School's cancelled due to....MUD!

I don't think that will ever happen in the public school system, but after being cooped up inside, cold, and wishing for warmer weather, how could I stop the fun?

It's been wintry cold, wet and windy. Today it's in the low 60's.  The warm weather will be gone in a day or so, so we're taking the day to play.

Of course Cailin did get her math done and Delaney, a reading lesson in, but other than that, it's fun in the mud!!  There is plenty of that--(I hope the grass comes back in the spring).

 

Cailin's having fun painting with mud!  Silly Girl!   I"m not sure if I should scold her or just shake my head and make sure she cleans up after herself....I'm going for the later, its such a nice day and really, I just don't care....as long as it doesn't come into the house!

History Happenings in January

January 7th--  "One", Betsy Ross, and more time with the Revolution for the older group

The older group has begun using the book  Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe by Micheal S. Schneider.  Connor gives a brief description of the book and Cailin's thoughts are further down in this blog.  It's interesting discovering ways the Lord uses numbers to bring order to his creations.  This week they looked at the number 'One" and all it's possibilities.



Hello, it's The Great Conn here, reporting on the book The Beginner's guide to constructing the universe. It's an interesting book which outlines all sorts of mathematical nuances within mathematics, specifically geometry. I enjoy the book.

We are delving into different personalities of the Revolutionary War.  This week we talked and learned a few things about Betsy Ross.  We discussed aspects of the flag, what the colors stand for (blue-justice, red-courage, and white-purity)  They created a paper version of the flag using torn paper.  The older girls made 5 pointed stars....just as Besty Ross created for the original flag.

January 14th-- Two, and  George Washington,

The older group began looking at the number "Two".

The younger group spent the morning learning about George Washington's life.  I found a cute colonial wig craft on Pintrest and we attempted to make it.  It called for a painters hat, I found a folded hat pattern to use for that.  I think our turned out more like a hat with cotton balls plastered all over it, not like the craft on Pintrest, but they had fun....and that's all that really counts anyway!  For math we're working on learning our addition math facts by memory.  To accomplish this we're playing lots of games....favorite one is WAR!

January 21st....
The older group studied vescia pices...or the number two for math.  In history they are studying about the childhood of Abraham Lincoln and the life of Daniel Boone.  Cailin gave the devotional this week.

The younger group talked about George Washington again--this time we talked about his leadership during the Revolutionary war, specifically the Crossing of the Delaware during the Battle of Trenton and Valley Forge in the winter of 1776.

 (The Patriots camp is in the lower left hand side...the books as tents.  They "crossed" the silver caped Delaware River to then walk 9 miles up to Trenton, where the Hessian were located.)

Crossing with our fancy boats.....that kinda looks like shape sorter train piece!

January 28th...

 Having fun with math.... playing Sorry! and working on our addition fact.  I had them add two card's numbers and progress with that # on the board.  For history we finished our timeline velcro paint sticks and learned about the Preamble of the Constitution. We learned signs to help us remember.

 Connor, Beryl and Cailin finished up exploring Vesica Pieces...number two.

Cailin here: We used compasses (not the north, south, east, west kind, the kind that you can adjust to make perfect circles,) to make different patterns that were sort of fun to make and interesting to look at. I don't know how it has to do with math, but I suppose how big to make your compass does have to do with measurement.

Eating lunch...we have our own little cafeteria line going here. On the menu-- brown rice, chili, coleslaw and carrots with chocolate chip cookies!  Definitely a favorite part of the day!!

Beating the Winter Doldrums by Creating

 I'm going to be selfish and do something just for me today!  I want to create...so I will!  I've had these two WIP's or UFO's  (works in progress or un-finished objects) for quite a while: Liam's wall hanging has been waiting to be finished (just needed the binding put on) for about two years.

This past summer, I attended a quilting class at the Blue Ridge Quilting Festival in Blacksburg with Christine. We learned how to make these coffee filter fan pieces.  I've been working on this one off and on since then and now it's finished.

 My next WIP is getting the sashing cut from these old church shirts of Barry and the boy's to finish Delaney's quilt that I started 5 years ago.  I finally got all the squares completed during our row of The Rag Quilt  in October, now it's time to get moving on putting them all together.

 The other night I put a different twist to taco night and made this taco bean bread braid.  Mmmmm, it was yummy.  The next day, for lunch, I made more and used mashed potatoes and cheese for the filling....that one was an even bigger hit!

 Hey Mom, I'm upping you on the sock basket building.  I've got so many unmatched socks that I fill 1 and  1/2 baskets worth....it's time to put some order to this mess.  Whew, it felt good to get them folded and put away.  I wonder how long it will take for the baskets to fill again!

Owl Moon-- a FIAR book

This lovely book is about a girl (it never really said, but that's what we think), and her father. 

 They share a special experience looking at nature, most notably an owl, late one night. 

 These moments turn out to be too special for words.

 We have finally finished up rowwing this book.  Not only did we have fun hunting for owl pellets and dissecting them to discover what they ate, we had other discoveries with this book....

 Language Arts--   We discussed simile, metaphor, and hyperbole, all of which were exemplified with in this delightful story.  I also had her find her favorite parts of the story and use them as copy work.

She also chose to copy two of the illustrations and write interesting facts about owls on the back of each picture.

Social Studies--  Relationships,  bravery, self control, realistic expectations, maturity and "rules of the house" were all topics that we discussed in conjunction with this book...(.rather timely, as Delaney is vying heavily for the opportunity to stay up later at night like her older siblings)
      We also documented a few special moments that Delaney remembers with her own father in her notebook....like the time they went out to feed ducks, but couldn't find any, so they went to Bella's and shared a pizza together instead!

 Science--  Not only did we learn about owls, but we also learned about the moon and it's effects on earth.

 To demonstrate the phases of the moon I saw a fun activity on a friends blog.  She used oreo cookies--scraping off parts of the creme filling to show the different phases of the moon.  I did one, and Delaney wanted to create her own cookie cycle too...so she did!

Liam's been working on his book--The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats...more on that later!

Math--  We made lots of cookies with this row...but it last three weeks long, so we had ample time to do this.  Anyway, I worked with Delaney on fractions for these past few weeks.    These owl cookies were time consuming, yet fun.  Peanut butter with chocolate chip eyes and peanuts for the beak.

Moon meteors cookies.  We made Russian Tea cookies and called them meteors, dropping them on the face of the moon (cookie into the powdered sugar.)

Owl shaped cookies....I think we should have used Hershey's kisses instead of chocolate chips.

Geography--  The book was set in the United States, but we learned that the illustrator used his family farm as the model for the pictures and it is found in New Jersey.  So we learned a bit about New Jersey and worked on mapping skills of the US.  I had her identify the state we went to the zoo at, New Jersey and each state that has a family member in it....naturally we had to include Grandma and Grandpa Stumm so we got some world geography in too.

Kitty Wars

Understandably, Cailin has been very cautious and careful about the safety of Pumpkin.  However, she is driving us crazy, reminding us of his constant presence and/or whereabouts...just so we don't accidentally step on him or hurt him in any way.

Yet, looking at Liam's hand.....I think this kitten is well able to defend for himself!  Don't you?! :)

Liam has told us that Pumpkin's name should be Violent....looking at his hand I think I'd have to agree.  Liam's happy though, and engages in a good kitty war with him everyday.

Winter Fun

 Winter fun has come....and they couldn't wait to play!

 Snow fell for a few hours-- wet, fast and heavy.  About two hours into the snow shower the  power went out.  It stayed out for 24 hours.  That wasn't to bad except that before all the snow it was raining quite a bit and that means we have lots of water in our basement.  I completely forgot about the sump pump not being able to get the water out of the basement without electricity....and boy did it fill the room up.  We had about 6+ inches.  Luckily, we have friends who have generators and they let us borrow it.  I was mostly concerned about the deep freezer, if the water got to high it would ruin the motor. Tender mercies abound, and we were blessed that all was well, the freezer is fine, and now we have it up on cinder blocks.

For dinner, we enjoyed cold baked beans, potatoes and hamburgers on the grill.  Barry had to go to work (yeah, oh so much fun for him!!:} He had a very wet, cold night! He got stuck a couple of time and had to wake a neighbor in the area to help him out.)  Connor took over the grill and found it hard to tell if the meat was done, but dinner was finished and eaten by candlelight.  We spent the evening reading The Hobbit and going to bed  early!
In the morning the kids were excited that they got to dig into their 72 hour kits for breakfast--a great way to rotate food, in my opinion.  I also learned we are in sore need of more flashlights!  Brianne's taken off with the great ones we got from Mom and Dad  (along with her glasses....we just can't find them!)  so, now I'm going to work on getting our preparedness items stocked up.

 The next day proved to be full of more snow time fun.  Brianne, once she saw everyone head off to sled, just put her head down and quietly cried. Barry was with her and it just broke his heart to see.  She was quite excited to see me come back to get something....I too, felt bad for her and helped her done her snow gear.  She got tired quickly, but she had so much fun for the short time we were out, that it was worth it.   All in all, everyone had time out in the winter wonderland....I even got Ryan out in it.  He helped me get the cinder blocks from a friends house...and I engaged him in a snowball fight!