Collage Friday - Being Chivalrous and Creative

I love Collage Friday -- last week a record 21 homeschool bloggers shared their weeks here! This week marks the ninth edition of Collage Friday.  I enjoy documenting our homeschool weeks this way.  I'm thinking of doing something special for the TENTH EDITION next week - stay tuned!    
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The week FLEW away from us.   After a few busy weeks I designed this week so that we would just be at home each day.   It allowed for a lot of creativity and free time.  

My favorite thing this week was learning about chivalry in The Story of the World.  GMan has been "chivalrous" all week - opening doors and doing good deeds for "the ladies".  It's very cute!   

Miss B has started making collages with her iTouch!  She loves using Pic Collage.   One afternoon she took a downed Bradford Pear branch and used it blossoms to decorate the swing set.  

Last Friday we took a tour of Turner Field in Atlanta - home of the Atlanta Braves.   My little guy is a baseball NUT.   This field trip was a dream come true for him.   His favorite thing was sitting in the announcers' box... 

We also learned you could buy a Sun Trust box seat for $20,000 a season.   No big deal, right?

The stadium is very close to my husband's office downtown, so he was able to join us.   I think he's equally as obsessed about baseball as his son!

A lot of time was spent with math each day.   I found a great idea (via Pinterest) with graphing the area of a roll of the dice.   We played this game several days, working to see who could fill up their paper first.    It's a great game to reinforce the concept of area and review times tables. OH -- and have you seen LEGO GEOMETRY??  I just found this and we'll be trying it soon, too! 

I ordered some new grammar story books which the kids REALLY like.   Easy Grammar is just getting to be DULL and I am questioning the validity of so much drill and repetition.  We are making a little change for now.    

We also went to vote on Super Tuesday, and read a few books about voting. 

  

Each spring there is a piano competition called Federation.  I always enter a group of my students, and Miss B has entered for the past four years through her own piano teacher.  Federation is in just a week, and there has been A LOT of practicing in my house.   My daughter is playing one piece that is particularly challenging to her - but she has risen to the occasion and it's sounding so good!    I LOVE hearing her play piano - and I love that she enjoys spending time at the piano just for FUN.

Our nature study this week was about the Bradford Pear.  We found a downed branch on a nature walk and brought it home.  After research and examination we learned that this tree is beautiful but STINKY.    Basically, the blooms smell like rotting fish.   We also learned this tree is native to China and Vietnam and was introduced to the US in 1963.  

As I mentioned before - lots of time was spent creating and outdoors this week.  The kids love to be in the backyard listening to music, swinging, exploring our woods, and (recently) a certain little boy loves to practice his Samurai sword skills.   I have a vantage from the deck and can watch them from the kitchen or while I'm reading a book - perfect.

Finally - I wanted to share my sweet boy's heart with you.  We have a friend at co op who had knee surgery yesterday.  My daughter made her a beautiful card, and GMan included the entire 23rd Psalm, which he copied all by himself.  

Other odds and ends from the week include:

 ~ learning about Alexander Graham Bell via this documentary on Biography (my favorite resource this week!)

~ lots and lots of silent reading by my children - I detailed all of that here.

~ continuing our unit study of Louis Pasteur

~ a day spent with horses and friends for Miss B - friends of ours from church just bought a farm not far from our house.   Miss B spent an afternoon mucking stalls and WORKING.  She loved it! 

~ a new dishwasher (hooray!!) - my kids know what decibels are and how to price shop!

~ I am LOVING Plan to Eat -- if you haven't investigated this online meal planning, recipe importer, and list generator, PLEASE DO!  (You can sign up for a month free trial, so why not?) I can't imagine planning our weekly meals without it.

~ a tea party in the co op class I help teach - it was a birthday party for a 14 year old girl.  We all brought our favorite tea cup and home made goodies.   

~ a baseball practice and a trip to the batting cages - opening day is Saturday! 

~ me agonizing over whether or not to further investigate a classical homeschool (one day a week) program in our area.  It has a fabulous reputation and is quite rigorous.   I had been thinking this was the way to go with my children, but this week I think I'm finally at peace with the fact that I like designing their curriculum and still want to remain UNACCOUNTABLE to anyone else right now.   I feel like we are on a good path, and that sense of WONDER is there in my children.  

How was your week?  Feel free to link it up with a collage!    

Make sure to link back to this post in some way, and please visit some of the other bloggers on the list, too - we can gain so many ideas this way!  

Collage Friday - STINK! and Too Much Rain

Welcome to Collage Friday!   
This week was truly a "homeschool collage" for us.   We touched on every subject area and will end the week with a homeschool day at Turner Field (home of the Atlanta Braves).  We are HUGE baseball fans, so we are all looking forward to this.  

There was A LOT of reading going on this week.   GMan discovered the Stink books - you know Stink, right?  He's Judy Moody's younger brother.   I was very impressed with these books, and G read two of them this week.  My favorite thing in the second book was the glow in the dark bacon and egg pajamas!  No wonder my son couldn't put them down.  (I also just discovered a discussion guide to go with the first book, and it's really good - putting that on the "to do" list for next week!)
Miss B finished Saddles, Stars and Stripes: Chance of a Lifetime.  I'm not sure she LOVED it, but she read it and said it was pretty good.  I'm still struggling to find books for her to sink her teeth into that AREN'T Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.  She has read those books several times each.  

I am almost finished reading Kisses from Katie.  All I can say about this book is GO GET IT AND READ IT NOW!  

 
Yes, that would be my crockpot buckled into my van.   I had to cook for co op this week -- every mom is responsible for bringing food one week, so this week I made Paula Deen's Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese and Squash Casserole (the theme for lunch was Southern Cooking).    I wanted to make SURE the food stayed in place on the drive to co-op, and GMan suggested I just buckle it in.  Clever boy.  

1.  It rained this week in Georgia.  A LOT.   I'm glad I have cute rain boots.  That's the only good thing about so much rain.

2.  Miss B and I made a very productive trip to IKEA.   Did you read how this little trip and a cupcake pulled me from the homeschool abyss.   Maybe you can relate? 
3.  My daughter is still responsible for one meal each week.  This week it was VERY simple, but she learned how to put it all together from start to finish:  grilled ham and cheese, fresh fruit, and chips.  This is one of those "clean out the frig" meals for our family.   She was a little intimidated by the griddle, but she got used to it.
4.  GMan was VERY excited to begin learning cursive.  Right now I'm just using some basic printables from Donna Young's site.  That is working well.  I may switch to Handwriting Without Tears (I used this for Miss B), but for now I'm going to try and save some money and piece my own handwriting curriculum together.  Donna Young's whole site is full of great resources -- it wins my Favorite Resource This Week - thanks, Susan for hosting this linky each week!!  
5.  Our sweet dog, Gizmo, had a seizure Thursday morning.  It came out of the blue and really scared me.  Miss B is VERY close to Gizmo.   (He came to us right when we took her out of school -- kind of like her first homeschooling friend.)   She laid with him most of the morning to make sure he was going to be ok.   Needless to say, a vet appointment has been made. 
6.  GMan saw this quote from MLK when we were downtown Monday.   "Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve."   I love that he pointed it out to me, and we all had a good discussion about what it meant.   We've been learning a lot about MLK recently and I'm so happy to see them understanding what he stood for.  
7.  We have been reading The Railway Children aloud from the iPad.  The book itself is a free download in the Kindle store.  I love that I can highlight quotes and use the dictionary with a tap of my finger.  This quote really struck me this week:  

Grown up people, even Mothers, often make remarks that don't seem to mean anything in particular, just for the sake of saying something, seemingly.    

Guilty.as.charged.    
8.  Both children made good progress in math this week.  I'm not above a little bribery, either.  They each have a favorite candy (G's is the Lego bricks pictured above) which I will let them snack on as long as they are focused during their math lesson.  It seems to work.  Somehow gummy worms take the edge off of reducing fractions!  
9.  Maple Bacon Yogurt - my new favorite - and I'm not kidding.   
How's that for a collage of a week?
I'd love for you to join me this week!  Feel free to link up your collage from this past week's activities.  Make sure you grab the button from my sidebar and use it in your post or your sidebar, or link back to my blog in some way.   I think Collage Friday is getting to be a great resource for some homeschool bloggers and that makes me very happy!

Collage Friday - Field Trip!

This week has been one of preparing for Lent, spending a lot of time with math, getting to know about several Presidents, and also taking a special field trip.  Most of our reading centered around Presidents.  We read a biography of John F. Kennedy and also one of George Washington.  We still have Lincoln's to finish next week.   The "Who Was..... ?" series is my Favorite Resource This Week!  (I found them on sale at Sam's Club - 2 for $5!)

Most of the local school children are on "winter break", which means it's a perfect time for us to be doing school! We will take a two week break at the end of March, so we are going full steam ahead right now.  This time of the year is typically hard, and this year is no exception.  Our homeschool is busy, my husband's job is exceedingly busy, and it seems as if everyone is overwhelmed.  I am trying to say NO a lot and make plenty of time for play and rest.  

I had a Mission of Motherhood bookclub meeting this week, too - this group of homeschool moms has been such an encouragement to me. I feel blessed beyond measure to live in an area where there is such support for homeschooling. It's very nice to spend a couple of hours with like minded moms, talking about training our children for Christ.   

I have to thank Nicole, from Journey to Excellence, for blogging about Pic Collage - an app for iPad that makes creating collages a SNAP! (IT'S FREE!)   I made three fun collages today in about 15 minutes. So, if you're an iPad user this is a good way to join Collage Friday. If not, using PhotoBucket still works wonders.

Does anyone have any other ways to make collages I don't know about?

Now for the collages... I had fun making them this week! I chose to just highlight our field trip to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Little White House, since it was by far our FAVORITE activity this week!

The weather was 75 and sunny (it's February!!) and we were basically the only people at The Little White House. This allowed us a lot of time to talk with the tour guides and hear interesting stories. Most of these people have lived near Warm Springs their entire lives and have great stories to tell.

The Little White House (in Warm Springs, GA - about an hour from where we live) is truly "little". What made this trip special was hearing from Granddaddy (my husband's father) before we left. He told the children about how he remembers seeing FDR (my father-in-law was born in 1933) driving his car and stopping to talk with people. Granddaddy grew up in rural Alabama, not far from the Little White House. What a neat memory.

After touring The Little White House and the museum we could just about picture what my father-in-law had seen. I was so impressed with what a "people's President" FDR was and his sympathy and concern for the poor of this country.  Several exhibits focused on The New Deal and his innovations for a country pulling out of the Great Depression.  

His love of children (especially children stricken by Polio) was quite obvious, too. We also saw footage of him playing water polo in the pool at Warm Springs with many children - we heard he loved the children there and many of them didn't even realize he was the President of the United States!

The museum before you visit the house is very interesting:

1. GMan posing outside the museum

2. FDR's favorite car - we also got to see how the car had been specially designed (by FDR himself) with hand controls.

3. Lots of information about FDR's life in Georgia - as America was trying to pull itself out of the Depression, FDR being in Georgia put him in touch with common Americans. He was shocked at the lack of education, training, and money.

4. The timeline as you enter the museum is well done and informative. Since Miss B is taking a President's class at our co-op she was very interested in this.

5. You could feel the WARM springs temperature (on the left) and the normal springs temperature (on the right). FDR found much relief in the warm springs here in Georgia. There is still an extensive therapy/rehab center in Warm Springs today.

6. Simulating "Fireside Chats" - how cool is that?

7. The children counted the canes FDR received as gifts over the years - over 100 in all. They were all hand carved and beautiful examples of American folk art. This was my favorite part of the day.

The Flag Walk was also very interesting. I hope you can see that there were 50 flags on this path. For each state there was a sampling of stone from that state, along with a plaque containing the state emblem and date of statehood.

This was just PERFECT for our 50 states study. The kids were so excited to go from state to state and recognize shapes, mottos, and feel the stones. I think Hawaii (the upper right - volcanic ash) was their favorite.

I want to close with two pictures that have a lot of meaning for us. The first is from the very end of the tour... this man, so obviously distraught after FDR's passing, made an impression on us.  As we stood looking at this photo, my sweet G put his arm around me and told me his "eyes felt wet".  

The second is the unfinished portrait of FDR. He had a stroke at The Little White House while he was sitting for a portrait... he died that same day and the portrait was packed away and never finished. I think it's amazing.  Miss B said this was her favorite thing of the day.  

How was your week? I'd love for you to leave a comment and/or link a collage. Reading these collages over the weekend gives me so many ideas for our homeschool. Please be sure to grab the button from my sidebar and use it somewhere in your post or on your blog. Also - visit some other blogs in the linky and leave them a comment!


*** I have updated the button code for Collage Friday so that it now points to my Collage Friday page on the top menu.  Please grab the new button code if you'd like!! ***

Have a wonderful weekend!