What a Winter!

It really has been a surprisingly active winter when it comes to the weather. This last storm gave us another 3 inches of very heavy, wet snow and sleet followed by 1/4" to 1/2" of ice. Unfortunately, because it was so wet plus the ice, it was no good for going out to play in. and to make matters muddier, it got up into the 60s the very next day, turning everything to a wet mush. All-in-all, It has been the worst of the 3 storms we've gotten this winter. As of this writing, 5 days after the storm hit, there are still people without power. Friends of ours only got power back this evening. There are trees and limbs down everywhere in the city.

 Somehow, despite the poplars in our yard shedding small branches constantly, we never had a major limb fall or our power go out. Our precious dogwood was sagging miserably under the weight of the ice, but didn't lose so much as a twig.

It was quite beautiful, though...

I did have a close call, though. Rebecca had worked a partial shift the night that the storm hit and so drove home at 5:30 in the morning. Unsurprisingly, she couldn't get the car up our steep driveway, so she parked it at the bottom. Later that day, our neighbor called me to tell me that a huge limb had snapped about 60 feet up in a pine tree and it was hanging over our car. Not being a fool, I quickly went out and moved the car out onto the road. I thanked the neighbor and went inside. About 15 minutes later, Olivia came down from the schoolroom asking if I had heard the big crash. I hadn't, so I went outside to look and, sure enough, the limb had come down. But it didn't come alone... It took out 3 or 4 large limbs and came down in a heap right were the car had been.

A second period of entertainment came that night when it got really cold. I happened to be looking out the front window at about 9:00pm when the power line for the street lights across the street suddenly snapped, sending out an impressive array of sparks. However, it didn't end there. The wires on the ground started sparking and burning. To my amazement, it burned its way along the ground and up the pole, arcing and flashing like someone welding. 

It was quite impressive. I called 9-1-1 and reported the fire, but the firemen said there was nothing they could do unless Duke Energy cut the power to the line. Instead, they put caution tape across the road on either side of our house and left it to burn. And it did... All the way up the pole until it reached the light where the wires separated and stopped it from burning further.

Let the Games Begin

One of the things Olivia is learning this year is how to play chess. She took to it rather quickly. She understands the moves and is able to puzzle out some reasonable strategies. 

She and I have played several times and, while 98% of chess players would beat me in their sleep, it's sometimes hard not to  just run the board. To give her a little more confidence, I let her teach Gabe how to play. She usually beats him rather handily, though that's often because her "advice" to him is a move which will benefit her. So what I'll do is let Gabe play until she gets him in Check and then take over for him, which puts me at a pretty steep disadvantage. Most of the time, when I come in, he's down to a knight, a bishop and 2 or 3 pawns. About half the time, I can beat her with that. :) You may notice a Connect 4 game set up next to them. That would be Ezra's favorite thing right now. He and Gabe don't know how to really play it, but they like filling the board up and letting them all our in a big rush of chips.

For the times when everyone wants to play a game, Rebecca picked up Hungry Hungry Hippo  at a consignment sale. I vividly remember this game as a kid and am so glad to see that it's still around. It's a game that all 4 of the "mobile" kids can play and have great time at it. It's a much noisier game than I remember, but it's hilarious to see them all pounding away on it. Gabe, in particular, sets himself a "goal" number of marbles to eat and gets very excited when he reaches it. I think next on my nostalgic games is Trouble...

Speaking of games, we don't have cable TV anymore, so when the Winter Olympics started, I was at a bit of a loss about how we could watch them I considered buying an antenna and hooking it to the TV, but in the end discovered that NBC's live and recorded streaming was easier, cheaper and (I've heard) better than their actual TV coverage. I hooked our main computer up to the living room TV and it was really nice to be able to watch an event from beginning to end without them cutting away to another event or a dull interview that we care nothing about. As far as events go, the boys would say their favorites were the bobsleds and luge. Unsurprisingly, Olivia's was figure skating, just like her mom. I would have to say that my favorite was the ski- and snowboard-cross events. They were fast-paced and unpredictable making it very interesting to watch. Even Irene got into watching the Games. She doesn't often snuggle, but one evening, she settled down to watch figure skating with her mama. 

Irene's hands make it look like she's seriously contemplating a skater's performance.

So thoughtful at such a young age.

A Meal at the Inn

With Olivia studying about the Middle Ages, we decided to have a meal like travelers would have eaten at an inn in medieval England. I played the part of the innkeeper and served them a traditional shepherd's pie and mugs of ale. Well, it was actually cider, since I personally don't like ales. The kids were not impressed with the cider, only taking a sip each.

 As I served them their meals and drinks, I told them about life at the inn and in the surrounding town. They heard about how the well water wasn't exactly safe to drink, so ale or wine was the preferred beverage. They learned that a shepherd's pie is traditionally made with mutton or lamb because sheep were very plentiful in the English countryside.

It's hard to tell because of the flash from the camera, but the only light in the room was from the little candles on the table, so it was quite dim as the sun was already down. Once they were done with their meals, I informed them that other than sitting in the common room, there wasn't anything to do after dark. I also explained that we only had a couple of rooms so they would have to all sleep together and if they needed the bathroom, it was outside.

Tapestries

After weeks of study, I think we've finally puzzled out the mysterious Lindley Tapestry. It seems to tell the story of a family moving to a new home. It has opened up a new area of understanding for us by giving us insights in to the lives people of that era. 

 The first panel, which is double-width compared to the rest, shows the family moving all their belongings in a horse-drawn wagon to a new village. It is clear that the family is quite happy about the move. The village is shown to be surrounded by a fence or wall with trees beyond.

 The second panel shows the men cutting down trees, seemingly for use in building their house. It’s clearly hard work, evidenced by sweat on the brows of the men.

The third panel shows the whole family, including women and children, placing the logs to build the house. They seem to be less happy about the work, but it’s likely that it’s simply the nature of the work that’s the reason.

The fourth panel shows the finishing touches being put on the house. The mother and daughters arrange their belongings in the house while the father and sons put the thatch roof on the house. It’s plain to see the excitement on their faces.

The fifth panel shows the interior of the house. It is a single large room with a communal bed, a firepit, table and chairs, and butter churn.

The final panel shows the area outside the house for the animals. It seems that they raised sheep, chickens, pigs, and a horse. While proud of the animals, it seems that one of the sons is less than happy about the slop that is being fed to the pigs.

If you're slightly confused about this, that's ok. Olivia has reached the year 1066 and the Battle of Hastings in her history studies. One of the resources that we looked at was the Bayeux Tapestry which tells the entire story of the events leading to the Battle of Hastings between Henry and William. We looked at every panel of the tapestry here and we challenged Olivia to make her own tapestry telling a story. She did a great job and had a lot of fun with it. 

MFW - Rome to the Reformation - January and February

They say time flies when you're having fun and it's certainly true when studying history, too. In the last two months, we've covered about 600 years, starting with the fall of Rome. 

 We looked at the various invasions of the Roman Empire by tribes like the Huns, Visigoths, Vandals and Ostragoths. For the most part, they were none too kind to the Romans and ultimately led to their downfall. But not all was doom and gloom. A succession of emperors like Constantine, Diocletian and Justinian held the Greco-Roman culture together and worked to found the Byzantine (or Holy Roman) Empire. We learned about how Christians were terribly persecuted under the Roman emperors but were later given full rights as citizens and even became the leaders of society. We also learned a great deal about how our modern Bible was put together through conclaves and meetings of church leaders who examined the various sources and chose the books that were the most consistent in telling the story of Messiah and also matched best with the prior writings of what we now call the Old Testament.

We discussed also how the Christians weren't alone in their persecution. The Jews were also under fire during this time. While they had enjoyed some benefits under Roman rule (freedom from worshiping Caesar as a God, full citizenship),  the new Byzantine Empire under Constantine took many of those rights away and moved toward forced conversions under pain of death. If fact, some of the decisions (the date of Easter, Sunday as the sabbath) made at the various councils (Nicaea, Laodicea) were made to decisively separate the Church from Judiasm and made some Jewish practices, like the 7th-day Sabbath, unlawful. Many Jews at the time professed to convert, but secretly held to their Hebrew traditions.

We then moved on to learn about Mohammed, who obviously is a very important historical figure and had a great impact on the world then and now. We learned about who he was, what he claimed to be and how his followers took up his mission after his death. We saw how much of the medieval world his followers conquered and the influence they had on the civilizations of the time. Many of the effects were positive, such as an increased focus on education and science, but there were many instances of wholesale slaughter and pillage of those who would not submit.

But, as we moved on, we discovered that this wasn't strictly limited to Muslim conquests. As the Germanic tribes consolidated and grew in power, the Franks became the dominant group in the area that is France and Germany today. Their king, Charles Martel became known as "The Hammer" because of his relentless pounding of his enemies until there was no one left to fight. Those who were defeated were forced to become Christians. Later, his grandson, Charlemagne, would become Holy Roman Emperor and rule the largest kingdom since the fall of Rome. However, unlike his grandfather, Charlemagne's true love was God, education and the arts. He built numerous monasteries with the stipulation that they educate the local populace regardless of means, so even the poor would have an education.

The monasteries of this time served another purpose: the preservation and duplication of the Scriptures. Olivia learned how they copied the Bible by hand with paper and inks they made themselves.  She got to look at the illuminations (or drawings) in the Book of Kells and other manuscripts. She even tried her hand at copying an example in her art book.

If there was an antithesis to the monasteries, it must be the vikings.

During this time, the vikings (Saxons and Normans) were raiding up and down the coasts of France, Spain, Italy and inland through Germany. They went into villages, stole anything that wasn't nailed down and burned the villages to the ground. They particularly targeted monasteries for the gold and silver icons and utensils that were used.

Currently, we're learning about the time after the vikings converted to Christianity and became more settled. In the coming days and weeks, we'll learn of Alfred the Great, William the conqueror, see the Battle of Hastings andmany other major events and figures. Personally, this is one of my favorite periods in history and so I'm really looking forward to learning right alongside Olivia.

The illunination project wasn't the only thing she did in art. She learned about the artist, Giotto. He was well known for his incredible technical skills. He was asked for a sample of his work by the Pope and he responded by painting a circle so perfect that it couldn't be distinguished from one drawn with a compass.

Therefore, she had to do a study on freehand circles which are so very difficult to draw well.  She worked hard at it and really did well, in my opinion.

She also did a piece on color gradation, which is when a color gradually changes from light to dark. She had to mix each color herself and then paint objects as if the sun were shining from a certain direction. Once again, she did a great job.

 In science, we've been moving through the various systems of the body: digestive, respiratory, circulatory, excretory, and muscular.

As we've done each one, her paper skeleton has gradually gained organs. It's not easy to stuff all those guts into the little space that's there. I guess that's what is so amazing about the human body...

 She learned that the stomach has 3 layers of muscles to squeeze and digest our food.

 She learned how the diaphragm does the work of expanding and compressing our lungs to make us breathe.

 She learned how the heart moves blood throughout our bodies and keeps us alive by getting oxygen and nutrients to our muscles and organs.

 She learned how the exchange of nutrients and oxygen is done in the tiny capillaries.

 She learned how our blood is filtered by our kidneys to remove waste and water.

And finally, she learned how our muscles and tendons hold us all together and make us move.

We're reading through the book of Luke together and discussing in depth the stories and parables of Yeshua. It's pretty neat to hear the kids all get excited when they know a particular passage or story. It's surprising sometimes how well they know things like the feeding of the 4000 and 5000 or the Good Samaritan.

Olivia and I have read two books this time around. The first was Twice Freed, a fictionalized account of the slave, Onesimus, whom Paul talks in the Book of Philemon. Onesimus is the slave of Philemon who is determined to break free of his slavery by any means possible. We both really enjoyed the book and found it to be more than just entertaining, but really instructive because the story moves through places and times that we know about from reading Paul's other letters. It may be fiction, but it does a great job of tying in actual events, people and places.

The second book was The Door in the Wall. This one was set in the mid-1300s during the time of The Scottish wars and the Black Death. It is about a boy named Robin who is the son of a prominent knight, but is stricken by a mysterious illness that leaves him crippled. As his father is away at war, his mother is called to be a handmaid to the Queen and so Robin is left in the care of Brother Luke, a Benedictine Monk. Brother Luke teaches Robin that, when he runs into a wall in life, all he has to do is walk along it until he finds a door. Robin manages to overcome his despondency at losing the use of his legs and go on to have a great deal of fun and adventure. The challenge to this book was that the author had the people speaking in period style, so there were a lot of thee/thy/thou, woulds't, hast, etc... Olivia followed along really well and understood everything that was going on.

FIAR - Snow books - Part 1

With the arrival of actual snow (yay!), our selection of FIAR snow-themed books seemed like the thing to do. We rowed several from the middle of January to this last week. The first was Katy and the Big Snow. Most of our printables came from Homeschool Share. Katy (a red crawler tractor with a snowplow attachment) helps to plow out a snow covered city so that the works can do their jobs and the people are safe. The kids already love this book so doing a bunch of activities with it was just icing on the cake.

Gabe's handwriting

 The first thing we did was learn how to measure so we would know how big 5 feet of snow would be.

 Then we measured a few more things and wrote them down. We also talked about some jobs of people in our community that we rely on like the postman, the police officers, and fire fighters.

 Then we talked about what a compass was, both on a map and how to use a real one. We talked about directions around our house. Like Gabe knew that our backyard is to the East because that is where the sun rises and it faces West because of the sunset. So then he was able to figure out which neighbors were to our North and South from that information. 

 The city in the book is called Geopolis. We talked about how this was a good name for an imaginary town. Olivia likes to be in on the FIAR activities and this was a good time to make a connection with the root words that we have been learning this year. Geo meaning of or from the earth and polis referring to Ancient Greek cities. Gabe and Ezra "built" a city and then used the compass to find their way around. They called it "Gabe-opolis". They acted out the book going this way and that to help out people in need around town. It was fun to listen to. 

 We also talked about street signs and took a ride around town to count all the ones we could find.

We talked about Katy's personality and her character traits like responsibility and patience. This included definitions, bible verses, and ways that we showed those things in our own lives. Gabe drew a picture of Katie. He gets rather frustrated with drawing (wanting it to be just right) but worked hard to do this. 

The kids had fun playing a memory game with street signs. Olivia had a couple pages of math word problems of the Katy theme to work on. 

Next, we talked about snowflakes and read a book about Snowflake Bentley and how he took pictures of thousands of snowflakes and never found 2 alike. He did this from the time he was a young boy. It was quite a passion of his. We looked at a book with many of his pictures. One thing that stood our in our discussions was that many winters he hardly got a good picture but he kept on trying while other winters he was able to take many good pictures. While technically not a vol 1 FIAR selection (it is actually vol 4), the information was so relevant to the topic, we couldn't pass it by. We just used the same methods in the guide like our other FIAR books.

 They went out and tried to catch snowflakes like he did. We talked about how snowflakes form. We were in awe of the fact that Bentley was able to catch the details he did with his camera or drawings. It was very hard to see much detail with our snowflakes. The kids definitely had fun catching them on their tongues though. :)

 We looked at art featuring snowy scenes using the Charlotte Mason methods of picture study. This involves looking at the picture until you can see it in your mind and then you put the actual picture out of site and share your observations or the story of the picture. This helps the kids with their skills of observation, attention, and creative thinking. It is fun to hear them share. Even Ezra speaks up and participates readily. This is where I got that great resource.  Then we even made sweet tortilla "snowflakes" and chocolate almond ice cream using our snow!

Next we read White Snow, Bright Snow. This is not a FIAR selection but it is Caldecott Medal winner and a wonderful book. It has a poem in the beginning and then follows several characters through a snowy winter to its end and the beginning of spring.  

 The kids really liked this book and thought it was funny how each person in the book had different was of knowing it was going to snow. One saw it, one smelled it, and one felt it. We read how about the author and his inspiration for writing this book which is shared toward the back of the book. He was walking down the streets of New York one snowy evening and thinking about how people he knew growing up would predict the snow to come and how they dealt with the snow.  

 Next we read Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening. This book is the Robert Frost poem put into a book form with lovely illustrations. We discussed a bit about poetry since White Snow Bright snow had a poem to start the book and then this was a poem. Hidden in the art work of Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening in the forest scenes were many animals. White Snow Bright Snow also talked about some rabbits and how they handled the winter and then the early spring. So we looked at the different ways animals spent the winter, whether hibernating, gathering or migrating. We read Animals in Winter to learn more. We took a walk in the snow looking for animal tracks. Mostly we found dog and human but maybe a deer. :) We also read the winter portion of this Crinkleroot book which showed us some animal tracks and had the kids looking for certain clues to determine the animals. 

We learned about rhyming words and the rhyme scheme in Frost's poem. Gabe loves doing pattern blocks and creating ABAB, AABB, ABBA type patterns. So we related this activity to his math blocks which helped him to understand it better. This was another place that Olivia could do some work on her level.

Gabe's handwriting

The best part was getting to actually experience the snow for themselves!