Spider Science

Today we learned about spiders and read some spider books.  For fun, we also made a yarn spider web!  The kids REALLY enjoyed this!

Fun Fest with Poppa and Granna

 Zeus, Batman and a Lego Brick!

 Decorating Pumpkins

There were lots of other games, candy and a costume contest!  E won his age group with his Lego Brick!  The prize was a Smurf's movie - something we could all enjoy!

And while Tony was running.....

N and E ran in the 1 mile Fun Run.  The kids didn't know the path ahead of time and were a little concerned about it. 

 N took 2nd....

 and E took 3rd!

 Here are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners:

 N was only about 15 seconds behind the winner.  E looked up at him and said, "I didn't know you were racing.  I thought you were just showing us the way!"

 Brothers and best friends.

 Poppa and Granna hung out with all day during all of this fun!

So proud of all of my boys!

UCP Half Marathon in Florence

 Waiting for the start.

 Just getting started!

 The last little big - yes it's up a pretty steep hill!

 Tony beat his time from last year at a hour and 43 minutes.  I am so proud of him!

Jack-o-lantern Playdough fun

Book Review: My Father's Dragon

We read this fun little book as a read aloud.  The chapters are very short and perfect for a first chapter book.  The story is enchanting and silly with a pattern to it as many good children's books have. The main character goes on a very unusual journey.  It is make believe of the kind that could never happen, which is probably why children adore it so much!  Even 11 year old N enjoyed it! Z did a great job narrating back to me and Tony what had happended so far when we were about 3/4 of the way through the book.  We read this over the course of several days and really enjoyed it!

Updated to add: I recently found info about a lapbook to go along with this book here.  It is free!  When you click the link you will need to scroll down and see the information.

It's winter!

Well, not really but cold temperatures are here.  I started pulling out the long sleeves, pants and coats to see what would still fit and what we need.  It became immediately clear that coats were needed for the oldest 2 as their monkey arms had caused them to outgrow their old ones.  It was not in the budget to purchase two new winter coats, particularly when they will only wear them a few times with our moderate weather.  They generally wear a lighter weight jacket or pullover and the ones from last year were just fine.

So we headed to to the thrift store to search out the coats.  After trying on a few we found each of them one that worked.  I spent under $10 for 2 winter coats.  They look new and I estimate we saved at least $30 but probaby more like $40 buy purchasing from the thrift store! 

Shopping used is also a way of practicing conservation.  No new materials had to be used to make those coats.  By purchasing used we saved money and saved a few of earth's resources!

Working on Costumes

Wonder what this will be?

Garden

I have sugar snap peas and tiny cucumbers!  Still getting a good bit of green beans and now my fall beans, Romano beans, are coming in, too!  I'm still gettting a few okra here and there....Over the course of the week I have been getting enough to cook up enough for Tony and I to eat with dinner. I pick them when they are the right size and keep them in a baggie in the fridge until I have enough!

I also believe I have finally perfected my sandwich bread loaf.  This is today's loaf:

100% natural, homemade, whole wheat bread!  Healthy and yummy!

Botany Field Trip

We visited the Botanical Gardens and the Peanut Depot with our Generations Homeschool Group to coordinate with our Botany study.  After we got there I decided to try to get a few nice shots of the kids since I haven't taken them to have their picture taken since summer of 2009.  (I'm quite upset with myself about this, particularly for the youngest of my 3 as he has no age 4 photo professionally taken and since we are now homeschooling they don't even have any school pictures!)  Anyway, wearing red field trip t-shirts isn't ideal for photo taking but I think I got a few good shots of them. I'm going to order some 5x7's to at least add into their photo albums so they will have them!

So on to the field trip:  We learned a little about George Washington Carver and viewed cotton, sweet potatoes, peanuts and the Three Sisters growing in a garden area set up for viewing.  (Three Sisters is when you plant corn with beans to grow up around it and a squash to shade the roots.) 

Then we went to the Peanut Depot to see some antique roasters and learn a little bit about peanuts.

Learning to count by ten's

Skip counting by 10's.  We sorting and organized some foam shapes in groups of 10's so we could see how much easier it is to count by 10's when we have LOTS of things to count.


We are also working really hard on reading.  This is Z's Reading Clipboard and we just keep adding more sheets to it!  It's getting harder but he is doing well!  I'm so proud of him and loving IEW's PAL program!

Dino Day at McWane

For science today we enjoyed a few hours at McWane Center.

We made dinosaur fossils:

and enjoyed playing with bubbles.

The kids LOVE McWane Center.

Old Baker Farm Pumpkin Patch

My parents came down and we enjoyed a day at the Pumpkin Patch. 

Hay Mountain

It was cowboy day so they had a shootout.  Z loved having the best seat in the house and the show was pretty cool and very loud!

After it was over, E went around searching all over the ground for the used up shells to keep as momentos.  He collected enough to share with his brothers and willinging offered them each one!