Fall Fun, Autumn Chill and a Random Mole

There is a chill in the air today, very cold for October. A chance of snow too, I'm not thrilled about that! We decided to add some fall activities to our homeschool day. I downloaded an Autumn Treasures activity book which I'd seen advertised for free. I'm glad i downloaded it there are some cute activities and interesting links and videos. Today we watched a couple of the videos about why we have seasons.One of them was a Bill Nye the Science Guy video, he is always good. Then we worked on this falling leaves artwork activity pictured below.


We didn't realize just how hard it would be to cut out all the tiny leaves. I ended up having to help Tristan with his and it was tricky even for me. We joked that it would be even harder for bigger homeschool families to cut out and color all their tiny leaves. That made us think of the Large Duggar family, who are also homeschoolers and have 18 children so far. We laughed and laughed about how many little leaves they would need to cut out if they all wanted to make a tree! It was fun.

Colin colored all his leaves his favorite color...orange! Tristan and Hayley got creative and used many colors.

Hayley also drew birds and animals on a bare tree.

Our morning had been frantically interrupted when our cat Flower was playing with a baby mole. I'd gone outdoors for a piece of firewood ('cause it's COLD) and found Flower toying with the poor baby mole. I understand and accept that cats do hunt but I draw the line at playing with their live catch, it's pure torture so I always take away anything a cat is "playing" with for entertainment. It was pure reflex to get this baby mole. I knew it might bite me but I also knew Flower might run with it if she knew I was going to grab it. I just swooped in and snagged the mole, kept it in my closed hand and asked Colin to get a cage FAST. When he did I dropped the mole into the cage and suddenly we all went Awwwwwwww! It was SO cute! We quickly researched it's food and drink needs and gave it a little water and food. The mole drink a bit but upon examination I saw that it was more badly bitten than had initially thought. Sadly the mole was not with us long, just an hour before it succumbed to it's injuries, but it was nice to meet the little cutie. It was quite active right at first but then suddenly lay down and passed away.

Cute baby Mole

After the excitement of the Mole and then our regular work we took a detour into the Chemistry Mole thanks to a suggestion by Chris the Science One . That was quite interesting! Later the boys all settled into playing Lord of the Rings on the computer, Trevor made yet more maps and adventures for the younger boys to play. They have a lot of fun together. Hayley played with her pets, knit some more toy animals clothes and watched tv. I made dinner and then got some things ready for tomorrow. That's about it.

all fall down....in the leaves

Children and their toy animals had fun raking and jumping in the leaves today.

Rolling Along Well

Rolling along well in our homeschooling and also these Mexican wedding/flag cookies that we made this week. This is a simple cookie that are rolled into balls and then decorated the colors of the Mexican Flag. We got this from our Spanish curriculum Las Clase Divertida . If that link doesn't work check it out at CBD .

First we made the dough and split it three ways for Colin, Hayley and Tristan.

Then add food coloring and form into balls.

bake

after baked roll in powdered sugar

Then wash your hands really well since that food coloring is MESSY.

Finally, enjoy.

We are so enjoying our la clase divertida level one. I plan to do all three levels with the kids. Level one is suggested for grades 1-6 or so. Same for level 2 and level 3 is suggested for 1st-8th. Hayley is above grade 6 but still quite enjoys the lessons. I think under high school age could get away with any of these levels.

Friday we moved on to the contour drawing lesson in Drawing basics. The goal was to draw something while looking at your object, not your paper, and also not lifting your pencil!

Colin and Tristan chose leaves for their objects and afterwards Colin asked if they could do leaf rubbing. I thought my kids would be too old for this fun activity this year but Colin and Tristan had a blast making leaf rubbing pictures. This is a sentimental activity for me since it's one of the first things we ever did as "homeschoolers" back when Trevor was just 5 and Hayley 3.5. Also one of the first activities I did with a small homeschool group I started back when my kids were little. What a treat that my youngers still like to do things like this from time to time!

We are in an excellent routine with our homeschooling now. I kept what was working and didn't think twice about replacing those things that were not working. The latest change was Trevor's science. We tried Teaching Company Chemistry and it was just not a good fit for Trevor. I got My Favorite Universe, also from the Teaching Company and it is ***awesome***! We've only done 1 lesson so far but were hooked right into the subject, the professor is fun and loves his subject. This one is a keeper. I'm only sad that it's just a 12 lesson course. We are loving Math U See as well. I have all the kids on it in some way or other now. I always wondered how on earth people utilize (fit in!) two different math curriculum's. It was an I could NEVER do that thought. Well now all of my kids have two different math and it is working great. Tristan and Colin continue to use CLE once per week and MUS 4 times. Hayley is using a few assorted MUS lessons for topics she never quite mastered along with SOS 7th grade math. Trevor is using MUS 4 days and Teaching Company algebra 1 day per week. I feel at this stage these combinations are giving my kids a deep and wide math education. Deep understanding through math U See but also wide through the very diverse CLE math lessons in the younger kids case or the pre-algebra SOS in Hayley's case. For Trevor the TC algebra simply gives him a different way to look at algebra than the MUS and more work with the graphing calculator. I never could have done this when my kids were younger but for this age and stage they are at two maths is working perfectly and keeping interest high.

Another thing rolling along, or blowing around is the leaves. Fall has set in full force here. The days are chilly, the nights downright cold and there has been a lot of wind too. Here are some photos of kids and cats playing and the current foliage colors. It goes fast here I estimate that most of the leaves will be gone from the trees in a week or so.

Harvest Moon Festival

Today we spent a few hours at The Kearsarge Indian Museum . This was on the calendar in my continuing quest to make sure the younger boys get to experience all the living history in our general region now that they are an age to appreciate it all. I have loads of photos of Trevor and Hayley at historical places all over New England and there in the background are toddler Colin and Tristan napping in a double stroller! I felt a real leading to make sure to do fun things like this again now that the "little boys" are big. The big kids will get even more out of them now too. Hayley chose to come along this time but Trevor opted out. There was a Harvest Moon festival going on t the Indian Museum today with craft and skill demonstrations, drumming, Native American food and more. We were not allowed to take photos in the museum itself (boy that was hard!) but I got plenty on the grounds or at the outside exhibits. In the museum itself a teenage volunteer seemed to take notice of the boys and gave them a good running commentary of quite a few exhibits, he also pointed out things outdoors that boys would enjoy. It was like having our own personal tour guide, very cool! The many hand made items were beautiful and the stories of Native Americans in our area interesting.

After the museum we saw some native crafters demonstrating thing like soapstone carving, quilling and bead work. There were some artifacts and craft items on display and for sale. The boys LOVED the weapons! After seeing the crafters we headed outdoors to try some survival skills and to see the tee pee. It started to rain after awhile and we decided it was time to get some lunch, Native American foods were on sale for reasonable prices and the menu even listed vegan options. We chose vegan 3 Sisters soup and a choice or corn bread or Zuni bread. we made sure to choose some of each bread so people could share back and forth and try each. We had our lunch in a barn while listening to some Native American drumming. It was a fun day.

Photo highlights

The boys spent a long time looking at the weapons!

Tristan had good questions for all the craftspeople

This simple weapon was used back in Medieval times although they didn't fling crab apples! the kids made a rendition of this when we got home.

Basically you swing it around once and then on the second turn let go of one of the strings. Tristan was very good at this, his apples went the farthest.

This next weapon is arrow darts, all the kids tried it but only Colin could seem to get his arrow to go far.

Lunch was 3 Sisters soup which was nice and warm after being outdoors in the rain. It tasted good but a little spicier than most of us was used to.

Too many people were watching to get a good photo but this was the drumming group who played in the barn. They explained quite a bit about native American drumming and chanting and how the songs are chosen and what might happen if you sing someones "family song" without permission. They may ask you to stop, turn the drum over or in rare cases even slice right through the top of the drum!

I'm glad we decided to attend this event despite the on and off rain. The children had fun and we all learned quite a bit.