their ice cream with the end of a fork. They had great laughs as they found how hard it was to keep the ice cream on a narrow fork end.

Next in line was the opening the gifts. Cailin loved crafting and writing type supplies, stuffed animals, Barbie like dolls and Littlest Pet Shop toys.

A group photo of the girls...bottom--Beryl, Iris, Elsie, Maggie, Delaney, Kayley, Clarissa top--Anna, and Cailin.
Next in line were the games. Good ole' musical chairs; only this time a chair was removed but a child wasn't. They all had to pile on top of each other. Lucky for them we have the 3 seater bench so they didn't have to all pile onto one lonely chair.
They squealed with laughter and we had to play this game one more time because they all loved it so much.
The next game was popcorn relay. Taking cupfuls of popcorn from one end of the yard to the other and see which team could get the most in the bowl at the other end without spilling. Traditionally your hands are used so we tried to tie cups to our feet, but that really didn't work out well, so I had the girls hold the cup on their heads instead.
After all that running they were ready for a quieter activity so we brought out the flip flops and the girls had fun decorating their own flip flops with yarn or beads. Here again, they got into the theme of the party and started to sing Christmas carols, Rudolf the Red Nosed Raindeer and others.
They all had a great time with this craft, so much so, that some wouldn't take a break to make their food....
...inside out pizza snacks. Instead of the toppings being on top of the crust, we put them inside the crust. We also had Capri Sun's with the straw coming out of the bottom, not top, of the container.
All in all, I think they had a great time....I know Cailin was sad for it to end. Happy Birthday Cailin...or rather, Cailin Birthday Happy!!
You love do sure We!!

Cailin, the Actress

Last spring Cailin auditioned to be in the children's choir of the Summer Musical Enterprises performance of Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.
Although many nights were filled with travels back and forth to Blacksburg and endless practice, it was great fun. Here Cailin and the rest of the children's choir are sung to by "Joesph" at the begining of the play.
She spoke of how hot it was on the stage, how much she disliked the stage makeup--she can't understand why I even bother to put it on-- but she spoke most about the fun and friends she made. She loves acting and being on stage.
Here is one scene from the finale'. I know she was sad when it all ended....honestly I was too (and that surprised me) but all good times come to an end and now she's waiting for the next performing opportinity to come along. The play ended in August, (I'm just very late on posting this...I do have more pictures and they are professional ones of different scenes, I will post more later in an effort to keep up with our family history.)
Last week, she sang a duet in sacrament meeting at church, it was Baptism, they did a beautiful job. I recieved many complements about her vocal ability...I hope she'll want to continue with this talent and interest. I know that as a family we enjoy it often, many nights we'll hear her singing a variety of primary songs to her little brother to help calm him to sleep. I also appreciate the love and compassion she shows to him when she sings.

09.09.09

Today is the ninth day of the ninth month of the year 2009. What fun....so we decided to make it a day of the number 9.
For breakfast we made silver dollar pancakes and ate.....9 of them. Then Granny and Papa Hale joined us at the park and they got 9 hugs from each of the grandkids....Cailin decided to X's it by 3 and gave Granny 27!
Liam loves to swing so 9 swings were definately not enough--Papa was glad to comply with his wishes.
With more 9's counting fun to be had Connor decide to take Bailey on a walk around the park 9 times.

Back and forth on the bridge 9 times.....down the slide 9 times. We had fun counting to 9. (I believe, if you could understand all of Liams words, he could count to 9 by now.)
Ryan and Barry left after the breakfast picnic to mow some lawns....not 9 of them, but the square root of 9!
Once we got back home I thought it would be great if the kids did 9 pages of math worksheets and 9 pages of their grammar and vocabulary, but they didn't think that was such a hot idea, sooooo instead they created 9 word problems for each other. I challenged Connor--and Ryan joined in, to use all four basic mathmatical signs (+,-,x,/) and by using everyones age in the family create a problem that had the answer come out to be 9. I heard them laughing alot while they were doing it....but they erased the equation before I could see what they came up with. I had a goal of reading 9 books to Delaney, alas, that didn't happen, we had to make due with the square root of 9 on that one instead.
I'm sure their were many 9's in our day that I'm not aware of.....nine messes to clean up, 9 pairs of shoes that never seem to get put away properly, (yesterday, I did 9 loads of laundry...does that count?)
At the end of the day Liam even got Cailin and I to sing "Popcorn Popping" and "I'm a Child of God" 9 times before he went to sleep.
We had a good day and most of the kids had fun with the number 9....one didn't, can you guess who?
....and they are looking forward to next year for 10's day--in October.