Heritage History & the Age of the eReader!

How many of you have an eReader in your house? We are pretty late to catch on, but R12 has had a Kindle since Thanksgiving and I have the Kindle app on my Droid Bionic (with super powers) phone. R12 has loaded up as many free classics as she can reasonably find and loads more all the time. The Amazon gift card is one of her best friends as family members can give her new Kindle titles that way.

She adores her Kindle.

Imagine her excitement when I told her about Heritage History and how they've compiled many books from the public domain and sorted them into various time periods of history. She was delighted for the new content for her Kindle and based on some studies we are pursuing this year, I decided to try out the Early American History for starters.

You can download the content in a format for your PC, your Nook, or your Kindle so it doesn't matter which device you own. Loading the CD files onto your device is a pretty simple affair and you'll have gobs of biographies and other fun books on a history theme of your choice.

I'm new to the world of being an affiliate and I only endorse products I really love and use, but I'm excited to share a discount with you can use on Heritage History products. There are whole libraries based on different time periods in history along with curriculum, study guides, and individual ebooks. I would love to share more about how we are using the ebooks in future posts.

SPECIAL OFFER FOR Blog, She Wrote SUBSCRIBERS through October 31:
Use code HEATHER8 for a $19.99 discount when you buy any curriculum CD Library plus Spanish Empire library.

The Great New York State Fair!

Where has August gone? We've been camping again for a week and back home. We're trying to gear up for our homeschool co-op which begins in another couple weeks- and that has required some of my time along with the rest of our committee.

Today we are off to the New York State Fair for the day. We have these three exhibits up at the fair and maybe we can see how they've done. Usually we just send our things and wait to see how it went when we pick them up, but this year E13 is doing his falconry presentation at the State Fair.

Conversion- the Missionaries of the Middle Ages game!

The famous 4-H graphic t-shirt

R's knit hat made with a Knifty Knitter loom

He started with this talk back in March and made it to the district level where he was selected to present again at State Fair. His talk is entitled, "The Art of Falconry" and he gives an overview of the history of the sport and how to become a licensed falconer.

We'll report back later today. Thanks for reading!

Conversion: Missionaries of the Middle Ages Game

One of the projects E13 worked on during his year with the Middle Ages was a game. He opted out of the suggested projects from WinterPromise and created this game which is all about Missionaries of the Middle Ages.

The object of the game is to convert your area to Christianity by creating converts, churches, monks, and monasteries. You must collect resources during the game in order to achieve these goals.

He made the board with a Bare Book board and maps printed from the Uncle Josh's map CD.

He chose missionaries that he studied and got the images from the History through the Ages Timeline figure CD from Homeschool in the Woods. We laminated them and I helped to cut them out- there were so many resource cards, we all helped!

In order to convert or do other actions, you must have a set of criteria like prayer, empathy, etc. Some ways are of converting are more full proof than others. Usually do so by force doesn't work out.

These are the situation cards that give you the chance on how to convert the people you come across.

These are the choice you can make.

These are the solutions to the choice you made. These tell you how many converts you get or what else happens.

Not only did it earn a blue at the county fair, but it was chosen to go to State Fair!

We played the game to check its playability and E13 was making a list of changes he needs to make to the rules. We need to start with more resources for sure!

The game is on the way to the Great NY State Fair the week after next and he's excited to see how it does. His last game: The Truth about New York was a Monopoly/Trivia game about NY and it got a blue at state fair. Either way, this game is a gem. Great job E13!

Solar Science

We've been in our new home four weeks as of yesterday. It's hard to believe! Of course, in between unpacking we had a week at the county fair and I was away five days to Dallas. So, it almost doesn't feel that long. One of the fun perks of our new house (there are many) is a handsome set of solar panels. So handsome that the previous owners were power neutral last year- considering the mild winter with no snow cover to speak of. We probably won't make that as we hope there will be snow cover and we have twice the people living here as they did. And some of them leave lights on. Some of them just want all the lights on. Ahem.

But, the solar panels have peaked the interest of especially our engineer J7. He spent some of his birthday money on a new solar kit (he has the Snap Circuits Green set already) and has been enjoying it since. I have to say that these panels provide some amazing learning moments. I'm looking forward to more.

Our new house- the solar panels face the southern sky. Pretty discreet and pretty awesome.

This is the inverter in our basement- you can read the input meter and it tells how much power is being generated and how much we use vs how much we sell back to the power company.

The new Solar Workshop- pretty sturdy and fun to use. The building elements are basically large sized technic lego type pieces- same building system in a larger size really.

One of my Instagram photos (seriously I really do post a bunch to twitter and fb) of J7 building his first mission- a solar tractor!

One day a couple weeks ago we had to have our radon fan rewired (it had been wired to a switch and had gotten turned off) and the electricians were working in our basement. J7 wanted to watch- because there were things happening with electricity- of course. As we were hanging out and observing from afar, the inverter started making a loud buzz. This made us curious. J7 learned that each time the buzz was loud, the number on the inverter readout increased. Then I asked him if it was related to the sun- there were big puffy clouds in the sky that day. Sure enough. When the clouds let the sun through, the inverter went crazy. What a fun find!

Another solar fun fact...we have battery back up on our kitchen and bathrooms which can provide power to those critical places for up to four days if we lose power.

We are still learning about it all- in terms of maintenance and care and all that...but it's a pretty fun thing to have bought with the house! I am certain there will be more homeschool lessons to come from these panels. Stay tuned!

Getting Settled: Time & Space for Play

Well, this concludes the longest stretch without a blog post on Blog, She Wrote since April, 2007 when my blog began! Where have I been? Unpacking, unpacking, traveling to Dallas for MOPS Convention, and let's see...unpacking! It turns out unpacking takes longer than packing up. We moved to a new home (in case you are not a regular reader) about four weeks ago and we've been working hard ever since. I wanted to post pictures of our new learning spaces for the Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop, but the pictures didn't turn out well and I haven't had a moment to make them right. I really need to find my camera's battery charger. Really.

While I was gone to Dallas for five days, Dan was at home with the kids unpacking and getting things settled. So, of all the rooms to start posting from at our new house...we'll start with the basement! We have a full walkout basement that's pretty large and one corner of it was finished off by the previous owner as a playroom for their daughter. We scrubbed up the tile floor and last week our playroom items moved in. How about those pink walls?!

This table was a gift from the previous owners (they left us quite a few things) and we are using it adjacent to the play area as a project table. There's another project table we cleaned up and use as well. Some of our craft items from our former craft closet will reside here.

Remember our former workbox shelves? They have a new use in our play area! Yay for repurposing!

Kapla blocks were unpacked yesterday and rushed first to the bedroom where the carpet would not do and then down to the play area.

A mansion is born. I love those steps!

More to come, but I thought this post was a fitting one to get me back into the blogging groove. It illustrates perfectly how we are really starting to settle in and make this our home. Free play with imaginative toys! Welcome home everyone!

If you are missing posts here at Blog, She Wrote, don't forget to sign up over at facebook where I have been busy posting through Twitter. I also share things I find around the blogosphere over there. C'mon over!

Of Poets & Little Boys Named Tennyson

Time for another birthday celebration! This time we are studying Alfred Lord Tennyson, the poet, who was born on August 5, 1809. He is one of the most well-loved Victorian poets. If you'd like to see his writing, I found many of them on Poemhunter.com. How about a sample?

The Owl

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

Photo from the Public Domain

Though we are generally a science-loving crowd at our house, we do read a lot of classic literature and generally work hard at most things, but admittedly poetry really isn't one of them! So, why would I pick Tennyson to study with the kids? It's simple. We're related. I am a direct descendent of the former poet laureate and therefore so are our children. Do we lay claim to this fact often? Let me put it this way...J7's middle name is Tennyson. It's true. We brought back a long tradition in my father's family in which every male child has the middle name Tennyson. All the way up to my father's generation when my grandfather refused. Then my dad's generation did not pick it back up. My father has 9 grandsons and when we were pregnant with our last child we decided it would be pretty cool to bring back the name into the male line if we had a boy. Mission accomplished. J. Tennyson was born on June 10, 2005.



Please check out the other August Birthday Hop posts from the iHN. There a bunch of bloggers out there who are celebrating with all kinds of famous people in history. Be sure and visit!

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