Latest Accomplishments

Well, I told you about the Geography Fair we won, well not exactly. There's no such thing as WINNERS in homeschooling land. In fact, we achieve more together, it's simple as that.



While I've yet to find a personal "lighting instructor" or take an officially helpful photography class, we have begun our study of the illustrationist Norman Rockwell.

Taught the kids complete Monopoly, we'd been playing

the children's version.

Captured a two year old in her first winter gear.

Tried to take the holiday photo, didn't turn out so well.

Began YMCA swimming lessons, Angie struck a deal.

Monday's Lessons

My kids study art, though we have yet to delve deeply into one artist's work, and know by heart his every whim and inkling.

I chose Norman Rockwell because I received this treat at TJ Maxx, a 2009 planning calendar. Of course I love it all by itself, and had planned from the beginning to study its artwork:



Then, I found this museum site for Norman Rockwell's illustrations, and a $5.00 coloring book, to boot!

Plus, saw these postcards and had to order some, we'll continue to add to our set.


Problem We All Live With, 1964

We needed one of each of his Four Freedoms (for a scrapbook), which we happened to find is from Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 speech.

Norman Rockwell went from "life as I would like it to be", painting boys, puppies, and small town pleasures...

to life as it is, immediately after leaving the Saturday Evening Post in 1963...,

47 years of magazine covers later!

Quiz Day

Free-schoolin' , out-of-the-box thinker Dayna encourages her sparkly children to build inventive games out of history lessons. Good-timing Martins, I seem to be on the same wavelength as you guys are.

We started by counting out all our Obama buttons (totally retro) don'tcha think:


And yes, being that the majority of my friends are Republicans, I have tons of extras.

Then, we decided to look at some options (for Unit Study). Trina helped us out with the electoral college, totally printed these up, and threw in this for good measure. Of course, we'll be repeatin' the lesson in four years. I'm failin' 'em all.

So, while they were studying and coloring this.

I grabbed my notebook, and came up with this.

Hallow'een

It was a warm, but spooky night. Not that my fingers were crossed for snow, but as low pressure systems in October often grow...oh well, never mind. The spirit has passed us, and despite bitter warnings from fellow homeschoolers, the dead did not rise.

Though ghoul was present in larger quantities than last year (counted 3-4 favorite houses), we both celebrated AND survived.



Yes, I awoke late this morning, visions of skunks and winter princesses danced in my head, I'll spare you the important details, but stuffed animals were involved. It's a tradition.



No caramel apples this year though, didn't have time. However, the geography fair exactly one week prior, went off without a hitch (sorry, no awesome pictures). Even local representative Mark Owens felt inclined showed up.



Next year, we'll choose Africa, stay tuned.