Labor Day and MFW Adventures, weeks 4 and 5

Week 6 is just hours around the corner and I have yet to update you on weeks 4 and 5. For those of you who don't really care that much about our homeschooling adventures, just enjoy the pictures and understand that one of my main objectives for blogging about them is to keep a record of sorts of our year. Thank you for dropping by.

Of course, we started out our week 4 with Labor Day. We stayed home…slept in, enjoyed a late breakfast, worked in the yard, sat around and read, watched the girls play outside, and then grilled some ribeyes and roasted marshmallows. Mmm…

(Note the lovely non-matching outfit!)

Glen was proud of his perfectly roasted marshmallow, so of course he tweeted it. :)

Besides keeping up with our basics (math, phonics, spelling, handwriting, reading—Mouse Tales by Lobel), this is a bit of what we learned:

Bible: During weeks 4 and 5, we studied "Jesus, the Light of the World." Carli memorized John 8:12—"I AM the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." As a reminder of this special name of Jesus, the girls both decorated a votive candle that we burn during supper.

We studied several passages from both the Old and New Testaments concerning the Light that has come to the darkness. I absolutely love the Discoverer's Bible for Young Readers. The language is so simple and clear. I find Carli reading it when we're not "doing Bible" or quiet time.

(Carli unscrambles the words of John 8:12)

Science: Our science studies for the last two weeks were tied into our study of the Light of the World. Studying the universe, the sun, other "close" stars, and constellations, specifically the Big Dipper. Carli now thinks that we need to go outside every night to look at the stars.

Study of the universe fascinates me. For instance, you probably remember that the sun is 93,000,000 miles from us. I ran the numbers for Carli to break it down a bit—that's 25,000 plus trips to Alaska for us. I don't think she could even wrap her mind around that, but she knew it was a lot. Proxima Centauri is the next closest star, and it is 25 TRILLION miles away. If we could travel at the speed of light, it would take us 2 seconds to reach the sun, but 8 minutes to reach Proxima Centauri.

To illustrate the difference in size between the sun and Betelgeuse (pronounced beetle juice), we cut out a one-inch circle to represent the sun. Olivia stood with it while Carli and I measured 16 ¾ yard away, which is the diameter of the shrunken Betelgeuse compared to the one-inch sun.

There are an estimated 200 billion stars in our galaxy, and possibly billions of galaxies. That just boggles my little mind. God is so great, such an awesome Creator.

History: Week 4 covered the Native Americans. Lots of hands on activities.

A wigwam…

And a teepee village. One of my dear friends (awwwwwwwwww), Kirsten, and her sweet mother, Diana, took Carli and Olivia for the day while I took Madeline to several doctors' appointments in Indianapolis. Diana homeschooled four girls and has homeschooling so etched in her that she loves any chance she can get to work with little ones. I love it when my girls get to go to Nana Di's. Kirsten is a fixture in our home (or almost), loves reading as much as I do (and can describe exactly what I feel about books in general or a book we both love), and most importantly, is in love with my little girls.

All that to say, when my teacher's manual scheduled making a teepee, I knew Kirsten would do that better than I. Not only did she help make a teepee, but entire Indian village, complete with teepees, a river with fish, trees, a fire pit, Indian children, and baskets full of beads and corn kernels. The girls had to show everyone who entered our house for the next week, and they still stop and admire it several times a day.

Week 5 launched us into a brief overview of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. We'll be doing a unit study more in depth Thanksgiving week. Our activities were a lot of fun for this study…I learned something! I did not remember that the Pilgrims used oiled paper for windows when glass was not available. The oiled paper not only was a lot stronger, but was waterproof and let in a lot more light than non-oiled paper would have.

The non-oiled paper (above) doesn't let in as much light as the oiled (below)

(testing with water)

Second, we planted corn, planting alongside in one cup, as Squanto taught the Pilgrims to do. We will be watching the corn grow to see which grows more quickly, the one planted with fish or the one without.

Carli was very sad to wrap up Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims. We also read Native American Indians, and from American Pioneers and Patriots and The Story of the U.S. (We still have a bit to wrap up in the last one since I forgot it on our trip to Brown County.) Our book basket books included selections about Native Americans, the Pilgrims, as well as universe and our galaxy in particular. (Because I couldn't find the some of the recommended books in the manual, I had to substitute with some that mentioned the Big Bang. This opened up discussion for us, all the while looking at some awesome pics!)

Our selection from Celebrate America is "America" aka "My Country 'Tis of Thee."

Art: We have completed part of lesson 2 in Draw Write Now. We didn't get much art in the second week due to our trip, but we did enjoy Vincent's Colors, a delightful book of van Gogh paintings, using his own words to describe the colors that moved him so much.

Field trips: On Thursday and Friday of this last week, we totally enjoyed some time taking in the slower pace and fresh country air in Brown County. Glen had a work obligation in Nashville, and we tagged along with him. The girls spent a lot of time in the pool as well as rollicking around the park and wandering the streets of Nashville. I'll be posting more on this later (hopefully soon). We did a few lessons, but left the math and phonics at home.

Funny story: While the other children were trying to sleep, Carli was exclaiming loudly every time she found a flag of a country she knew about. She had picked out this DK Flag book to bring along, but I had no idea how much she'd enjoy looking at it. She was almost giddy with excitement.

On Saturday, I took Carli, Madeline and Kirsten over to Koh-Koh-Mah & Foster, a living history re-enactment centered around the French and Indian War. I had no idea we had this major of a production in the Kokomo area. Not only was the reenactment exciting, but the various camps were amazing. (I heard that our Indian camp is the best in the nation in these sorts of events.) Again, more on that later. I'll just leave a picture for now.

Gene Stratton Porter's home (one of them, anyway)

A few weeks ago, we took the day to go visit one of Gene Stratton Porter's homes, the one her husband built for her right on the edge of the Limberlost. I grew up loving GPS's book The Girl of the Limberlost, but I've since listened to more of them on tape. It was a treat to find more about the lady herself. Sadly, much of the swamp has been drained, and what has been preserved was a little dry while we were there, and since it was very hot, we didn't tour very much of it.

However, the tour of the house was fantastic...even the girls enjoyed it. They were fascinated by her collections of butterflies and moths, the blue herron and the golden eagle beside her fireplace, her daughter Jeanette's room and porch, the huge clawfoot tub where Gene mixed the chemicals and developed her own film. And showing my one-track mind, I forgot to take any pictures inside while I was busy trying to listen and keep little fingers from touching and little feet from climbing.

At the end of the tour, the guide gave the girls a sheet of stickers and a page of questions to match the pictures to. I was amazed how much even Olivia picked up and remembered.

So without further ado, the pictures....

(below) If you look closely at the fence, toward the edges of the picture, you can see small open spots in the wall. Gene wanted the small creatures to be able to get into her yard. The fence are original and made with rocks from the Wabash.

Gene's daughter Jeanette had her own little porch. Gene called it "A girl's fantasy porch" or something like that.

There was a cat on the premises, which Olivia absolutely loved. She would not let the poor thing alone. (I know Grandma Asbury is gasping in utter shock! And yes, my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek.)

This was my absolute favorite part of the house. Inside there is a small room brimming with plants and natural sunlight, opening into the dining room. At night, Gene would open the little windows at the very top, close off the room with the glass and oak pocket doors, and wait for the butterflies and moths to come. They were attracted to the gas lights, of course, and would land on those huge doors, making it easy for Gene to study them.

Snack time! She loves being able to drink on her own (with Thick-It)

The only remaining covered bridge over the Wabash

Enjoying the Wabash

Just because.

MFW Adventures: Week 3 in pictures

Week 3, and still in love with Adventures in My Father's World curriculum. This week:

Bible: We continued to study about Jesus and how He came to save us from our sins. We talked about living like Jesus would live. We made a WWJD bookmark (Carli had never heard of WWJD) and a Jesus sun catcher by melting crayons shavings between wax paper(Um, yeah, we're doing Carli's over again because Mommy and Carli didn't notice that some of the letters were backwards. To defend myself a little bit, I was on the other side of the desk looking at it upside down. I have no idea what Carli's excuse was...)

Math and Phonics: We continued working on our first of the year review, and while I know it wasn't that long ago that we studied some of this stuff, I can see how it builds Carli's confidence to work quickly through a lesson and easily handle stuff that wasn't so easy last year. For our "reader" we continued with The Big Balloon Race.

Science: Still learning about air. Here we are doing a simple experiment to show that air pushes.

Step 1: Fill a glass to the brim.
Step 2: Place a styrofoam plate over the top, making sure there are no gaps between the glass and the plate.

Step 3: Invert. Air pushes against the bottom of the plate to hold it in place.

Second Experiment: Collapsing Carton. Sucking air out of the carton causes the sides to collapse and blowing air in "makes them fat" (Carli's words).

Geography: Carli seems to have inherited Grandpa Asbury's loves for geography. She loves to look at atlases and the big maps on our walls. Here she is labeling the continents on a placemat I got from Target's $1 bin (last year?).

Poring over the Usborne Children's Atlas...

...while Olivia "labels" the continents with letters from her name....

(which she is doing constantly, it seems)

We get as much outdoor learning in as possible. All that vitamin D is good for our spirits.

Breaks to climb in trees bring smiles.

Madeline enjoys a drink break. (Thick-It is a wonder, by the way.)

Olivia wanted to make her own sandwich: Multi-grain bread, lunch meat, yogurt, cottage cheese. And she ate it all.

History: Jamestown! Pocahontas! Below, Carli shows a favorite book from the book basket. We also started Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims, and backtracked to read Eric the Red which finally came into the library. Right now, most of our narration and copywork is coming from history, and Carli has been asking to do copywork (!!!), which is a real surprise for me. We're still striving for her "best work" but at least there's progress in the "want to."

Family Read-Alouds: We are still working through the Gospel of Matthew around our supper table. It was a bittersweet moment when we finished Strawberry Girl, and I'm continually met with "Just one more, Mom!" while indulging in Shel Silverstein's delightful poetry.

More sunshine: Carli found a hat to protect Maddy a bit and it made it's rounds...