Rowing :: Night of the Moonjellies

I've been trying to catch up...and I'm nearly there! I blogged about our row of Mike Mulligan here and our row of Storm in the Night here last week. They were fun rows, though not as fun as...

For our last row this year we did Night of the Moonjellies and it was perfect! It was a great way to kick off our summer break and a nice easy row without a lot of extras, the boys didn't miss them and I didn't feel too guilty about not providing them.

This is such a sweet book!

I think every activity we did centered around food for this row. We had a hamburger and milkshake dinner and #3 opened his own diner for lunch one day with hot dogs, homemade onion rings and orange soda. We invited some family that was in town for the day over to share our special lunch and had a great time, just like the boy in the story.

I wanted to go to the aquarium to see jelly fish with this row but it just never happened.

Links ::


bhoomplay.wordpress.com - jellyfish in a bottle tutorial (we didn't get to this either, sigh, so many good ideas out there)
delightful learning - inspiration
homeschool share - lapbook and printables

History is Alive :: Aztec Hot Chocolate

In our history travels we made it to the early America Kingdoms. We covered the Mayans of Central America, the Aztecs and their city of Tenochtitlan, and the Incas. There were a lot of activities I wanted to cover in this chapter, but I just couldn't do it all! #2 and I did some Mayan mathematics, using Mayan numbers. He's my math guy so he thought this was pretty cool. 

But as a group we made Aztec hot chocolate. The Aztecs often put spices in their cocoa mixture so that's what the recipe from the activity book called for. I served ours with a scoop of whipped topping to help boost the sweetness. It didn't really work, the mugs looked quite similar to the bottom picture when we were done, just with melted whipped topping...no one really enjoyed their Aztec hot chocolate. It was interesting though and fun to try something new.

:: Yarn Along ::

 

On the needles :: I have been working on #3's sweater exclusively and I'm so happy about the progress. I'm hoping to have it off the needles and be working on a couple ideas I have percolating by the weekend.

On the nightstand :: I gave up on The Throne of Fire , I just couldn't get into it and it was taking up valuable space in my mind to worry if I should keep trying or not. #1 has read the whole series so far and doesn't enjoy them as much as the Olympians series but is glad she read them. Since she couldn't tell me book 3 was to die for I just couldn't keep going. I started The Secret Supper. Still too early to give an opinion.

Joining Ginny today for Yarn Along.

Rowing :: Storm in the Night

We rowed Storm in the Night in April. To be honest, it wasn't my favorite book. I didn't love the way it flowed and it just could have been a better story. The boys were a bit wishy washy about it. They liked parts and *got* it but didn't *love* it. I did what Michelle did and read Thunder Cake to go along with it, I saw it at the library and I remembered her mentioning it and how well it went with our row. I'm with her, wish we had rowed Tundercake instead.

We made a rain gauge and tracked our rain for a couple of weeks. It rains A LOT here in Oregon so we were not disappointed though I'm glad we kept going for a couple of weeks, just when you want it to rain it doesn't for a few days.

There was a lot of these rain clouds in a jar on pinterest and of course I pinned one then tried it for our row. I just used straight food coloring but I think that I should have made colored water. I think the food coloring was too heavy to work through the cloud but they got a kick out of it and it did "work" in the end.

And what row about clouds (or snow really) would be complete without playing with shaving cream on the table. I even got them to write sight words and their names in the cream! Yay for learning!

Links ::

Delightful Learning :: inspiration, really where else would I look first!

Homeschool Share :: lapbook and further inspiration

Rowing :: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

The boys and I rowed Mike Mulligan at the end of March/beginning of April, it was the first book we did after our baby break. It was such an easy book to row, such a sweet book. And there were so many ideas to make the row a great learning experience and full of memories.

We talked a lot about squares and #3 completed a lapbook piece about squares, drawing one, the definition of a square, and cutting a square from a magazine.

Of course there was a lot of time spent on steam. I think this little science experiment was from the manual but it could have been from anywhere :). The boys thought it was really cool that steam makes my teapot whistle but also turns the pinwheel (not to mention that I allowed them close enough to the stove to do this).

And we watched videos of steam shovels and steam engine trains in action on YouTube. We watched a lot so I can't link to what we watched, I just searched steam engines and tried to find ones more than 30 seconds long that they would enjoy.

I think I got this idea from Michelle. And the kids thought it was so fun! I just made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting (a favorite combo around here) and used chocolate sandwich cookies crushed up as the dirt. I found the little digger in a matchbox set at the toy store, we won't tell Mr. Wiedz I made a stop at the store *just* to look for a digger to finish my cake :). Michelle suggested putting the cake in the freezer to make it easier to cut. Since the freezer is also a handy place to hide a surprise cake I left it there and decided I LOVE frozen cake.

We also worked on our Animal ABC's, letter E. I let the kids decide a lot of the time how to color their letter, this week it was watercolor. I was trying to match everything up, ABC Animal, All About Reading and our rows but it wasn't working. We were going to slow. I also thought I'd keep up with our letter stuff over the summer - not! I'm not sure what to do, keep #3 doing alphabet crafts or just do a breeze through with #4. Sigh...another thing to think about.

Links ::

Delightful Learning :: inspiration

YouTube :: steam engine search results

Homeschool Share :: inspiration and lapbook

History is Alive :: Battle Flags

I'm was thinking July may have to be the month I catch up...but it looks like it'll take me all summer since I don't even write up my catch-up posts as often as I intended! I looked over my list of things I wanted to write about, share here, document and remember. I'm behind. I always say {at least to myself} that I will be more consistent. Perhaps it just is what it is and I won't worry about it but with no journal and no scrapbook, this space is where I keep track of most of our goings-on...so I'll catch up.

We are in the heat of summer, which I really don't like, last year we started school by now just so we could be inside instead of out in the heat. I'm trying to get ready for the school year still, haven't bought books yet. Haven't gotten the room ready. I'm making lists but at this point I think they are just making me overwhelmed instead of helping anything. But school will start whether I've gotten everything on my list done or not, whether the pinterest (go ahead and follow me - I find some cool things) ideas stay on my board or make it into my actual school and whether I feel ready or not.

Now, here's a post about our battle flags all the way from April...

We talked about France and England at war in our history lesson. This included Joan of Arc. During the wars the soldiers fought under a battle flag so we drew our own battle flags. The activity booksuggested picking a symbol that represents you. We just drew ours on water color paper that I cut up into smaller pieces, I wanted them to be substantial and compact so they would be purposeful about what they drew.

#2 couldn't decide on one element so he decorated both sides and they both fit him *so* well! A scene from Mario Bros and a baseball diamond. I love how they both turned out and the time and effort he put into them.

#4's. I have no idea what it is anymore. He might have told me...hopefully I wrote it down somewhere so when I put them into the scrapbook I can write it down. It is cute though...just like him.

#3's I can't remember anymore either. Though it looks like his sketch has a bit more detail. Drawing isn't really his thing but he tried hard and I love it.

Mine, tee hee, a book, my kids and knitting. The things I enjoy.

:: Yarn Along ::

On the needles :: I finished(!) my shawl. I still have to weave ends and block it. I think I will really enjoy it this fall and winter when it is chilly...right now it is in the mid to high 90's and I have no need for a shawl. I do wish it were bigger, I'm thinking another skein of yarn would have been nice. As it was I only had about 2 feet of yarn left...I finished the last couple rows just begging for there to be enough. Just as I had hoped the yarn to finish #3's sweater came right after I finished the shawl so I've started sleeve number 2 and hopefully will be combining everything by the end of the week. I tried everything on him to make sure he hadn't grown out of it in the hiatus of working on it. He was so excited to see it pulled out again. Can't wait to finish it.

On the nightstand :: Slowly reading through The Throne of Fire . I just don't get into this series like I did Riordan's Olympian series . I'm trying though.

See more yarn, books and wonderfulness over at Ginny's.