Most people see this holiday as a reason to BBQ and have an extra long weekend to relax. Memorial Day is actually day for remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.How many people took the time to do this?
On Sunday I took my children to my Grandfathers gravestone to make sure he had a flag. He did not die during battle but he was a member of the Navy and fought in WWII. While we were looking around the graveyard we found another person who fought in WWII so Falcon chose to put a flag on his as well.
Fallen but not forgotten.
This picture does not show what an amazing site it was to see. There was a large tree throwing shadows over all the graves. The only grave that had sun shining on it was this one, it also happened to be the only solider in the area. It was truly breathtaking!
We went to another cemetery on Monday to watch a memorial service for fallen solders and a dedication was also made for a solider who was KIA during the Vietnam war but his body was never able to be recovered. It was quite the tear jerker.
It was quite a moving day and I was glad to have my kids there understanding the sacrifice men have made for our country
My little ones saw a baby rabbit at Grandmas last weekend, they were so excited about it that I decided to theme next weeks school work around rabbits.
We read the many adventures of Peter Rabbit and I was excited to find a Beginning reader book on rabbits for Robin.
While I read the story I gave them pictures of Peter Rabbit to color.
We read a few garden theme books.
Of course we made some home made gluten free bread and slathered it with warm butter and blackberry jam just like treat Peter Rabbit was unable to eat in the story.
It was so yummy!
Duck is showing more and more interest in school which is so exciting for me since has has been very resistant. He had a lot of fun this week participating in school stuff he even worked on a whole book of wipe off mazes and did awesome at holding his crayon correctly, Proud mama Bird whose little one is getting stronger wings to fly.
Scary moment of the week. I was taking a walk with the puppy and the 4 kids when out of nowhere I almost passed out. I have always had really low blood pressure and have a condition known as Neurocardiogenic Syncope. Passing out is not uncommon for me but I usually have a bit of warning and can sit down to try and prevent it but this time was very different. I was just standing in the neighborhood secret garden with my kids and felt like the whole world just tipped on its side and I started side stepping about 4 times to catch myself.
Had an EKG at the docs and a lung capacity tests more bloodwork to be done and a few other things I just want to make sure its just the Neurocardiogenic Syncope. not something else going on. A friend of mine was just recently diagnosed with Hasimoto's disease
Owl got a tick in his head and I was super grossed out. It was the first time I had ever seen a tick and wasn't sure how to get it out.
It's been a very busy 2 weeks so I haven't been blogging much nor taking many picture of what we have been doing.
Falcon has had 2 Taekwondo tournaments in different states that we had drive a long way to get to. These were the first tournament we have done.
At the first tournament He won 1st Place in sparring and 3rd in Forms
Falcon is in blue his kick to the chest was so hard it sent the other kid flying backward on his butt, you can see the kid just tipping backward ready to fall.
The second tournament was very big and he won 2nd place in sparring and didn't place in forms (he was 4th out of 12 kids) he only lost first place by .4 points that's how close it was! This tournament was a 7 hour drive round trip plus the 9 hour tournament = one very long day but all my littles ages 2,4,and 6 did very very well. They really enjoyed watching the Hapkido demonstrations.
Here's a youtube video I found. I got some great video from our event but just haven't uploaded them yet maybe I will get to that next week. Robin, Duck and Owl were so impressed that these kids were jumping over beams taller than them with no spring board, it was AWESOME!
We have one more tournament next weekend to finish out the spring season!
WE have done a lot of nature studies these past 2 weeks and the littles can all recognize a Robin and a Morning Dove by sound when outside.
Robin worked on some projects for our American girl study on Kirsten. She drew pictures of the Meadowlark, Black eyed Susan and Daisies. Kirsten spotted these while walking to Olav's farm. We also researched Cholera since Kirsten's friend died on the boat from it. We also did some candle dipping at our AG club with natural beewax.
We met up with some friends at the park and enjoyed having it all to ourselves.
Robin memorized her first poem this week and recited it in front of all her friend at our American Girl Club Caterpiller by Christina G. Rosetti. Falcon just started working on memorizing his 4th poem of the school year O Captian! My Captian!
Falcon has been working through a new Science book which is time consuming on my part because It does not have an answer key so I need to look up the answers myself as well. Most of it is a good review from biology in college but I still need to look up answers to be sure we are both right.
I am reading....
I am on book 3 I just read that a fourth book will be coming out in November and that they are making this book into a movie as well. It is another teen series and is a mix the Twilight Saga and Hunger Games all rolled into one but set in India. I really would give to much of all the books way if I was to explain the similarities, but they are really good books.
Who doesnt love Cake and ice cream? WE read some great books made some fun crafts and of course made some delicous treats.
You scream I scream everybody screams for Ice cream! Pom pom ice cream craft.
Gail Gibbions is always a favorite of mine.
Paleo Chocolate ice from Civilized Caveman (There are some awesome recipes on his site weather you eat Paleo or not!) Ingredients: 1 Can Coconut Milk, refrigerated 14 ounces 1/4 Cup Raw Organic Honey 2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder 1 Tsp Vanilla
Process: 1.Place your cold coconut milk, honey, vanilla, and cacao powder in a blender and mix well 2.Place your frozen bowl for your ice cream maker in the machine and start it, immediately pour your coconut milk in and let the process begin 3.It will take anywhere from 10-20 minutes, keeping your ingredients cold helps it set faster 4.Once done, transfer your ice cream to another bowl and place in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour to help set it more
One of our favorite stories. Great story of a frog baking a cake and things just keep going wrong.
This is me when I was 2! My grandfather made this for me for Christmas that year out of all scrap wood he had laying around. I LOVED this crib and played with it my entire childhood. I have been hanging on to it for many years waiting to fix it up and give it to my own little girl. Well that time finally came when my daughter saw the poor beat up crib the the basement not long ago and asked about it. She asked me if she could have it so we went to the paint store and she picked out "mixed Berries" by Behr paint and I said I would fix it up for her someday soon. (She had no idea I was going to fix it up for her birthday.)
Here is another picture of me, the crib is in the back at the far left with my new baby doll in it. Not a great picture but you get the point!
Side view
Side view
Top view, I used paint stirring sticks to make the slats on the top of the crib that were broken off.
Here I am sanding down the decals that were on it, they were soft and fuzzy so I needed them sanded down to paint over them.
Side view, I replaced the knobs on the drawer, and added new felt to line the inside of the drawer as well. Instead of Decals I used stencils ( which are a lot harder to use that I thought. I mixed light pink paint with fine glitter to add sparkle and texture to the stencil work.
Side view, I did not plan to only use pink glitter paint for the stencils but I found the stenciling was much easier with the paint thickend up by the glitter, so I just went with it.
Back view
Action shot of Robin's favorite dolls. It brings me such joy to see my daughter play with something that was made by love from both her great grandfather and now her mother. I hope this brings her as much happiness as it did for me when I was a little girl.
. Its a lot of fun you have to learn all about the country in order to solve the who done it crime.
Robin worked on learning about the Blue Footed Booby and the striped Snapper fish.
Owl Duck worked on learning more about Bananas Ecuador's major export Banana Facts Owl loves glue! We had nothing to glue on the page but he insited on putting glue all over his page after he colored it! •Did you know there are ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that depict people with bananas? •Bananas have been around as early back as 6th century B.C. (this is when they were first mentioned in literature) •Did you know there is a museum in Auburn, Washington dedicated to bananas? It's called the Washington Banana Museum. •The banana plant reaches its full height of 15 to 30 feet in about one year. The trunk of a banana plant is made of sheaths of tightly overlapping leaves. •Did you know bananas, apples & watermelons float in water? •You can use the inside of a banana peel to polish patent leather shoes. •The average American eats 27 pounds of bananas each year! •Bananas don't grow on trees. They're actually a giant herb. •Bananas are one of the few foods to contain the 6 major vitamin groups. •If you peel a banana from the bottom up you won't get the string things. •Those stringy things are called phloem (pronounced FLOM). •The word banana comes from an Arab word “banan” meaning finger. •An individual banana is called a finger. A bunch of bananas is called a hand. •The scientific name for banana is musa sapientum, which mean fruit of the wise men. •Bananas are a very rich source of vitamin B6, which your brain needs to function properly and make you wise. The facts above came from the Chiquita Banana website
National poetry month.
Falcon worked on writing a poem Robin wrote this :
There was a little cat She was very flat She liked to eat mice They weigh more than dice.
We read many poems and and looked for rhyming words. Falcon just finished memorizing The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. This makes his third poem he has memorized this school year.
A favorite poem in our family is: The Highwayman By Alfred Noyes Our whole family loves hearing Loreeana Mckennitt sing it.
Math Falcon is almost through with Teaching Textbooks pre-algebra(I couldn't homschool without it!) Robin is working her way through Calvert Math grade 1
Science Falcon is working through a unit on cells, and DNA we will be working on this for at least the next 6 weeks.
Nature studies We went on a few walks at one of our favorite parks we walked/ran a few trails then played at the playground. Falcon was very proud of hoping from rock to rock to make it to this one. Enjoying the the view. Shot Falcon took of Robin, Our mastiff puppy and I walking ahead of the others on one of the boardwalk trails. Check out a great nature book we read
I am reading
Exciting Goodwill finds of the week: I found this Mickey Mouse sticker box for .75 cents. I knew Owl would love it, he loves Mickey Mouse and to top it off it was FULL of assorted stickers which is his second love. He spent 90 minutes from the moment we got home making his masterpiece and we still have a TON of stickers left. Totally worth .75 cents. His Beautiful masterpiece.
I found this game for the computer and it brought back a ton of memories because Falcon played this all the time when he was little.
Taekwondo Falcon has his first tournament this weekend and is scared out of him mind. I am just as scared for him though!
A great book all about finding patterns to things we see in everyday life.
Working on making pattterns with our snack after we read the book.
We took quite a few nature walks this week and collected natural items to make fun patterns with ( I never had my camera around to snap pictures) This one Owl did all on his own after our homeschool geography event when the kids were playing outside.
