Talk About The Weather

It has been a cool summer temperature-wise this year, but finally we had a day in the high 80's worthy of a trip to the beach.  Beautiful breezes kept us cool while we played in the water, and enjoyed a good book in the shade.

And since we're talking about the weather, Charlie had a chance to meet T.V. meteorologist Lauren Casey at our local library! Charlie is my in-house weather expert, and he was very excited to meet her. She even signed his weather guidebook!

WISE Kids-The Next Generation.

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, we are so lucky to live so close to a wonderful state park with such great programs!  For years the boys attended Nature Story Time with Naturalist Julie, and as each one has outgrown the program, they have moved on to WISE Kids.  Today was the start of the 2014 edition of WISE, with Charlie being the last of my boys left in the program.  

Today the kids hiked on Horizon Rock Trail...

...down Tallus Slope Trail

 and onto Meadow Valley Trail, with a stop at "The Squeeze" and a little rock humor.

"The Squeeze" is simply a narrow rock passageway, fun to squeeze through for kids and adults alike.

 And here Charlie is picking the nose of a rock formation. Always time for gross humor on a hike!

 

Another successful WISE Kids adventure!

No One Will Ever Believe Us

Summer is flying by, but we are managing to fit in lots of fun things.  While Steve and the older boys were away at a scout camp, Charlie and I continued the tradition of Camp Mom; just the two of us having non-stop fun in our own neighborhood.

This year, we spent one of our Camp Mom days at Downtown Smalltown's summer festival, Rhubarb Days.  Lots of food, entertainment and fun! The highlight?  Having our photo taken with 1957 Gold-lamé  Elvis AND 1974 Las Vegas Elvis.

 

Of course, if you have a hard time believing we met The Elvi, you probably won't buy our Sasquatch story, either...

My Work Here Is Done

After eleven years of home schooling, I finally got around to making a shoebox diorama with one of my kids. I guess that means I can retire now.  No? Oh, all right.

Without further ado, I give you... Charlie's Rain Forest Diorama!

If you look closely at the forest floor, you can see a man being eaten by a caiman.  Nice touch.

Before we started the project, we found Brazil on the map, and read about the country and its people from DK How People Live, and Usborne World Geography.  For rainforest specific information, we read and really enjoyed A Walk in the Rain Forest, which is part of the Biomes of North America series.  Lovely photographs and great descriptions of the plant and animal life that are found in each story of the forest.

To make the diorama, we generally followed directions from a blogpost here, with changes of our own.  We cut leaves from felt, instead of buying plastic greenery, and made vines from yarn and yarn-covered pipe cleaners. I happened to have some moss on hand from a planter and we used that on the forest floor. When we had nearly finished, I surprised Charlie with a Toob of Rainforest animals, which he says was his favorite part.  He had fun matching them to the part of the rain forest in which they would most likely hang out.  The only disappointment?  The set didn't include a tree sloth, our favorite rain forest animal!

 And, in other news, the snow has melted in our corner of the world.  Well, mostly.  If you squint over Charlie's shoulder in the photo above, you can still see a pile of it lurking in the distance . Maybe if we keep thinking rain forest thoughts, it will be totally gone in no time!

Week 3 In Review-Fall Field Trips

This week, the weather went back and forth from rainy and cold, to sunny and pleasant, and it seems our moods followed suit.  Motivation was low for schoolwork, and when it was attempted, our brains seemed foggy and forgetful; not much was accomplished.  It was a good thing we had some distractions planned; it helped to just get out and be social!

Monday

What can I say, it was Monday.  We did some stuff and moved on.

Tuesday

  Everyone was crabby and in a snit.  The best thing we squeezed out of the day was listening to another chapter of The Lord of The Rings. Oh, and I picked some of our late season Prairie Spy apples.

Wednesday

We were up and out of the house early to see a play at the near-by Festival Theater with friends.  We were excited to find out that the Festival was putting on Ichabod Crane and The Headless Horseman this year, as the boys had all read Washington Irving this past spring.  

This particular production, featuring a combined cast of youth and professional guest artists, begins as a live radio play set in 1946, and is upended when its young audience intervenes, turning the tables on the broadcast and taking the commonly tragic ending into their own hands.

It was cleverly done, had great moments of both suspense and comic humor, and retained much of the original wording and language of the story. 
  
Some of our home school friends were in this one, too! And don't you just love this set? So cool and spooky.  Perfect for this time of year!

Thursday

Thursday was cancelled due to lethargy.  

Actually, William worked on a still life painting of one of our Prairie Spy apples, so not all was lost!

Friday

A perfect fall day...sunny and crisp!  While the older boys, along with some of their buddies, opted to do some raking for an elderly neighbor, Charlie and I visited an orchard with friends.  

We hiked the wooded trail,

enjoyed a warming fire,

and of course tasted many apples and enjoyed fresh-pressed cider.

He wears a bow tie now. Bow ties are cool.

Pressing a delicious blend of Honey Crisp and Haralson apples.

Today, Saturday, it is back to rain and cold.  The older boys are participating in Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) today with the Boy Scouts, and will be camping out tonight.  The low for the evening will be 31F.  Brrr.  I think they love it though!  As for me, I'll be enjoying a warm house and doing some planning for next week.  Hope your week was good!

Some School Stuff 3rd Grade

So, the update is long over-due!  What will we be using around here for our new school year 2013/14?  This post will be about Charlie, because he's the easiest!

Math this year for Charlie will come from Teaching Textbooks.  He had been begging me to let him  do TT like his brothers, and I feel he is finally ready to jump in with level 5. 

 I anticipate that he might get in over his head with some of the concepts he'll encounter further on in the book, and if that is the case, we'll take a break and pick up again with the Life of Fred Elementary series of math books, as well as Horizons Math 3.  

For Science we are using Real Science Odyssey Earth and Space Science level one from Pandia Press.  Fun, easy, completely secular.  We started some units from this in late summer and are looking forward to a study of the planets, sun and moon as we pick up again this fall. 

Language arts will be fairly relaxed again this year.  

We'll pick up reading where we left off with Grammarland, read through a cute series of grammar picture books, and Maybe use Writing With Ease 2 for copywork and narration.  Spelling practice will come from Spelling Power.  I have been very happy with this no-nonsense spelling curriculum over the years for my natural spellers! And as with every year, I'll try to have him do a couple journal entries here and there from Doing the Days.  The older boys and I always enjoy looking back at the questions they mused upon from this book back in the day.  Lastly, there will be the learning of cursive with a Zaner-Bloser workbook.   We'll decide on readers for language arts as we go along, but I do have a few read-alouds lined up to get to, including:

• Ribsy (Beverly Cleary)
• Emil and the Detectives (Erich Castner)
• Knights Castle (Edward Eager)
• Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome)
• Pinocchio: a Classic Illustrated Edition (Carlo Collodi)

History.  While older brothers are working on Modern America and the World this year, with all its difficult topics, Charlie and I will be keeping it simple with many chapter books and lovely picture books that focus on famous Americans and American pioneer and frontier life.  

• Abe Lincoln: The Boy Who Loved Books
• The Boy Who Drew Birds: John James Audubon
• They're Off! The Story Of the Pony Express
• Little House in the Big Woods
• Farmer Boy
• The Book of Indians (Holling) ( Note to self: I need to pre-read this first)
• The Book of Cowboys (Holling)
• Odd Boy Out: Albert Einstein
• John Muir and Stickeen
• To Fly: The Story of the Wright Brothers
• Henry Ford: We'll Race You Henry 

I thought a fun study of World Geography and Cultures would be good for Charlie this year, so I put together my own schedule for some continent hopping.  I will be using the Sassafrass Science Zoology 1 reader as an organizing spine.  Other materials will include:

• How People Live (DK)
• Maps and Globes
• Miss Rumphius
• Africa is Not a Country
• Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain
• One Small Square: Savannah
• Beat the Story Drum
• The Butter Man
• Kids Book of Canada
• The Great Kapok Tree
• A Walk in the Rainforest
• Great Wall of China
• Long is a Dragon
• My Season with the Penguins
• Mr. Popper's Penguins
• Plus other books if time permits, along with various Globe Trekker and You Tube videos

World Religions is on the docket this year too. Probably later in the year as I haven't quite firmed up the resources yet.  Some ideas are:

• The Golden Children's Bible (DK).   This has lots of side-bar photographs with cultural and geographical explanations of topics in the text.
• The Golden Rule by Ilene Cooper.   This lovely picture book shows that "The Golden Rule" can be found at the heart of many religions.

• Demi has some very good books about several religious figures including Muhammad, Jesus, Rumi, and Buddha.

I hope I haven't forgotten anything, but this sure seems like enough!  I'll try to list what the older boys are working on soon, too.

Late Summer Tornado

While we're not quite ready for full-time schoolwork  just yet, the boys have started doing their math programs (Teaching Textbooks all around!) and Charlie and I have been continuing with some fun, easy science explorations.  

Yesterday we read about violent weather from The Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography, and then created a tornado in a bottle with the help of one of these.  

Thankfully this is the only twister I've had to deal with all summer!

New Guinea

Charlie's big birthday gift this year was a new Guinea Pig.  Her name is Daisy, and she is absolutely adorable!

Birthday Boy

Charlie, it seems like just yesterday when you were this little guy.

 

I love seeing you grow into such a confident, independent big kid...

 

 but promise me you'll stay my littlest boy for a while longer.  You're just too cute!

Happy 9th Birthday Charlie!!

Charlie Goes To Camp

For so many years Charlie has stayed behind with me while his big brothers went off to scout camp for days and days of fun.  I always made an effort to have a special "Camp Mom" time with him and although we did some cool stuff together, it wasn't quite the same.  So when Charlie finally got the chance to attend a camp of his very own, boy, was he excited!!  And guess who went with him? 

Me!!

Ready to head off to camp!

We spent three days at Camp Kiwanis, and those days were non-stop full-of-activities kinds of days.  Here's a peek at some of Charlie's favorites...

He took a knife skills and safety class and earned the right to carry a pocketknife while at camp.  Whittling became the thing to do in the moments between activities.  We had to hit the trading post immediately after the class so he could pick out his first pocketknife.

Ponies!!  Charlie and I learned about how to mount, dismount and guide a pony on a trail through the woods.

 His pony was a sweet boy named Bay.

Archery was difficult, says Charlie, but fun!

Row boats on the St. Croix river.   We had a little rain before we went out, but not enough to stop us.  As they say at Kiwanis, "Plan 'B' is Plan 'A' with a raincoat!"

BB Guns!  The staff at Kiwanis are really attentive and patient with the boys, and offer as much one-on-one help as needed.  Charlie loved the bb guns and shot consistently for a first-timer!

And speaking of staff, I will never understand how the camp counselors keep up the positive energy all weekend, much less all summer, because they are here all summer with new groups of kids every week.  They are an outstanding group of young adults who show such patience and kindness toward all the campers, and are always invested in the kids having fun! The staff is truly excellent!

Camp staff at lunchtime performing songs and "going bananas" for the kids.

There was so much going on at camp that I could never document it all here, but I know Charlie is storing all those memories up, and the smile he wore all weekend is proof of just how great a time it was!

Pinewood Derby 2013

A Second Place Win for Charlie!!

R. E.A.L. Science Odyssey- Circulatory System

Charlie's current science topic is the human body. Real Science Odyssey covers all the basic systems of the body in a kid-friendly way.  He just finished up the unit on the circulatory system which focused on the heart and blood.

As usual there was a bit of reading, as well as a video from Bill Nye (Bill! Bill! Bill!).   Then Charlie filled in his lab sheet, which included coloring and labeling a model of what a drop of blood looks like.  

Then came Charlie's favorite part; making a "real" drop of blood model!

Quite simply, Charlie got to  mix up some plasma (Karo syrup), red blood cells (red hots candies), white blood cells (lima beans) and platelets (lentils) to illustrate how a drop of blood would look if we could see all its components.

There was a bit of Mad Scientist Drama thrown in for effect as well.

Stir it all up.  Give it a spooky label.

Voila! Spooky Halloween Blood Model of Science!!!

 

 Mwahahahahahahahaa!