FIAR -IRL!

Yes, the local (as much as we are) FIAR girls met at a museum and had a fun day playing together. It's kinda funny that we'd never met but just picked up where the boards left off!

Thanks for sharing a great day with us girls! Let's do it again sometime.

What Season Are You?

You Belong in Fall

Intelligent, introspective, and quite expressive at times... You appreciate the changes in color, climate, and mood that fall brings Whether you're carving wacky pumpkins or taking long drives, autumn is a favorite time of year for you

What Season Are You?

R7's Autumn Poetry

Well my goodness! One lesson on poetry and R7 is singing the praises of the season which she loves. Between this and the art she is in love with I think we have a true blue artsy girl on our hands!! I found her with her notebook in hand this morning just writing away!

Enjoy!

Fall is Leaves

Fall is beauty

Fall is colored

Fall is leaves

Fall is cold

Fall is raking

Fall is fun

Fall is Fall!

Fall

Fall Fall Fall

Getting colder

Going to winter

Soon leaves falling

Colors going crazy

Falling

Falling Falling

Falling leaves

You’re just in time

Halloween is coming

Cold is coming

Winter is coming

Halloween

Halloween

Halloween

Halloween is coming

Bats, pumpkins, jack o’ lanterns

Glowing in the night

Fall- a poem by R7

Halloween is fun- Jack o' Lanterns glowing in a starry sky

Trick or Treating is what I like

Fall- a poem by I-5

I love Jack o' Lanterns
making scary faces.

Outside they are in
many places

Apple Pie Pages Take 2

I-5's vocabulary book and his Draw Write Now handwriting and apple tree

R7 handwriting and drawing from Draw Write Now book 2

R7 wet vs. dry ingredients and evaporation pages- she helped to make a pie last week

R7's vocabulary and subtraction book with pockets for the apples courtesy of Homeschool Share

I-5 dictated to me things you can measure with liquid cups and those you measure with dry cups. Also we talked about what you can do with apples.

I-5's evaporation and labeled apple plus his choice of which apple stamped art to put in his notebook

I-5's substraction book and vocabulary match book

R7's labeled apple and uses for apples

R7's travel page with the addition of transportation methods

Mini Fall Unit- Leaves and Pumpkins

This week we were slated to study Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Arnold, but it did not come in time by ILL. After ordering a bunch of the next books in line for our studies, I decided that I wasn't prepared to move on from that fall focus. So, I declared this week a study of fall and leaves and pumpkins. Hopefully next week we'll continue on with Pumpkin Runner (either because the ILL comes through or it will be in at Borders where I just ordered it) which is set in Australia and will give us a unique opportunity to talk about weather in the southern vs northern hemispheres.

Activities on Deck for This Week!

Leaf graph- collect and graph the colors we find (though this may end up being a poll considering it's been so wet!)

Fall Poetry- we'll talk about what makes a poem and read two. They'll even try to write one about fall

Adjectives- We made a list of words describing fall and defined what an adjective is. I gave them leaves to record the words on. I will cut them about and put them up. Stay tuned for a picture of our adjective leaf collage!

Weather- discuss changes in the weather for fall and continue on with our weather calendar. We'll be checking temperature daily and repositioning our rain guage out on the mailbox! We'll note the first frost.

What do the changes in weather mean for the plants and animals? Which animals hibernate? Migrate? Forage?

Draw Write Now- lesson pumpkin drawing

Pumpkins- measure the circumference of our pumpkins (We have five- four collected back at hayride time and one bought today with our applesauce apples- the big one), observe other differences, measure weight (if possible on our bathroom scale)

The kids will use a sharpie to draw on their pumpkins or they'll have the choice to decoupage their pumpkin with red/orange/yellow/brown tissue paper for an indoor centerpiece. The big one we'll carve this weekend.

Complete a pumpkin book from Enchanted Learning along with other puzzles and coloring related to our theme.

Resources

Fall by Jane Claire Lambert FIAR digital

Homeschool Share - Pumpkin Jack

Enchanted Learning

Evan Moor Teacher Filebox

Bingo Game Maker - fall

Fall Unit Page

Books

Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell

Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White

Winter Days in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

It's Pumpkin Time by Zoe Hall

The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons

From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer

The Pumpkin Patch by Elizabeth King

Ranger Rick - October

Your Big Backyard- October

Wild Animal Baby - October

Busy Chipmunk by Kirsten Hall

Scholastic's Pipsqueak's Maze Halloween- a book of beginner mazes

Magic School Bus - The Wild Leaf Ride - Level 2 reader

If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff

Poppleton in Fall by Cynthia Rylant

Clifford's First Autumn by Norman Bridwell

Why do the Leaves Change Color by Betsy Maestro

A Day at the Apple Orchard by Megan Faulkner and Adam Krawesky

How do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro

Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft and Richard Van Gelden

Postcard Exchange!

The US Map with a postcard border. Check out the major league baseball teams on the map and the site word worm above the postcards!

I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but seeing these the other day reminded me about our postcard exchange. This year it took place a few months ago. Through the FIAR boards we get a list of families willing to be a part of the exchange and on a designated date we mail them out to the people on the list. They are from all over the country sometimes from outside the country. This year we hit almost thirty. Last year we sent out 50 cards and almost 50 came back to us. It is a really good time to share facts about our region and the kids love seeing the mailbox full for a week or two.

I took last year's cards and put them into a small photo album for the kids to flip through and this year we decided to hang them up around the map. When they come down in a bit, we'll add them to the little album. I know they'll come in handy during some US study at some point and we can make a fun game from them.

The postcard exchange is a favorite of ours, but we've also done a Flat Stanley exchange (too bad I wasn't blogging yet for that one!) and each year we do a FIAR ornament exchange. This year we are signed on and making ornaments to go along with The Duchess Bakes a Cake. Last year I even put up our little Christmas tree and filled it just with FIAR ornaments. They aren't breakable so it was perfect for upstairs! I'll be sure to blog this year's creation.

Apple Stamping!

As a final fun activity for our apple pie travels, the kids did some apple stamping today. J2 had a ton of fun. I made sure to do this in the morning so he could join us and he had a great time. He loves apples and didn't hesitate to take a bite even though these were covered in paint. After his bout of a stomach bug yesterday, I'm not sure eating paint was a terrific idea. I ended it as soon as I got the picture! Suffice it to say that I cannot leave apples in a bag on the floor or wherever because he will help himself.

I also found while gathering apple colors, that we need to replace some paint. I'm on the move to pick out some really cool stuff that can combine with other media to make things shimmer and glitter and even puff or stay on fabrics. This stuff can even be made into putty. I'll be sure to update when I have this resolved!

Here are the results of our rainy day fun!


R7 does a nice job. I really like the yellow tree.

E9 joined in the fun because well...everyone needs to take time to paint! You can't see it, but the all red page has a tree drawn in. Now that these are dry, we can add the details with marker if they want.

J2 really enjoyed the apple stamping and especially the yellow paint. Man was he a cutie painting away!!


I-5 is a minimalist. To show this effect, I've also added last week's library time trees. He goes for the less is more philosophy and apparently has switched from loving red to loving green even more right now.

These were made by J2 (right) and R7 (left) at the story time we attend each week in the village. They each got a trunk to glue down and then brushes for the liquid starch. The tissue paper squares stuck to the starch after brushing the page. I like how R7 has hers tumbling off of the tree.

Fun with the Periodic Table of the Elements

Yup I said FUN! E9 has been doing a unit study on Marie Curie and he's gotten far enough to learn that she has been isolating some radioactive elements from an ore called pitchblende. She discovers polonium and radium and successfully isolates both.

Of course discussion of elements leads us to the Periodic Table of the Elements. Every chemist's dream and perhaps every chemistry student's nightmare!

I've done plenty of work with the table myself, but you know it is a fun tool especially if you really understand how it was put together and all the information about an element it can tell you. Just the placement of an element in the table tells you an awful lot about it.

The other day in the van on the way to get groceries we had quite a discussion on which elements are where and which ones are highly reactive and why they are right next to the noble gases (the elements that are super inert or non-reactive). Today E9 spent some time on this very cool site. Web Elements- is a site that allows you to interact with the table and if you click on an element, it gives you tons of facts about it plus a picture and it table information.

In the science reference above there is a wonderful two page layout of the Periodic Table and the quick links led us to web elements. This is definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of chemistry.

When I told Dan about it, he says he uses it at work to find out the resistivity of various elements. Can you believe he kept it a secret?

Shhh....don't tell!!

I'm excited today for another reason...we belong to a homeschool support group and we receive announcements through a yahoo group. Well one family was looking to sell a digital microscope that is no longer compatible with their computer. Guess who's snagged it??

So check THIS out! Isn't it amazing?? Think of the stuff we are going to discover together with that thing! As a biological sciences major at a university where mostly molecular level stuff was studied, I've had enough microscope to last a lifetime. Not to mention the 170 seventh graders per year for five years that I helped to use a microscope!

But this is just cooler than ever for this former science teacher. Look out! And for the benefit of a former carpool partner, I just have to say..."There will be a lot of GOOD science going on!"

But shhh...it's a surprise for the kids. We may even wait until Christmas- if I can stand to wait that long!

Guess What I Learned to Do Today?

Can you tell? My thanks to Jen in SC for telling me how to customize the colors on my little blog!! I've been dying to do this since I started blogging, so this is really exciting.

Don't be surprised if I change it every so often. I may not even be done changing it this time. Don't think I've gone crazy...just know that I like to change things up every so often. You know, like changing your purse or when I was a shoe person (I had to give that up due to orthotics) I could have a great shoe for every outfit. Oh yes...I really did! I also loved polka dotted shoes...

Anyhow, enjoy the new look! It'll last well until the next new look!

The Apple Haul!

R7 was the only brave child ready to pick apples Saturday afternoon after spending four hours at the soccer fields that day. One of our favorite varieties had been picked through already so we are trying out a few new varieties this year. I'm looking for firm, tart apples to make pies and crisps. One woman with a small handful in a bag couldn't figure out how I kept all those apples nice when I broke it to her that we freeze them and sauce them. Another family laughed at how much "canning" was going to happen at our house.

Yes, I laughed back and said that I had a wagon full of work! I'm not a canner, but I will process all the apples pictured above by putting them through our Pampered Chef corer/peeler/slicer and freezing by the gallon bag. Throughout the year we'll pull them out for pies and crisps. I'm hopeful that the firmer textured apples will be less watery when thawed. We picked crispins, empires (for snacking) and Ida Reds (these will make our apple sauce nice and pink!). We had to buy the Jona Golds already picked since the trees were empty.

We'll make one more apple run later this week for some seconds for sauce. I usually get a bushel for $8 near the end of the season and I try for two bushels. We'll process those through our food mill (the big Squeezo kind) and make applesauce. All I have to do is quarter them, partially cook them, and throw them into the mill. The kids love to crank the handle and out one side come the yummo sauce, out the other comes the peel, core, seeds, etc. Very fun day of sauce making! We scoop it into containers and put outside to cool. We don't add sugar or anything, but this year I may try for a few containers of cinnamon/sugar sauce. I'm also going freeze a bunch in one serving containers so we can have snack sauce throughout the year.

Need a good apple crisp recipe? This one is absolutely the BEST!!

Apple Crisp

1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
6 tbsp shortening
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
6 medium apples (or I just fill the pot!)

Peel and core the apples. Cut into slices and place in a saucepan with sugar, cinnamon, and water. Cook about ten minutes. Place in a deep greased pan.

Cream together shortening and brown sugar. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to creamed mixture (with pastry blender) and sprinkle over apples. Bake about 35 minutes at 350.

Apple Pie Travels!

One of the art lessons for this book is to make a city street scene. R7 really enjoyed putting the details on each building.

Another art lesson was to show how artists use contrast in their work. The illustrator of this story does this on the last page of book when the girl and her guests are eating apple pie. This is I-5's interpretation of that scene showing contrast.

I-5's pages on where the girls has to go to get her pie ingredients.

R7's final pages including her map and the pie!

R7's journey page

I-5's first apple pie notebook page with the beginning of his journey

R7 decided to cut her title page apart and make her own.

This is the map of the route the girl in the storied took. Our lesson included remembering where she went in what order and where those places are on the map. We marked with them red yarn and each circle has a different ingredient on it.

E9's Week with Marie Curie

E9 did some really nice experimenting with magnets this week. After doing experiments and reading more about different types of magnets and what is magnetic, he made a fact page about magnets. It was interesting to learn that the chips the kids use with the magnet wands are actually temporary magnets. Ok, who remembers what a temporary/permanent magnet is??

Last week E9 worked diligently to make a meter stick carefully marking off by the decimeter until he reached one meter which would be 10 decimeters. Unfortunately, he found that our recently taken down blind slats are just short of a meter. He was able to improvise and measure all sorts of things in the house in meters. This was also a great way to show that a meter is longer than a yard. We talked a lot about the metric system and he recorded the basic units of metric measurement for many different areas. He measured the amount of liquid he drinks per day in liters.

Scientists use the metric system exclusively even in America. After graduating with a biology degree I sure know that 2.5 cm is one inch and 5ml is a tsp. Funny though...just like a foreign language I still relate it back to units I am more familiar with. Well except I don't know how many quarts are in a 2L bottle of soda!

It was funny to talk about how when I was in school going metric was a big deal and now I can't remember the date that the US was going metric! Well America made it as far as the 2 liter bottle and said, "That's it! No more!"

One assignment was to identify and discuss the Baltic Sea and it's importance for Eastern European nations. This gave us the chance to realize why ports are crucial to countries for trade and why countries need to trade.

Royal notebook pages...

Well I managed to share all kinds of books and activities with you, but here are some of the notebook pages and written work the kids did with this book.

First page of R7's Duchess notebook from Homeschool Share

First page of I-5's notebook

The coat of arms was very particular for I-5 according to a key we read. He has some signs of strength, royalty, and fire on his. On the opposite page is an example of alliteration in a repetitive verse "Lovely, Light, Luscious, Delectable Cake".

Rebecca's coat of arms and her booklet on leavening agents (since it was clearly overused in the story), and finally a pocket of vocabulary words. All these copies courtesy of HSS.

R7's list of some rhyming words in the story. We talked about poetry and rhyming patterns.

Mirette pages (finally)

Sorry to have held some of these up. Here are a few final shots of Mirette on the Highwire notebooks.

These are the circus posters that R7 and I-5 made to go along with all those performing artists that were mentioned in Mirette. They had so much fun making the posters and then performing for us later. It's been two weeks since we finished this title and they are still performing great feats on the highwire. Admittedly, they've added Go Fish! stage antics to their act since coming home from the Go Fish concert a couple weekends ago.

This week's spelling- E9

Somehow I think his spelling lists are too easy, but we use Spelling Power and have just begun level C. This week he had no words misspelled on his list after the pre-test on Monday. So, my assignment for the words this week was to write a paragraph using five of the words from the list. Here's what he came up with and he was quite pleased with himself.

One time two men went to a store. One man said, "Look at that bat in a sack on the rack."

The other man said, "That is a fat sack."

"Well then there must be more than one bat in that sack, " said the other man.

"I'm glad there is more than one bat in that sack because I need a lot of bats," said the man.

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World!

This week we began our journey around the world to make an apple pie! A perennial favorite we last rowed this when R7 was in kindergarten. This humorous story involves a little girl traveling the world to get the items she needs for her pie because the "market is closed".

The list of go alongs which we began enjoying last night before bed include the following:

How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro

Cilfford's First Autumn by Norman Bridwell

When Autumn Comes by Robert Maasse

A Day at the Apple Orchard by Megan Faulkner

Autumn: Discovering the Seasons by Louis Santrey

Poppleton in the Fall by Cynthia Rylant

It's Fall by Linda Glaser

Magic School Bus reader The Wild Leaf Ride by Judith Stamper

Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro

In the Woods: Who's Been Here? by Lindsay Barrett George

We started off with a bang yesterday when we visited a local farm to take a hayride and enjoy some fresh apples from the orchard. the unseasonably warm, unstable weather mean we could not finish picking and we'll have to go back for more apples and our big pumpkin. We did enjoy the ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out our small pumpkins. I-5 really insisted on leaving and since you can't easily pick lots of apples with a fussing, very persistent child we left after purchasing a few. Just after we arrived home the sky opened up and we got hammered. Thank heavens he was insistent or I bet we'd have been caught in the orchard in the pouring rain and lightening!

More Duchess Fun!

We finished up the Duchess notebooks today, but before I post those here's a peek at some chess and knights activity.

These are knight dress ups made by my biggest blog fan- thanks Grandma!! She made these at separate times for our knight crazy boys. I really like the Food Lion crest and especially the sequin chain mail helmets! Super creative, these have provided hours of pretend play for our kids.

Lego Chess! When E9 was in the height of his chess obsession this was highly sought after. He's still pretty good and he enjoyed playing with all of us this week. His grandfather was happy to hear E9 was ready to play via internet. Now R7 and I-5 can play too! This game and several others were played outside on our deck on a nice, unseasonably warm October day.

This is for Dan...an ode to his daily morning power breakfast!

Yes, it's true. I actually hide them in the grocery cart so people don't see them! Watch this clean, funny bit on Poptarts!

You are most like: Black
You are bold with a dark side. You make clear lines wherever you go, though you color outside of the lines. Many people may just see the surface of you and think you are merely plain, but you have a lot of depth to you as well.
Take this quiz: Which Crayola Box of 8 Color Are You?
Visit Toys For Your Blog.com for more blog quizzes

Our Great Blue Heron

Yup he's ours! We've claimed him because we see him every time we travel to the next town when we cross a bridge over a particular creek. We all crane our necks to catch a glimpse of our friend. Sometimes he's in the water clearly trying to fish. Other times he's out on the bank hanging out. Herons are in these parts to mate and take care of their young, but I imagine he'll be heading south soon.

In fact, since my trip to Orlando I haven't seen him and I thought perhaps he'd left already. We were all overjoyed to spot him in the water today! It was R7 who suggested we add him to our nature journals today and what a great idea. I told her I'd add him to the blog because well this is the only place I've ever been successful journaling anything. I'm just not a diary kinda girl. I think it's more fun to write for an audience so there you have it. True confessions...

Growing up in the general region of the Chesapeake Bay herons are a common sight. But I will admit that this bird brings great joy to my heart every time I see him. Thanks be to God for His awesome creation and everything in it!

And Mr. or Mrs. Heron...if this was the last citing for the season, well, we'll see you next spring!

This week: Duchess Bakes a Cake

This week for FIAR we are studying the middle ages with Duchess Bakes a Cake by Virginia Kahl. What a fun book! Today we had a medieval feast by roasting a chicken and J2 did a fine job of showing off the use of no silverware! We also had a discussion about the feudal system and why there were kings and castles and knights and of course a duke and duchess.

Using castle cards by Klutz R7 and I-5 made their own castles.


R7 remembers the rules to chess very well and E9 aims to teach her some special moves this week like castling. I-5 will learn chess basics. A few years ago E9 had a real thing for chess and still plays occasionally with his grandfather via computer (even using netmeeting to see each other during play).

E9 was really into knights and castles at one time so we have plenty of go alongs. Check them out! I highly recommend them all!




This one is called Puzzle Castle- also an Usborne book


E9 picked this one up again and read it in his spare time. He made sure to comment that this was a good book.


I-5 and I had fun the other night checking out the castle search book. He chose the castle seige page- such a boy!






This last one is by Gail Gibbons. I cut off the library barcode...

I think I finally have found a place for all the books and fun stuff for the week to be displayed on a Sunday night. It was cool to watch the kids check everything out on Monday morning and both R7 and I-5 have been perusing the books all week. R7 has her page marked in several books. The coffee table is nice and big and at kid level and maybe it'll keep everything else- as in clutter off of the table!