Creation Part 2

We are still working on the creation MLB.


In deference to Ferdinand's hands we are taking the art work component slowly but he is so much more enthusiastic about using the chalk than paints or crayons and pencils.

 

Nativity Fast Week Two: Hope

We and a lovely beginning to the second week of our Nativity fast but were waylaid by our annual hack-fest.  Luckily I caught it first this time and am on my way to recovery which will help me put things back in order now that the kids are all starting to succumb. Valentine does not quite know what to think of the angels that kept popping up this week, and kept trying to smuggle them out of the kitchen.


Ferdinand is continuting to work on his Jesse Tree project and we talked a bit about angels as God's messengers and their message of hope to mankind but mostly right now I am just hoping for a swift recovery.

A wolf, a sheep and a cabbage...

Iddy Bidy was working on this classic puzzle this week.
She enjoyed acting it out with some Playmobils borrowed from Ferdinand.

If you don't have any Playmobils you can play at Cool Math Games...hands down our favorite website.

When gamers marry...

Or where do baby geeks come from...?

Dh and I met through a mutual gamer friend. We have lots of dice...lots and lots of dice floating around the house. We both still have our original dice bags from our courtship days.

Ferdinand has been asking for weeks to "teach" me to play backgammon and I have been putting him off.
I finally acquiesced to to a game and got whipped. After realizing suddenly we have these big kids Dh and I have pulling out our old favorites and rounding up our dice to play with them.

We decided to toss out the math books for the week. I loved games growing up but hated math class not realizing I was using  all those "impossible to remember"  arithmetic facts all the time. I still struggle with rote recall of math facts but play games frequently and manage to add and multiply my way through them if somewhat slowly.  Math facts have been challenging for Biddy as well but taken off the worksheet and onto the game board suddenly she is adding and multiplying with some proficiency and just rattled off her first percentage today. Hoody Hoo!

Ferdinand is benefiting as well for although  computation is not an issue for him, his ongoing hive problem has been causing difficulty with writing and doing all our math work mentally is right up his alley.

Like other homeschooling parents I get caught up sometimes with following lesson plans or needing to see a finished worksheet or project in order to feel like progress is being made. I glad to have had this little reminder and we are enjoying more than just the academic benefits of all this family game time...its nice just to play together as well.



Poor Valentine his "bad guy dice" just beat his "good guy dice". :)

Ferdinand whipping mom again.

Days of Creation- part one

When Iddy worked through her Old Testament MLB a few years back I intended to have her create a rather standard water color series for the creation stories. At the time though we had been studying fiber arts and she insisted on creating a needle felted mural. They turned out nicely although I was apprehensive about the level of difficulty.I should not have been surprised when Ferdinand also rejected the idea of water colors- he asked to use the pastels we have been working with.

I told him I would think about it and spent the evening experimenting and drew up 7 of the 10 or so pictures I have planned. I was pleased with the results and the pastels have a dreamy gestural feel similar to the water colors.

Ferdinand was excited to start and he worked on the first 3 pictures while we re-told and talked about the beginning of the creation story and how it fits into our Jesse Tree.

I used the water color pages in the Christopherous 3rd grade syllabus by Donna Simmons and the Days of Creation water color book by James and Katherine Hughes as guides for my drawings.

Nativity Fast Week One: Faith

Our first week though full of stress, illness and travel had its peaceful family moments.

After years of saying we should makes some reusable book bags, Iddy Biddy volunteered. She made enough bags for a week of books and was so proud of her first attempt at using the sewing machine.
She ended up choosing this week's books for our book sleigh and reading to her youngest siblings each day as well.

It is bittersweet watching my little dd grow into a nurturing young lady and seeing her take a newly active role in our fast and Holy day plans while still retaining a joyful child's anticipation.

Our nature window lay empty this week -save God ...waiting to be slowly transformed into our Nativity scene. The older kids keep excitedly whispering to the little ones..." soon there will be angels".

The fast has coincided with Ferdinand's Old Testament  main lesson block and as with Iddy we are using the Jesse Tree readings to work though it. We found some tiny little blank key chain tags and placed red stars on one side and he draws in the symbol each day after dinner when we read the daily bible passage.

Even more chalk pastels...

Round 4 of the wonderful tutorials at Hodegpodge.

Thanksgiving Roses...

My first visit to the lovely town we now live in was for Thanksgiving and I remember leaving snow behind and finding mist and roses...I was enchanted. Over 15 years later I am still enchanted by and thankful for November roses (not so much the mist ).

I am also thankful for all you Grandparents and Godparents that keep asking what the kids are up to and learning...a very Happy Thanksgiving to you.

When the muses call...

Blue eyes definitely has the role of resident artist in the family. I woke up this morning to her madly collaging -half of the art supply totes pulled out, glue dripping,  paper scraps every where. She was in a private little zone... practically unreachable in her focus. I finally had to place my hands on her face to get her attention in order to serve breakfast. She got right back to it after we cleared the table. Her project is about 6 double sided panels now and is evidently a Christmas present. One of her siblings asked her what it was and she huffed, hands on hips thoroughly disgruntled, "It's ART!". I appreciate having a creative kid but boy I look forward to her being tall enough to wield a broom efficiently.  I keep a whole shelf  and cupboard of art supplies much to the bemusement of a few of my more orderly mom friends and while yes there are days the clutter and mess drives me nuts I can't really regret it. Besides it is not like my house is ever that clean :)

Coastal Misadventures...

We have been wanting to take a multi day trip along the PNW coast for a long time, to see the historical museums and State Parks. We had a big trip planned this weekend. There were lots of exciting tie-ins with Ferdinand's main lesson on the local Tribes and Iddy Biddy's Botany lesson and the early modern American history we have been reading about. Ferdinand was really looking forward to it, checking the calendar every day.

In true PNW fashion it was sunny last weekend, it is sunny right now but we had pouring rain, up to 100 mile an hour winds, severe flooding, closed roads due to fallen trees and power lines and general "scary weather".

Thank goodness we were in Yurts and not tents.

Our trip got cut short though not because of the weather but due to high fevers and vomiting in 2 of the kids and coughing and runny noses in the other 2 and another bad hive attack for poor Ferdinand.

We had fun at a few places  but every time we looked Ferdinand was napping on a bench, he kept saying "just take pictures for me...".  I took lots of pictures of swords for him. Ferdinand said that despite his "misadventures" he had a good trip. The others agreed.

We will try again in the spring...it will probably take me that long to clean all the vomit covered laundry and camping gear and the car...blech.

 

Preparing...

Today we cleaned thoroughly and  pulled down all our fall lights, projects and decorations and set them away until next year.

We left our porch decorations up until after thanksgiving but otherwise the house feels still and empty and quiet...a good way to begin the fast.

For the first time since becoming Orthodox the little hints of red don't feel out of place...it is funny how slowly things become habit and tradition. Old ways and new ways finally just coming together to be "the way we always do it."

The kids are focused on getting ready for a visit with friends so haven't really noticed my preparations yet.
I am looking forward to the surprise when we light the first candle. And I am hoping this is the year they are all big enough that our candles don't migrate about the house, but I am not holding my breath!

 

The explosion was this big!

Only in Biddy's hopeful fantasies do we have large explosions during chemistry co-op.
I think she has watched too many episodes of Myth-Busters...we did have a nice lesson making soap however.  Poor Ferdinand was battling hives again and spent most of the co-op asleep.
Goggles are with out a doubt the best part of chemistry! 

St. Martin...

We had a lovely St. Martin's day with friends. We read all our St. Martin books, held our annual soup pot-luck, the rain stopping long enough to walk with our lanterns, and as per our family tradition we shared our first pomegranates of the season.

More Chalk Pastels...