First Fall Friday

First Friday of fall and it felt it, chilly morning and the day never warmed up all that much. We even started the wood stove and kept it going for several hours.

Pretty productive for a Friday, I tend to keep Friday our light day of the week. The kids did their computer work first this morning, followed by finishing up week 3 of Drawing Basics. This involved cutting 3 pictures from magazines and drawing a simple rendition of the pictures using lines and curves. After a break the kids worked on the Friday handwriting. We started using A Reason For Handwriting this year (younger three kids) and on Fridays they write out a verse on the special paper from the back of the book in their best handwriting. They seem to enjoy the special papers and really do seem to try and do their best when using them.

After our morning work we did another of the cub scout engineering experiments, making a simple working electrical circuit with just a battery, a switch and a light. The boys made that first and then wanted to play with our assorted electricity kits. We have collected a few over the years from very simple and goof proof to kits that use all manner of wires and bulbs and odds and ends. The kids had lots of fun making flashing lights and alarms and musical things for a couple hours. Later everyone worked on their Native American costumes or in Trevor's case worked on repairing a broken x-box controller. Later still they settled down with books (as did I) and playing with some of their pets.

Flower the cat is overseeing the electronics experiments. He loved watching the experiments which resulted in things spinning or moving.


This little electronics kit, below, was a major pain to assemble but it had a lot of fun experiments once everything was connected.

The best experiment was using the graphite from an ordinary pencil to make music!

Later in the day Tristan wanted to do more experiments so he looked through this book called 101 science experiments to see what else he could find to do. Trevor used to enjoy this book when he was younger. In fact we must have used it a lot as some of the pages are stuck together with something. Maybe an experiment gone wrong spilled!

It was decided that the Webkinz all needed Native costumes and bead jewelry.

Colin is sewing part of his costume carefully.

Hayley has already made a shirt and skirt, they even have drawstring closures! Tristan's costume is still in progress but he insisted on wearing it without a shirt in the cold. Hayley was not going for that idea and wore a sweat shirt and pants under her costume. It will be even colder when the kids wear these for Halloween and in Mid November for a Thanksgiving event. I am thinking maybe we can get some long sleeved brown t-shirts for them to wear under and maybe brown leggings for Hayley. I'm pretty sure the boys have brown pants.

a little camp out for native children and small animals.