WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!?

So, we took a break from school and blogging and generally thinking too hard this summer. But, now we are back to school...and maybe back to thinking too hard. :)

For inquiring minds (and my personal record), here's what we are doing with our school year:

Language:
Evan is using a reading a variety of great literature, First Language Lessons, and Writing Strands, and Sequential Spelling.
Nicholas is reading a variety of great literature, First Language Lessons, and Writing With Ease,
and Spelling Workout.
Both will enjoy the Read Alouds through Sonlight.

Math:
Both are starting out with some major math drill in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
When I feel like they have their basic facts mastered, we'll continue on with Singapore Math. Evan is at level 4B and Nicholas is at level 2B.

History:
We are spending our year in Medieval History in the Early Renaissance period from 400-1600.
We'll be reading some Shakespeare for kids, a kids version of the Canterbury tales, the Knights of the Round Table, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight among other things.
We are also focusing on mastering basic geography and geographical terms.

Science:
Evan is taking part in a co-op this year, learning Earth Science including space and weather.
Nicholas will be learning about Earth Science at home with lots of cool books and experiments.

Art:
Evan will be taking Art History and Technique at the co-op.
Nicholas will be using an art program called, "Artistic Pursuits."

Music:
Both boys are beginning piano lessons and basic music theory

Other stuff:
We are reading through the Bible each day and reading some fascinating stories in a book called, "Window on the World," about people around the world whose needs are not being met either spiritually or physically. We hope to put our knowledge and prayer into action in tangible service this year.
Evan will be in baseball this fall.
Nicholas will be in Tae Kwon Do.
Both will participate in a hiking co-op and monthly park day through the local homeschool group.

And what are the parents learning this year?

Jon is studying for the recertification test for his CCIE and pursuing another Cisco certification in the meantime. Ask him about it if you are interested in a highly technical conversation. :)
He's also continuing his guitar lessons.

I am working on my recertification as a doula through DONA.
I am also working on relearning the piano, one Green Day song at a time :)

Both of us are trying to train for a 10K in October. It will be the first race we will run together. We also continue to work on our rock climbing skills every Saturday.

Most importantly, we seek to build stronger community with the people around us, our "family" in Nicaragua, and the people we don't know yet. It is our intention to serve more, hang out with people more (dinner party anyone?), and become engaged more deeply in others' spiritual journeys.

Mother's Day

Mother's day was a beautiful day. I was grateful to be able to celebrate the blessings God has given me in my three children. Through them, God has grown me in patience, selflessness, true joy, grace, forgiveness, and unconditional love. The kids made me cards and gave me new poles and a water filter for hiking. Now, I can really begin to train well for the 22-mile hike in Hawaii next summer....thus the reason I am carrying the baby on Mother's Day :)

We enjoyed a great hike at Raven's Rock on the Appalachian Trail. Here are some photos:

Big Truck Day

We checked out all of the city vehicles (sweepers, pavers, bobcats, recycling trucks, police cars, snow plows, diggers, and more) at the Herndon Big Trucks Day. Here are some photos from the day:

How Good Is Your Memory?

This week, we are talking about our senses. Today, we read about the nervous system. First we did a little memory experiment. The boys had two minutes to look at the tray below. I covered it, then they wrote down everything they could remember. Afterwards, we discussed strategies for helping our memory work more effectively.



Give yourself two minutes to study the picture below. Now close the window. How many objects did you remember?

Coloring Inside the Lines

Some might say coloring inside the lines is boring and limits one's creative spirit. While it is not exactly a necessary life skill to be able to color inside of lines, I had to post about Nicholas' coloring progression. Last year at this time, this sweet red-haired child of mine would whimper at the mention of a crayon, a "craft" project, writing task, or anything else which used his fine motor skills. Last week, in his free time, without prompting, he pulled a coloring book out of the drawer actually used it. When I looked at his work, I was stunned. Was this my child? Seriously. He colored the entire page....and inside the lines. That is what I call progress.

I'm All Ears

Nicholas: I figured out how you can clean your ears.

Mom and Dad (thinking this will be good): Really, how?

Nicholas: Just put a thread on a needle with a kleenex and put it through one year and then pull it out the other.

Dad: There's just one problem with that, Nicholas. Your brain is in between your ears and it's not good for needles to go into your brain.

Nicholas: Oh.

Uncle Brent, what do you think? Have you ever used a kleenex on the end of a needle and thread on a patient?

Naked Sister (and brother) Band

I've been meaning to post this pic for a little while now. Today I finally have some time. Evan is learning the recorder this year. Sarah has found an interest in joining him. To prevent injury, the Easter bunny brought her a baby-size version of the recorder so that she can "practice" too. The picture is of her joining Evan with my recorder.

What is a spine? (Evan's post)

We are learning about the human body. Today, we made a model of a spine. There are 26 bones (cheerios) and 25 pieces of cartilage (blue paper) between the bones which protect the bones from rubbing into each other. Your spinal cord is protected by your vertebrae, like your brain is protected by your skull.

Suess Goose (story by Evan)

This is a story about Suess Goose and his "migration vacation."



One cold autumn day in Canada, there lived a goose. His name was Goose Suess. Suess for short. He was going to migrate in two days because it was getting colder every day.
On the day of the migration, it was exactly 32 F, freezing point. It was so cold the grass was frosted and white. Suess and his friends were about to leave when, "BOOM!" a rumble of thunder came. "Uh-oh," thought Suess. "We better get out of here before we get struck by lightning!"
Suess and his friends zoomed through the air. Then, lightning struck! It was exactly one mile away and Suess could feel its heat. "Go, go, go!" he shouted. Next it started pouring rain.
Finally, the geese made it to Minnesota, where they would stop for a snack. They stopped at Lake Minnetonka to catch some bass. When they were done eating, they flew off. Their next destination was Mexico.
They made it to Mexico City the next morning. They were very tired, so they stopped at Embageese Suites to rest. When Suess woke up, it was 7:00 a.m. in the morning. "Rise and shine!" he said. His friends barely woke up. "We have a long day ahead of us," said Suess.
They were at the beach in record time, swimming in their swim trunks and having lots of fun. They swam and tanned and were flying back home in an hour. By the time they reached Minnesota again they were sweating like donkeys. They got a drink, had a snack, and before they knew it they were home.

It's All Greek To Me (post by Evan)

My brother and I have been learning about the Greeks and my, have we learned a lot! Some of our government ideas came from them. The style of columns on the Abe Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol building, and the National Building Museum all are from the Greeks. The word "marathon" comes from a man who had to run 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to tell them they beat the Persians. But unfortunately the man died because he had run to Sparta the day before and didn't rest in between. The Parthenon was a temple where they worshiped their goddess, Athena, which is how Athens got its name.

Is there any thing else you'd like to know about the Greeks?

Hello? Who's There?

Today, we spent some time learning how to properly answer the phone and respond to a caller's inquiries. I used my cell phone to call the home phone and the boys took turns "answering" the phone. Here's how it was supposed to go:

Boy: Hello?
Me: Hi, is your mom there?
Boy: May I ask who is calling please?
Me: Jim Jenkins
Boy: Just one moment please. (tell me who is on the phone and ask if I can speak)
She is not available at the moment, may I have her call you back?
Me: Yes, please have her call me at: 800.888.8888
Boy: (wait to hang up until the other person has hung up the phone)

Then, we switched it up some to try to throw them off. Here's what I got after a few rounds:

Nicholas: Hello?
Me: Hi, who am I speaking with?
Nicholas: (giggle and look of mischief) Abe Lincoln

Nice.

National Building Museum

Field Trip Week included a trip to the National Building Museum. We spent a couple of hours in the construction room, where there were a variety of building materials for the kids to use. Unfortunately, the Cherry Blossom 10K expo was set up in their main area, so many of the usual hands-on exhibits for older kids were not available. We look forward to returning soon. Here are some photos of the busy builders:

GRACE (Greater Reston Arts Center)

One of the places we've been eagerly waiting to visit this year is the GRACE center. They moved it to Reston Town Center into a beautiful, loft-like space with a lot of light. We saw an exhibit by local high school kids on "Roots." After looking at their work, Evan and Nicholas each had an "art bucket," full of supplies to create their own art inspired by the exhibit. While they worked diligently at their art, I chased the girl all over the museum. She made her mark on the "Collaberative Art" wall.

Evan's finished work








Nicholas' finished work






Sarah

Naturalist Museum

We are having a sort of "catch up/field trip" week this week. We have some work to finish from previous weeks, some areas of study we wanted to explore more fully, and many field trip locations in the area to explore. So, we took a week to accomplish some of those things. Yesterday, we spent some time at the Smithsonian Naturalist Museum. This is one of the best educational museums I've been to anywhere and it's 15 minutes from our house, in Leesburg! While here, we looked at a full-size grizzly bear skin (see photos), classified spiders and insects, learned about microscopic insects which live on animals (rabies, scabies, fleas, oh my), searched for arthropod homes amongst a huge pile of shells, and learned about quartz and jasper. That was in an hour and a half. Whew.

Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit

We have just started a unit on plants. To get us started, we grew bean seeds in the windowsill inside of wet paper towels in baggies. The boys made observations each day for ten days. Here's what we saw:

We were able to grow it from a simple seed to a plant with roots, stem, and leaves.













Part two of this project is planting the seeds in soil. We'll keep you posted.

Aquiary

Yesterday, we went here to the Loudoun County Aquiary. Follow the link to learn more. We learned a lot about how our water sanitation facility works, how much water people use, what kinds of household chemicals should not go down our drains, and how valuable water is around the world. Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Here, the boys are guessing how much water it takes to do everyday tasks such as flushing a toilet, taking a shower, watering your yard. Once they guessed, they were able to press a button in the sink and the correct amount of gallons would light up on the shower door. Very cool.





At this exhibit, the boys learned how
valuable it is to have a clean water source and readily available water. They are trying to lift these buckets filled with water, which are commonly carried for miles by children all around the world. As you can see, they found it quite difficult and were thankful for faucets in their house to get clean, fresh water.

Where Have You Been?

Wow. It's been a long time since our last post. If you are still reading this, thanks for standing by. Here's what we have been up to the last couple of months:

Evan's hypothesizing Nicholas' hypotheses'
Light! We learned about light, including what makes something transparent, translucent, or opaque. We performed a light experiment with various objects. Both boys only had one wrong hypotheses. They thought that red paper would be opaque. In fact, we learned it is translucent, as are many different colored construction papers.

D.C. with family! Uncle Pat and Aunt Michelle came to visit. Jon took the day off work, and we enjoyed some first views of cherry blossoms. We also did the monument loop, which we always enjoy, especially when it's 65 and sunny.
Michelle and Pat

Magnets and Compasses

We've been experimenting with magnets for a few weeks. Yesterday, the boys learned how to make their own compass.

The Water Cycle

Today we learned about the water cycle. Here is their work in their own words and pictures.

Nicholas:




















Evan:

A Beach Poem

A Day At the Beach
By: Nicholas

Anyon a day at the beach
All beach cars waiting.
All beach toys fun,
and all beach snacks
also waiting.
So have a fun time at the beach!

The Trojan War

We're reading a lot of Greek myths around here lately. We also read about the Trojan War. It was a nice trip down memory lane (AP English anyone?) for me. The boys drew pictures of the Trojan horse outside the wall of the city and also made a Trojan horse out of legos. I didn't get pictures before the lego horse was remade into a ship. When Jon got home, the boys were telling him the story of the Trojan horse and they asked if it was true. Their history book, "A Child's History of the World," called the chapter, "The Fairy-Tale War." I always believed it was a myth, but Jon was sure it was historical. The kids love a "battle of the parents" research party. This time, we learned that the historical reality of the Trojan War is inconclusive. Here is a portion of what we read on Wikipedia:

"The Ancient Greeks thought the Trojan War was a historical event that had taken place in the 13th or 12th century BC, and believed that Troy was located in modern day Turkey near the Dardanelles. By modern times both the war and the city were widely believed to be non-historical. In 1870, however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a site in this area which he identified as Troy; this claim is now accepted by most scholars.^{[1][citation needed]} Whether there is any historical reality behind the Trojan War is an open question. Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age. Those who believe that the stories of the Trojan War derive from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the 12th or 11th centuries BC, often preferring the dates given by Eratosthenes, 1194–1184 BC, which roughly corresponds with archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Troy VIIa.^[2]"
(Wikipedia entry)