I'm All Smiles!!

Thank you to Hollie in SC for awarding my blog with the You Make Me Smile Award! I have gotten to know her a little bit on the FIAR boards and we have a few things in common. We are both married to VT engineering grads and our oldest sons were born ten days apart. I will say it's been fun to encourage people through the boards that I may never meet in real life, but what a blessing they have been to me as well! A description of the award is on her blog:

This is what the person that created this award says about it- the thing that I love most about blogging is that I learn so much about a person just by reading their blog. I have met MANY wonderful people with wonderful stories to tell,and I am grateful every day for each person that I have the pleasure of crossing paths in life with.I wanted to create something special for the top ten people who have inspired me through their blogging; the stories they tell, and the lives that they lead with grace and dignity. I visit their blogs for inspiration and encouragement.Although there are MANY people I want to give this award to at this very moment, I am going to choose eight bloggers:

Kate in MD- Kate is a new rower and I just love her blog. Of course, it does help that she finds herself in Maryland which is close to my heart!

ShaunaCO- Has a fun blog that I want to visit more often. She was also a great helper to me when I was setting up my own blog.

Ami- from the FIAR board is a very creative lady and I love visiting her blog AND her website www.homeschoolshare.com. Thanks for your labor of love Ami!

Shannon- again that new blog is just humming right along. That dinosaur unit totally rocked and I'm looking forward to what comes next!

Candace C- as always I like checking in on what her kids are up to. She is one creative and adventurous mom!

Jen in SC- Has a fun blog about her school and home and what better name than Good Fruit?

Sheri- her blog always makes me smile whether it's something funny that one of her kids says or does or the work she posts from their school days.

Jackie- is another VT fan I just have to say that makes me smile! You may not like FL Jackie, but that is one gorgeous cape cod you have down there! C'mon up our way for some crisp apples and crisp days!

Thanks to all these ladies for making me smile!

What's been happening with E9's study of Marie Curie?

E9 has been a busy student reading about Marie Curie's early life and studying some geography of the region. He started his notebook pages so we'll share some here. Our notes on this study will be here and there and we hope to finish by the end of October.

Each week he does several assignments per chapter in addition to his weekly spelling work and his dictation. Usually once a week (sometimes twice) he copies down several paragraphs of the text while I read it to him. He's getting pretty good at plowing on through. The text is chosen based on the grammar concepts that I'd like to work on with him. When the passage is complete, we go over his writing and misspellings are pointed out. His punctuation, particularly the use of commas, is coming right along. Typically he places them just right based on how the passage is read and if he's missing one I just need to say, "You know that sentence actually has three commas." Then he'll take a look and add missing comma into the correct place. I wasn't sure about this method of teaching grammar, but I'd have to say it is working very well for E9. We use a book called Learning Grammar through Writing for our scope and sequence. Later in the week, he has to correct any misspelled words and answer questions or make lists, etc. based on the grammar concepts of the week. For example, today he had to correct two misspelled words which in this case lead to a discussion about the word medal vs. metal. That was a hot debate...whether medal even existed though I assured him it did! He identified why the word "and" in one sentence was italicized. He wasted no time in telling me it is for emphasis. We reviewed why there are commas in the long version of writing out dates. The one thing we may need to tweak is his definition of nervous breakdown. His reads, "When a person is having one, they freak out." I'll have to check on that!

He's been working on learning a little about Russian Czars and a lot about lakes. Here are some more notebook pictures. I'm still working on training this new photographer so bear with us!

This page details what a lake is, how they are formed, and how we use them.

Lists of man made vs. natural lakes.



E9 made a book on the world's largest lakes both fresh and salt water. He made cards for each one telling the name and its location.

These two pictures above describe the science of physics both classic and modern. Marie's dad was a physicist as was Marie.

Physical map of Poland including some of the regions we could identify based on the descriptions.

Walking the Wire!

What a fun time we've had with Mirette and her teacher Bellini! The setting of the story is Paris, France. We've had the chance to map out Europe and France as well as the career of the famous tightrope walker in the story. Above is I-5's map pages.

The kids colored a flag of France and inside the flag booklet are pictures of the Eiffel Tower where the famous Bellini once walked the rope. We reviewed compound words, talked about boasting in addition to other vocabulary words, went on a copper hunt, and identified complimentary colors.

On our last day we will make a circus poster advertising the kids' death defying feats. I wonder what they'll come up with! We'll also learn that the shortest distance between two points is a - say it with me- LINE!

Fun books for this unit:

Mirette on the Highwire by Emily Arnold McCully- this is our FIAR study book for the week.

Starring Mirette and Bellini by Emily Arnold McCully- the sequel to Mirette about a trip to Russia before the revolution.

Mirette & Bellini Cross Niagara Falls by Emily Arnold McCully- yet another sequel to the original and I think the plot is obvious! Great story...

Madeline and the Gypsies by Ludwig Bemelmans- the story of Madeline and Pepito and how they end up traveling with the gypsies to perform in the circus.

The Man Who Walked between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein- the true story of Philippe Petit, a french aerialist, who spent nearly an hour walking on a tightrope he'd thrown between the buildings. Which buildings? The former World Trade Center towers as they were being finished in 1974. The book was published in 2003 and begins, "Once there were two towers side by side. They were each a quarter of a mile high; one thousand three hundred and forty feet. They were the tallest buildings in New York City."

Baseball Study

So, over the summer E9 worked on a unit study about baseball. Everyday he would learn about a new baseball legend and a major league team. He got the chance to practice his cursive writing using a famous baseball quote. He even mapped out how many miles it would be to get to each stadium from our house. Baseballs were placed on our US map to signify where each team plays.

He had fun with it and hopes to do one similar with college football. I'll get right on that!!

These baseballs with team names represent the major league teams E9 studied.

We got the chance to see the Portland Seadogs play. So we checked up on the player we know distantly through former neighbors.

During the study Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record. It gave us the perfect chance to discuss the controversy over Bonds' possible drug use.

He's getting better at cursive writing!

Orlando Here I Come!!

The time has come for me to be off to the sunny state of Florida for the MOPS International Convention in Orlando. I've been involved in MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) as long as I've been a mom and have held many leadership positions.

This year I began a new phase as a MOPS mom by becoming a Field Leader. So, I help to train local leaders and I'm a liaison between MOPS Int'l and the local groups. There are six groups in my little council and it's been very exciting!

So, I'll be enjoying this year's convention while I work there too and Field Leaders go a day early for our training. I'll be taking a break from blogging while I'm away since we are a desktop family only...

Lord willing I'll be back on Sunday to blog about it all!

Blog Photographer- E9!

So, Dan had a great suggestion last night. E9 received a digital camera from his grandparents and we have hooked him up to upload his pictures and manage them using Picassa. E9 will be our blog photographer as much as possible. His camera is a Kodak Easyshare while ours is a Canon digital Rebel (LOVE this camera!) so as long as his shows the detail, he is hired! Below is our first shared experience and I think it turned out VERY well!

Artist Study #1 VanGogh

So, check out our Starry Nights and Sunny Day paintings. We learned that Van Gogh was a mentally unstable guy who tried many things unsuccessfully before turning to art. He used swirls of thick paints (often right from the tube- which I SO want to try!)to make layers of paint.

We tried our hand at the swirly thick method by mixing paint colors with craft glue to make them thicker and painting in swirls on cardstock paper. I took a shot at it as well. I couldn't resist!

This project idea came from The Usborne Art Treasury and we'll be using Discovering Great Artists and Storybook Art as well. We do a lot of art with FIAR, but sometimes it's fun to try something new! I guess the kids are tuned to the literature unit studies because they kept asking what this picture had to do with our book!

I-5 really enjoyed trying the swirls too. It was hard work getting the kids to swirl rather than go back and forth.

I took a stab at it. Who can resist thick acrylic paints?? And mixing cool colors??

R7 makes a lovely Starry Night.

E9 does a daytime scene.

What to do about a timeline?

By popular demand (Hi Beth!), I have made a super cool slide show of E9's timeline from Marie Curie- thus far! We use the FIAR timeline which is a fairly new product offered. Timelines can be made in all kinds of styles. Some people prefer to have wall timelines. They arrange it to sprawl a length of wall and lately I've seen a lot of posts showing three strings displaying different millenniums. People like to add their own family members and events and all of these are fun. Some folks go with the notebook format still showing a steady line through tons of pages marking off the millenniums and centuries and placing timeline figures along the way.

This one is different and I like it though it isn't for everyone. Basically, the timeline consists of a set of templates in landscape or portrait formats. There are places for pictures, explanations, and the year. You can organize it any way you would like. I let E9 choose which pages he would use after I gave him a variety. I think he did reasonably well. Then I had him order up the events within that decade. So far he has chosen to use certain colors for certain years, but that may change as he goes along.

We can choose to display a specific time period on the wall or just leave them in the notebook. When I was remarking that we may not have anything to add to the Andrew Johnson page, E9 said he'd leave it to mark important events from his presidency. Smart kid.

What is the point of a timeline anyway? To me the significance of a timeline is to be able to place people and events from history into a proper context. Time is relative particularly to children who are missing the big picture. My goal is for the kids to put all the events and people they learn through their stories into the correct context within history. If they can do that, then we will have succeeded. Think about how you learned history. For me it was broken up into world vs. US and into different time periods. It hasn't been until recently that I began putting it all together. You know like what was going on everywhere else when Marie Curie was born.

For example, it would never have occurred to me that Laura Ingalls and Marie Curie were born at the same time. Isn't that interesting? While Laura was busy on the frontier dealing with native americans and building doors with her dad, Marie was over in Poland wishing she could study freely in Polish and learn Polish history. When Laura was taking her first ride on the railroad, Marie was trying to study physics at the Sorbonne in a language she did not know.

So for us, the FIAR timeline templates work. They are flexible and allow us to be creative in how we approach history. I'm sure we'll change and refine how we use them. More important than spreading years and years of history before us, waiting to be filled with figures based on our study, is the idea that our kids know where to put the people and events they meet where they fit into the big story of the world.

Gramma's Walk notebook pages!

Gramma's Walk is an out of print book about a grandmother in a wheelchair and her grandson. When he comes into the room, she asks him where he would like to take a walk and he decides on a walk on the beach. With their imaginations, they take a lovely stroll. At the end of the walk, her grandson tells her she is the best walker in the world.

We had the opportunity to talk about grandparents, and people with disabilities and the use of wheelchairs. We also had fun spotting the wheelchair symbol in all sorts of places. Lighthouses and oceans made for some fun topics as well. Our time with the seashore is drawing to a close for now. We had some great August fun with ocean/beach settings and the best part was a trip to the real live Atlantic Seashore!




I-5's front page for the book. Based on the items found on the seashore, we figured the book's setting is most likely the Pacific coast. Well, when is the last time you've seen an otter on the Atlantic coast?

I-5's world's ocean pages. He is able to name all of the world's oceans.

We made a trip to see their grandparents over Labor Day weekend and they were gracious enough to pay for one night's stay there. We tried to make some seashore discoveries of our own, but we didn't find too much. Next time we'll have to hit a state park where the beaches might be less disturbed!

R7's front page.

Gramma's Walk

Woohoo! Success! I had made a slideshow my next goal and I made it! We've been working on the story Gramma's Walk for more than a week since we had a trip to the beach in there.

I'm excited to share more about this story and what we did, but first I need to slideshow the stories the kids wrote!

Ok so I think the slideshow thing might get old, but I do want to share those books. It's a lot to look at when I load the page!

For now, you can see the compound word activity the kids really enjoyed one day. R7 enjoyed reading her words- a whole new world has opened for her! I-5 had pictures to go with his and they were pretty helpful.

J2 Takes His Turn!

Can you believe it? J2 sat himself down to the computer during school time today and tried to play Rainforest Math. Before he hacked something he shouldn't, I asked E9 to load Reader Rabbit Toddler thinking maybe he could fool with it more and it would make him a happy guy.

Well, to my surprise he caught on very well. Don't get me wrong. I know he is a good shape matcher, but he he was dragging those shapes so fast and dropping them into place. This is a great program for learning mouse skills and we have a giant track ball mouse for the preschool kids. I was just surprised by how well he caught on.

Not only that, but he navigated through several games and mastered them all! So, I guess another computer addict is born and that is good and bad. Now I have another tool to use for him when we are doing big kid school. Unfortunately, he might do a lot of asking to be on the "puter".

Happy Birthday E! Now age 9!

Is it really possible that my firstborn child is turning 9? 9! It seems like yesterday I was eagerly awaiting his birth having just "retired" from a teaching position I held for five years. I've long passed the threshold of having been home longer than I taught school, but still each birthday brings with it the recollection of all the time that has gone by.

I had gone into the hospital on September 9, 1998 for an induction- sure that we would have a baby by the end of the day. Mark McGwire had broken the homerun record for the season and the newspapers reflected his accomplishment which of course were purchased for the occasion. We were all set. Unfortunately, baby was not and E9 was not born until the wee hours of the morning on September 10, 1998.

And what joy he has brought to us all this time! He was fairly quickly joined by a sister and then a brother and eventually another brother, but through it all he has remained our first baby boy. The oldest always holds the record for firsts I suppose. When I first became a mother and was so busy with the tasks of taking care of babies and toddlers, I would run into moms of older kids. They were always busy with this or that usually involving their school aged children and I could never understand why playgroups weren't important anymore- even though they still had a toddler. Most profoundly, I was sure I'd never be that mom.

Well guess what...I am that mom! I understand her more now. My toddler doesn't always get the playgroup time. Why? Well because as my other children have gotten older, life cannot revolve around my preschoolers. I do try to achieve a balance, but it is difficult as this soccer mom knows.

So, happy birthday E9!

You are a wonderful little guy and we are thankful you are the one to lead us into new territory as parents. Someday, your brothers and sister will thank you too! New territory? The territory that realizes you are not little like your siblings are anymore. The territory that leads us to give you more choices and responsibilities like managing your own media time. The territory that convinces us that your own mp3 player is the prudent thing to do. The territory that means you can read in your bed long after your brothers and sisters are asleep. The new territory that allows us to begin relinquishing control- little by little as you grow.

I'm so thankful for the blessing of you and all that you mean to our family! And as your dad would say (to really get my goat and sometimes it does!), you are half way to leaving home, but I wouldn't have it any other way. What a tragedy it would be if you did not continue to grow. May God continue to bless you as you grow into the man He wants you to be!

Love, Mom

Our Jackson Pollack

Tonight was game night at our house and we chose to play Knights and Cities of Catan. Let me first say that if your family has not invested in the Catan family of games, please get out there and DO it! Since March this has become a family favorite and it's just right for adults and kids alike.

I-5 usually plays for an hour but opted out so he and J2 joined us in the playroom while the rest of us played the game. We just returned home with some new items since we celebrated family birthdays while on our trip to Maryland. J2's aunt and uncle sent him home with a new Aquadoodle wall mat. What fun!

He and I-5 fought over the one pen we could locate this evening, but they pulled out some other aquadoodle media and had some fun. The pen is generous with the amount of water is lets out and if you shake it, well a whole other effect is born.

J2 is a brilliant modern artist! And of course, this sparked conversation about Mr. Pollack and his style of art. With the help of Wikipedia we showed the kids some of his real artwork.

Below is a sample of I-5's work. I should have captured his famous icicles because he would draw one thick line and let the water run to form "icicles".

Marie Curie

Today E8 began his study of Marie Curie for his Beyond FIAR unit study. The book he is focusing on is, Marie Curie and the Discovery of Radium. It isn't entirely an uplifting look given that she had some pretty hard times, but he is going to love all the science this book introduces.

Today he learned she was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1867. His first activity was to label a map of Poland and before we did so I had him take a look at the atlas and wall map to tell me where it was. He immediately confirmed it was in Europe east of Germany. Sure enough...there it was! I was completely impressed when he drew in the largest river on the map himself and labeled it correctly.

Then he got a chance to begin his timeline notebook. Knowing E8, he will enjoy this a lot. When I asked him what he thought was going on at the time, he immediately told me that Laura Ingalls Wilder was born that year and the Civil War had not been over long. Then he chose to use Wikipedia to find out what else was happening. Here is a short list for inquiring minds!

1867:

*Marie Curie the physicist and chemist was born.
*Laura Ingalls Wilder was born.
*Michael Faraday died (ok he is another physicist with a constant bearing his name. That is mostly interesting to me and possibly Dan.)
*Alaska was purchased by the US.
*The Suez Canal was opened and with a small amount of prompting he correctly identified which two bodies of water it joined (Mediterranean and Red Seas).
*West Virginia University was founded (he's football minded you see)
*The Roebling suspension bridge opened between Cincinnati, OH and Covington, KY and was the longest suspension bridge in the world.

On deck for tomorrow is to discover some things about tuberculosis and malachite...stay tuned!

Who Me, Really?

How fun is this? I received two nominations for the Nice Matters Award. Thank you to Christa over on homeschool blogger and to Jen in SC who nominated my blog for the award. I've been getting a lot of traffic from the Five in a Row boards so it's nice to see that others have been reading and receiving encouragement from our experiences.

"This award is for those bloggers who are nice people; good blog friends and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world. Once you've been awarded please pass it on to 7 others who you feel are deserving of this award."

So, now it is my turn to pass this award forward to some bloggers I know. I know that many of you have already been tagged, but here goes:

Shannon- is a brand new blogger and I can just tell she's going to be great. I found her first school entry totally inspiring and I can't wait to see what else will show up on her table next week!

Sheri- has received copious nominations, but I love to visit her blog so I will have to mention it here. Her notebooking is so fun to peek at and I love to see her kids' art work as well. She was so kind and helpful as I set up my own blog that I am so thankful to her. Plus, one day when my dd comes to me wanting purple hair, I'll know just who to contact!

Jen Unsell- Who can't be inspired by Jen's fun FIAR journey? Stop by her blog and see what her kids are up to. You won't want to miss out!

Candace C- Candace is a natural blogger and she and her kids have a lot of fun together. Her new teatimes give me food for thought and I can't wait to see what's playing for the day on her blog.

Michelle in TN- always has something going on at her school and I've enjoyed seeing what is new at her house. Too bad I don't like tea because this tea time thing is catching on in TN!!

Alana- has a great blog and she and her kids do some wild stuff. I wish I could link you there, but you need to be invited to take a peek! She is another FIAR mama that I've gotten to know on the boards and she is one funny girl!

Marcy- Marcy is also new to the blogging world this summer and I always enjoy checking in on Ben and what they are up to. She was once kind enough to let me know she was selling her copy of Reading Made Easy when I needed to make a switch for for dd then 5. What a perfect program for her and I was delighted to buy it from another FIAR mom. Marcy and I share a love of Evan Moor history pockets too!

The late Summer Sun...

Well with Labor Day comes the feeling that summer really is over. Around here it includes the falling leaves (yes, that really did start in August) and the late summer sun. There are late summer sounds and September brings two more birthdays at our house. E8 will soon be nine and my husband has a birthday five days later. As we arrived home early this evening from yet another summer's vacation, it really felt like fall as the kids practiced soccer drills in our backyard.

Public school children are all back at school this week, the fall sports schedules are underway, and life after summer is beginning to resume. Remember back in school each year the teacher would ask what you did all summer? A simple beginning of school activity is actually not a bad one to adopt for us all. The beginning of a new season is a good time to reflect on what has passed.

So, what did we do this summer? Here is our list!

May- Trip to Shenandoah National Park and Big Meadows for a week long camping trip with my mom and dad. We also visited some of my husband's old friends. We saw Luray Caverns and got lost in a maze.

June- We visited a former Six Flags amusement park on homeschool discount tickets. Going before public school lets out proved to be a wonderful strategy again as the kids enjoyed countless rides with no line! They'll have a rude awakening at some point.

July- Four day camping trip to Lake Ontario with friends. Another spectacular trip to our favorite campground on the lake. Plenty of sunshine for the beach and cool nights for the campfire.

August- Camping trip to a local state park with friends from Maryland. Another camping trip to yet another state park on Lake Ontario for two nights, and finally a trip to Annapolis to visit grandparents. During this last trip we took a day trip to Baltimore to see the National Aquarium and Port Discovery-a kid's play place. We also took an overnight to Rehoboth Beach, DE and managed to ride go karts, play at funland, swim in the surf and play on the sand. We took in an outdoor concert put on by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra and spent tons of time playing with cousins just our children's ages.

In addition to all the trips, we celebrated four birthdays and hosted grandparents at our house. We sure did make some memories this summer. Now it's back to reality and getting ourselves together for the next season. It is one of my absolute favorites and I just can't wait to prepare our hearts and home for autumn!