Treasure

I thought this day would never come.  We actually read the very last chapter of Story of the World.  I felt a little choked up; I won't be reading this book again until Daniel is Evie's age and Lula is Fiona's!  Evie and Shane will be slogging away on independent study the next time I read this book.  Today's topic was the Spanish Armada and the war between England and Spain.

Sifting for treasure

I had a little "hands on" activity ready to go... 

I love the look of intense concentration on Daniel's face

I tossed a handful of jewels in the sandbox for Daniel and Lula...

Freeplay: Daniel decides to sort the jewels by shape.  I was pleasantly surprised!

...and then we painted little treasure chests and filled them with fake jewels.

Lula was happy with a piece of paper

The girls played and played with the jewels, and I even heard rumors of a pirate stealing some of Evie's jewels!  Then the kids went down to the pond for a swim...

The Spanish Armada

Sir Francis Drake and Lord Howard of Effingham

...which led to a "hands on history" activity that I actually had to stop.  The English were bombarding the Spanish Armada with mud balls and the Spanish didn't like it. 

I'm still a little surprised we made it through the whole book.  I remember when I first created my excel spreadsheet with all the little details and activities I wanted to do.  Every few weeks, I would update my spreadsheet and check off the chapters we read and activities we finished.  And now...well, we're done with history until next September!

Teaching Shakespeare

As a public schooled gal myself, I wasn't exposed to Shakespeare until I was in high school.  But as a homeschooling mom, I get to expose my kids to all sorts of things!  (Note: the pictures don't have anything to do with the post)

When Mark made us turn off Pictionary on the Wii U, we played real Pictionary and made him play too!

We are reading Story of the World: The Middle Ages for history this year.  When we got to the chapter on Shakespeare, I read the bite-sized version of Macbeth with my best reading skills and my kids were hooked.  Shane sighed, "I wish I could have seen that!"  Guess what Shane? People perform Shakespeare's plays all over the world every single year!  And that started our journey...

Can't play video games? Draw pictures of playing video games!

First, I went to my online library catalog.  I found Shakespeare for children in picture books, graphic novels (AKA comic books), and even manga formats!  (Although one should preview any manga before handing it off to young children)  I requested popular Shakespeare-themed movies on DVD and Mark took it a step further and requested DVDs of live performances of Shakespeare plays.  It took me about four years to figure out that I didn't need an official list of books to go along with what we are studying, I just needed to check out everything the library has to offer and look for gems.  I love the library.

Photo Bomb!

The kids really enjoyed a beautifully illustrated book based on A Midsummer Night's Dream by Bruce Coville (even Ian listened in although he was supposed to be doing his own history work).  They laughed at Nick Bottom and gasped when I used the word "ass."  Ian was the first to chuckle, "Bottom.... ass..." which started the joyous journey into the enjoyment of Shakespeare's wordplay.  Ian is reading Tales From Shakespeare which is a prose version of the plays first published in 1807, so he is getting a great exposure to the story lines and characters.  He really enjoyed The Merchant of Venice and I don't even know what that is about!

Tutu high on that ladder!

Next, we watched a movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream produced in 1935.  This was the only version our library had on DVD (I was looking for the one with Michelle Pfeiffer).  I took a chance on the old black n white, and this movie turned out to be an awesome addition to our study!  In 1935, there were no computer graphics, so we enjoyed the "trick photography" and other special effects.  Mickey Rooney, who was 15 years old at the time, played Puck and had the most obnoxious laugh; my kids delight in imitating it!  But the absolute best part for me was when Oberon spoke, "I know a place where the wild thyme blows..." and we all realized that we've heard that line before...like a million times just this winter...in a Baby Einstein movie.  The movie happens to be World of Words, but it used to be called Baby Shakespeare. Now it all makes sense!

I love squash!

I have to interrupt this monologue of Shakespeare educational experience to relate a Twin Firs Adventure.  While we were watching A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shane lost a tooth.  A molar.  In the bowl of popcorn he and Ian were sharing.  They had to eat that popcorn one kernel at a time until they found the tooth, about halfway down.  Then, Shane dropped it again!  They didn't find it until they reached the bottom of the bowl.  Luckily they found it before either one ate it!

I can sit!

So anyway, now we have a whole list of Shakespeare movies to watch, including a two-disc, four hour documentary and two less popular tragedies, Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus.  We are planning a Shakespeare film festival this weekend, but I'm thinking it will last all summer long.  The only thing missing is a summer stock production of Shakespeare....I love how homeschooling has enriched my life as well as my children's. I hope they look back on this time of their education and remember how much fun we had.  And I hope they internalize that learning, and the enjoyment learning, is not confined to the time period between September and June, and that we don't learn because we need an A, but because this world is wonderful, exciting place with all sorts of things to discover...

...maybe not that well!

The End!

Heidi (six months old)

 Heidi learned how to sit on her six months old birthday!  Now I can plop her down wherever...

Daisy Day

Boys and Daisy Day.  Start HERE, in 2010, to see what Daisy Day is all about.  And then you can visit 2011 and 2012 and even 2013!

Looks like someone still loves me, although his love sounded a bit like a gruff, "Your Mother's Day present is me smiling on Daisy Day."  Good enough for me!

Shane didn't even bother picking a daisy.  He just held it.  He doesn't like letting the girls pick the daisies because he likes the way they look in the pasture.  They are pretty!

The two older boys had to get all this daisy picture stuff out of their system by running and wrestling.

I noticed that Ian managed to keep a hold of his daisies while he was giving Shane's face a grass bath.

But on closer inspection, you see that Ian was just holding on to his eye spliced rope with the monkey's fist knot at the end.  Ian has become the troop's knot-tying expert.

He is even making up his own knots!  (Go back up to the wrestling picture. You will see lengths of rope hanging out of his pocket. I love that. And now, a side story about knots: Evie and younger were playing parade with their stuffed animals and various wheeled toys we have.  They were having trouble keeping everything together, so Ian lashed all the stuffies in place and connected the cars using the proper knots.  He said Ami used to do thing like that for him when he was little, but she didn't know the right knots.)

Daniel enjoyed running around with his brothers and got in on the grass throwing too.  I had to trick him into smiling for this picture.  When I told him that boys who love their mama smile for Daisy Day, he threw his flowers on the ground and stomped on them:

I know he loves me as much I love him.  Which is so much our hearts hurt when we think about it.

While the boys were struggling with their kinder, gentler sides, the girls were happily weaving daisy chains and being agreeable:

They really are a nice balance.  I'm not saying that the girls are better than the boys though.  I celebrate every unique bit about them all.

Even our deer skull got in the spirit of things.  I've become quite fond of this skull.  Just finding something like this is rare.  But finding it TWICE?  Yes, it disappeared one night.  Right off the T-post for the clothesline.  I thought perhaps a cat knocked it down and then Jack reclaimed his bones and chewed it up.  Jack loves bones.  A few days later, I happened to be awake in the early morning and saw Jack prancing across the pasture with the skull gently held in his big pitbull jaws.  I called him to me and got the skull back!  I don't think he is going to fall for that trick again!  I think I'm going to hang it from the clothesline and use the antlers to hold socks or other delicates...wouldn't that be funny?

But where were the babies on Daisy Day? Both were sound asleep in their cribs. I probably should have been taking advantage of nap time to clean this place up; it often looks like a bomb went off in here.  But Daisy Day comes once a year and there will come a time when certain parties cannot be bribed to pose.  I plan to take advantage of every moment I can and enjoy the relationships I have with each of my kids.  The stuff will be on the floor when I get back!

Crazy Happy

I have been SO HAPPY lately.  My happiness feels so much sweeter than being regular happy because of how down I was at the end of winter.  I guess one cannot appreciate happiness to this level without experiencing sadness too.  I am just so thankful.  Get ready for the weekly review!

Sound asleep

 Heidi is getting her first solid foods.  Rice cereal, which she hates, and carrots...

...which she also hates.

I'm in a knitting frenzy.  I know the uncomfortably hot weather is coming fast and I have a LOT of projects to get going on.  I'm still trying to use up my stash (which might take the rest of my life) so I whipped out two big baby vests:

One for Lula and one for Heidi

 And one little baby vest:

I had to tweak the pattern for my yarn and size needs.

Lula is going through some jealousy and gets upset if I put her diapers on Heidi or feed Heidi baby food or if she sees Heidi with a binky.  I've tied magenta strings on Heidi's binkies so Lula knows they are not hers.  Heidi has her own style of bottle that doesn't look like Lula's old ones.  Heidi even has her own brand new flat diapers that pin in place instead of the cute, snappy, fitted diapers.  It's easier this way.  Lula can have all the leftover baby food she wants, cause, like, yuck.  Lula is the only baby in the world that likes baby food.

Love the curls cascading out of the helmet.

Do you trust your laundry detergent? I trust mine! :)

Lula is also signing more.  She has her own sweet way of signing...many of the signs look like "apple."  Earlier today, I was showing her the Twin Firs and saying/signing "tree."  She looked right at my hand and gave me a high-five.  It seems as though her siblings are teaching her some other cute tricks!

"Say 'flower!'"

I'm anxious for the "school year" and yearly tests to be over so I can purge out the school room and get summer school started.  Amazing things happen to my kids when they get grounded from screens.  They go read things or color or play or go have sword fights outside with their younger siblings or do all at the same time, leaving destruction in their wake:

One of three piles I swept up yesterday

Daniel is still, and always will be, doing things that get him in trouble:

Rule #1 for vandalism: Don't autograph your work

We have out here on our backwoods peninsula, a facebook page called Buy Nothing.  On it, people can request items they need and post items they want to get rid of, but they have to be polite and friendly and everything has to be free.  The people in this group are trying to build community and bring people together, so they are very strict about how you post.  ISO baby bouncer would be deleted.  My post: One of the things I love about having so many kids is seeing their different personalities develop. My 7th little one, Heidi, loves her bouncy chair like no other (see cute video attached!). She'll bounce herself to sleep, she bounces when she is happy, and she bounces herself for comfort. None of my other kids liked bouncing like this. Today she started sitting up and nearly toppled over. I would like to try her out in a jumparoo to see if she gets the same enjoyment before I invest a buncha money in a new one. I need a free standing one, not the kind that attaches to a door frame. I have an exersaucer, but it doesn't have the same springiness that she likes. Does anyone have a jumper that I can borrow for a week or two? Thanks!  Along with an adorable video of Heidi bouncing, got us this here little bouncy toy:

...and sure enough, she loves it.  What amazed me about getting this was that people I've only met in real life a time or two remembered my post when they met someone new to the area that wanted to get rid of the bouncer.  They told her to join the group and then find my post.  I've gotten rid of some junk on this group, but I think I'm going to knit up some dish clothes to gift.  Knitting.

Seven stitches left to go, but only one inch of yarn.  Talk about adrenaline.

How horrible is it to get this close to the end of a giant fair isle project, just to run out of yarn on the last seven stitches?  Evie's solution was to rip it all out and use a different sized needle.  Mark's solution was to rip it all out and use a different color scheme.  Both their suggestions involved ripping out and you know that will never ever never ever happen.  My solution was to dig through a giant box of odds and ends to see if I still had a tiny ball of this color.  Found it. Whew! Problem solved and stocking finished!!!

Shane has been wanting a new hobby that wasn't a waste of time.  Cooking and gardening are the first ideas that came to mind.  This morning, he made a batch of pumpkin muffins with icing!  It came in a box, but it was a first project.  They were really good! 

Go, Dog. Go! Is the best book in the world! I use it as a test to see if my kids can read.  Guess what? Fiona can read!

 That right there is the first step to her journey of a thousand miles.  I'm so proud of her!

Guardian Angels

I'm certain Daniel's guardian angel works overtime.  In fact, I'm certain he has a whole flock of guardian angels that work vigilantly twenty-four hours a day to keep Daniel from serious trouble.

"Is spray paint poisonous? I'm I going to die?"

How else can you explain the window not breaking when he threw a rock at an ant crawling on it? And that he didn't spray paint the house and chose instead the bush next to the house?  And he happened the lock the car door before he tried to open it while I was driving yesterday? 

Thank goodness I discovered The MOB Society.  I'm off to charge my Kindle and start reading my new book!

Twelve

Can you believe Ian is 12 years old? And that this will be my last year without a teenager in the house (again)?  Ian celebrated his birthday this year by inviting a friend over to play video games and throw ninja stars.  What a boy.  He also requested a key lime pie instead of a cake.  One of the things I love about Ian's 11/12th year is the development of his witty sense of humor.  He is so fast with the comebacks that he can get me laughing several times a day.  This year, I told Ian his birth story.  After I told him that I had to be induced 30 hours after my water broke and then it took an additional 14 hours to get him out, he said, "I wasn't done sleeping yet."  So little has changed.  I love this kid and I feel so blessed that I got to be the one to have him and raise him and watch him grow up!  Thank you, God!

Frogs in the Pond

The weather has been fantastically warm this week, driving us away from "schoolwork" and toward independent learning...

I asked Shane to read a book about a frog's life cycle to Daniel to prepare him for some fun preschool activities I had lined up.  This inspired Shane to take Daniel to the pond to look for frog eggs.  Shane brought a sample of pond life back to the house and started recording what he saw.  Daniel copied what Shane was doing...for a few seconds at least.  I love that!

Evie carried on the proud tradition of taking her baby sister out on the paddle board.  Ami used to do that for Evie when she was a little two year old!  Evie didn't go more than a foot deep since Lula didn't have a life jacket on.

I took my four little ones out to the Dollar Store on Tuesday night to pick up supplies for Ian's upcoming birthday, to train the little ones in proper store behavior, and to pick up a few treats for my preschool on the side...  I love the Dollar Store.  I got these little plastic frog/lizard toys, a dish with three divisions, and set Daniel up with some sorting this morning.  The labels said simply frog and not frog.  Daniel isn't really reading, but he is spelling simple words...

After he sorted the frogs out for me, I put them in a "pond" (also known as a sensory bin...or plastic box) with those really cool hydrating beads that are used in flower vases.  I also got the hydrating beads at the dollar store!  We added water and watched the beads get larger all day.  By this evening, the "pond" was ready to play with.

This is when the fun really started!  My preschool class quickly expanded to include everyone except Ian (who probably secretly wished he was little again) and Shane (who was reading and didn't know what we were doing, but he probably would have joined in if he were around).

These beads feel so COOL!  We searched for the plastic frogs and lizards (we called them newts), glass marbles, and a set of frog life cycle figures.

As soon as the play got crazy (beads bouncing around the porch, Lula sitting in the box), I packed the box away for another time...and we will watch the beads to see what they do next!