Roman Standards

In Ancient Rome a standard served as the rallying point in battle, somewhat like a flag.  It had an important symbol on the top.
Our materials for this project were sturdy wrapping paper tubes, paper plates, pie tins, gold and silver spray paint, ribbons and streamers.
I did the spray painting before hard, having obtained the paint and tubes from, of course, my mother.  The plates held up better to the weight of the spray paint that I thought they would, so that was a plus. 

We cut out the bottom of the pie tin and they designed their personal symbol to put inside.  At this point we realized that white glue wasn't going to do the job, so we got out the glue gun.  Older students helped the younger with that part.  The hardest part, I think, we deciding what that symbol was going to be.  The Mayor chose his own hand, (so his standard is waving, I guess,) and The Girl chose a peace symbol.  The standard was topped with a slogan-in Latin! 

The final products:  I could only get one kid to show off the finished one, because the other two either didn't finish or met some unfortunate circumstances since.  oopsy.  This is what happens when you tell them there's not going to be a Unit Celebration.  There's much less reason to finish well, and no occasion on which to give the speeches they are supposed to be writing.  Got to say, they love the Unit Celebrations, but with three birthdays in June and their Dad leaving for Central Asia/Eastern Europe next Friday, I just can't do it all.  No one volunteered to give up their birthday though, so, onward we go.  The school year ends when Dad get on the plane (not the best confluence of events), and we dive straight into summer fun!

Geograph-ood

At the end of our Unit 3 Celebration, Grandma asked, "Where are we going next?"
"Ancient Rome," I said.  "I think we are going to do cookie dough maps next week."
"Why not do pizza dough maps instead?" Nana suggested.
And that's how ideas are born.

 I used gluten-free pizza crust mix, but not just because everyone could eat it that way.  It made sense to use it because the dough doesn't rise and have to be rolled out- GF dough just gets plopped on/out and spread.  This is much easier when making a map!
(in case you're curious, I used GF Bisquick, but I also like Gluten Free Pantry mix.)  I do like scratch baking but haven't done much of it gluten-free yet.

Older girls sculpted the basic shape here- see the boot? (It's Italy, by the way.)  The crust was baked 15 minutes.  Then sauce was spread and the geographical details were added.  That means, they put pineapple on the mountains and mushrooms on Sicily.  Then they covered the location of Pompeii with chili powder (for the volcano!)  We baked it again to melt the cheese.  When we ate it, no one wanted the volcano, but Daddy ate it when he got home.

The next food-related lesson this week was to make mosaics.  We learned about the way the Etruscans (early inhabitants of Italic Peninsula) used them to decorate tombs.  Our were much more fun.

We made royal icing using powdered egg white- that was our mortar.  For the base, older kids used graham crackers and younger kids used chocolate rice cakes (my younger two are the gluten free ones).  The "tiles" were mini M& M's.  Of course, being the focused planner that I am, I bought the M & M's weeks ago during a trip to Wal-mart, but when Thursday afternoon rolled around (Thursday is project day each week~ usually) I didn't have either the powdered sugar for the icing or the bases.  Argh.  Quick trip to the store, where I was inspired by the rice cakes (as if the project didn't have enough sugar in it already!). 

Everyone got in on this project - of course!  It was fun and messy, and involved eating sugar.  We even saved a couple to display at our Unit Celebration in a few weeks.

We are nearing the end of our first year using Tapestry of Grace.  I already bought my Year 2 when we got our tax return, and never once thought about doing something different next year.  The unit study approach has been a lifesaver for our homeschool. And fun, too!

Year 1 Unit 2 & 3 Celebration

Having been snowed out of our Unit 2 Celebration, this week we needed to celebrate two units.  If you were to ask me how I plan these, I would have to admit that I don't really.  Two things guide me:  the kids' costume choices and whatever projects we have really liked.   I would have to say that the kids lead this celebration with very little input from me.

One day last winter I was awakened by the Mayor explaining to me that he was drawing a big poster of Goliath, and that for the Unit Celebration we could play "pin the stone" on him.  "Fantastic," I thought.  Rock on. Zzzzz.
When I got up, I gave him a few pictures to guide his drawing, and that was that.  he was inspired by his love for the costume I made for him, using plastic milk jug sides sewed to a pillow case to replicate primitive armor plates.

The shield we made from aluminum foil-covered cardboard and the sword was leftover from another costume.  He hid in a cave behind his display board, and came out after guests promised that Saul was nowhere about, seeking to kill him.

Somewhere along the way this idea led to the development of a monster arcade idea, so we had to include Odysseus' battle with the Cyclops.  The Giant drew and painted Cyclops the day before the battle and we attached a dollar-store dart board for his eye. 

The next idea we added was that there would be Olympics, and that came straight out of the Tapestry Unit Introduction.  I had a few food ideas that we had tried and liked during the unit, and that was the extent of my plan until that morning.  We had two Display Boards and a State Report that were our writing projects for Unit 2.

I brought all the projects, lapbooks, etc. out and placed them on the table.  I quickly sorted them into areas, so that we could display them based on that.  On the dining room table I laid out the lapbooks and the unit-wide books we had used, as well as the newspaper produced together in Unit 3.  On the hutch I put the Mayan and Ancient Indian stuff, which was the gourds we had painted and some Indian beans Aunt Julie got us at Trader Joe's.  (We had eaten about half of them at our Indian dinner and they rest had been in the freezer.  Truth be told I thought they were pretty gross, although the rest of our Indian meal was yummy.)
On a shelf above that, the clay replica of the Ishtar Gate the Giant had made.  (Ancient Assyria) and the book we read, God King.

The Goliath area then had the Giant's Display Board about the Israelite neighbors, a few musical instruments we had made, and a placemat with a few Hebrew phrases on it.  We also had this salt dough map of the Promised land with the 12 tribes' inheritances marked.  Since Goliath was actually hanging on the back of the Mayor's Display Board about Greek Mythology, I made that area home to the Greek Dark Ages materials too- books about mythology and a couple of frescoes the girls had painted in wet plaster.

I had a tiny area for our kites and a few books from China, and one more area for the Greek Classical period.  On this table we placed the food- we made bread rings and spanikopita- (phyllo dough around cheesy spinach mixture- so yummy!).

Her "yuck" face.

I ran to the grocery store as we were preparing the food for some ricotta, and determined at then last minute to add whatever Greek food they might have there.  Huge grapes were on sale, so that was a win.  I grabbed some Greek yogurt, and then the real win- found stuffed grape leaves in the International Foods aisle.  The are oily and stuffed with raisins, rice and pine nuts.  The Princess didn't care for them-even though they were gluten-free.

As guests arrived, they started out at the general table, and then they could take their time, one by one, though the set-up.  Usually a student appeared to guide them.  They also handed out the two newspapers we had created as our Unit-long writing project.  As we had three writers and one is too young to type, we used his handwritten work- and the newspaper/scroll was rather long, so we went ahead and used two.  Really, by the time people came in I was sitting quietly.  The kids were so eager to have attention I figured I didn't need to crowd them.  Our guests managed to enjoy the displays and the food and played along with the arcade games. 

Grandma tried the javelin.

The guests were, by the way, two sets of grandparents, a cousin, and a home-schooled friend.  After everyone had made a try at the arcade (taped the rock on Goliath's forehead), we proceeded outside.  It was cold and damp, but not the rain we had expected.  We would have been sad if this part had gotten rained out, as the giant worked hard the night before making paper medals and laurel wreaths out of her grandmother's decorative plastic ivy.

My Dad being a good sport.

Outside we had a javelin throw, discuss toss (frisbee) and a some sort of shotput.  Everyone was co-operative and had fun, I think. And everyone won a metal, too. 

About the costumes:  I sewed large bedsheets into tubes a few weeks ago, folded the top down, and pinned at the shoulders.  That's all it took to do the girls' dresses, but the little pins didn't stay in so well.  I expected that might happen, but I was feeling pretty lazy.  The Mayor's David costume, as I said, was made of milk jugs and a pillow case, an idea found in the book Old Testament Days.  The Giant made her own costume from scraps really, and made her "bronze" warrior's skirt from cardboard a some shiny, coppery paper that Nana gave us.  She did change into a woman's dress for the Olympics, but the Mayor was so enamored of his costume that he didn't want another one.  The Princess greeted all of our guests with the phrase, "I'm Irene, I'm a Greek lady."  They had named her after our Greek paper dolls that I picked up, a boy and a girl with a set of costumes.  We may see them again if we study European cultures at all in the future, because the set came with ancient and modern costumes. 

super-easy tunic- queen sized bedsheet sewn into a tube and folder over

israelite soldier (David)- pillowcase and milk jug sides

Greek warrior with Brass over-armor.

Irene, a Greek lady.

All in all this was a laid-back but enjoyable celebration.

It ended when we all rushed off to The Girl's Promotional Test for her Green Belt in Tae Kwon Do.
Next Unit:  Ancient Rome and the birth and death of Jesus.  Speech-making will be a unit project, so we will have to do something majestic for that.

History of the World with Veggie Tales

Todd and I invested in our first Veggie Tale before The Sleeping Giant was born.  It was 1997 and some friends were playing their theme song during a bonfire, and told us about them...singing, talking veggies with no hands.  I didn't quite get what the fuss was about, but a few months later we were at the Christian Book Distributors warehouse sale and picked one up for $9.99.  It was the Very Silly Sing-Along.  The next one we acquired was "Rack, Shack and Benny," and I still remembered how horrified I was when I thought they had botched the ending! 
As the years went on, we developed quite the collection of these videos on VHS Tape.  We were big fans.  In fact, when we briefly lived in Chicagoland Todd sent an application to work at Big Idea.  I took a class at Wheaton College with Scottie May, their educational Consultant and one of the creator's mothers.
Somewhere along the line, our collection began to convert to DVD, of course.  After Jonah, the company was no longer owned by Christians and we became slightly less enthusiastic. 
Then, we sold our house in 2007 and began our life as nomads.  In order to downsize, we put all the VHS Veggie Tales into a box at Grandma's house, and out all of our DVD's into big binders without their cases.  I did ask for DVD's for Christmas to replace the VHS's, but it never happened because there were always new ones coming out instead.  Suddenly last year I realized that our deprived younger kids weren't following our quotable lines because they'd rarely seen a classic Veggie Tale:  The Mayor didn't remember the ones he'd seen before the move (he was 4), and the poor Princess had never seen them.

So this year when we began our study of history, beginning at the beginning and focusing largely on the Israelites, I took advantage of the opportunity to reintroduce Bob and Larry.  I've missed a few, but I've been trying to use the videos to include the Princess in our "studies" by showing them at the right time.  I thought the other day that I would share the list in case someone else wanted to do this, and wasn't as familiar with the Classics (read "as much of a dinosaur") as I am.  Hopefully, it helps me not take school too seriously to include some Silly Songs here and there.

Abe and the Amazing Promise tells of Abraham and Sarah.
The Ballad of Little Joe brings the Israelites into Egypt.  Next, watch just a portion of Duke and the Great Pie War which includes a story of Moses and Miriam.  Save the Petunia story for later.
Next comes Moe and the Big Exit~ the Exodus.

Josh and the Big Wall occurs during the Wandering in the desert.

Gideon, Tuba Warrior is set in the period of the Judges.
Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson's Hairbrush makes reference to this time period.
Dave and the Giant Pickle stars a young King David.  Now you can watch the rest of Duke and the Great Pie War, which tells the story of Ruth.
King George and the Ducky gives an interesting treatment of the touchy subject of adultery/polygamy.
Next, you'll want to watch Jonah, who was a missionary to the neighboring, conquering kingdom of Assyria. 

Rack, Shack and Benny and Where's God when I'm Scared? are both set in the book of Daniel, when the Jews were living in Babylon.
And finally, we just watched Esther, which is set in the Persian Empire. 
When we get to Jesus, we could watch some parables in action in Are You My Neighbor? and An Easter Carol. 
Next year, when we study the Vikings, we might watch Lyle the Kindly Viking.  And in Sumo of the Opera there's a brief bio of St. Patrick appropriate for this time of year or during our study of the Celts. 
So, you can do a crash course in Jewish History with just these videos.  As a side note, I really believe in studying history chronologically.  It has added rhyme and reason to our studies.  Enjoy!

The Long-Awaited Light-hut Blog Post! Also, Gourds.

It's here!
My camera, which I left in a New Jersey church back in September, arrived in today's mail.  I've been using my Insignia video camera, which also takes stills, but it doesn't have a flash to it's been hard to get good shots indoors at some events.  I'm excited to have my Kodak back.

Now, I can post about the Botany Light Hut!
I am using Apologia Botany with the Girl and the Mayor.  Back in August we built the light hut to grow plants all year round, we live in a cold climate.  I've since discovered that the plants can't really survive in there, but it's good for getting them started and it's used for several experiments in the course of the year.

The mayor actually took these pictures, and he's only 7, so they are what they are. I let him take them because I was busy and the Girl was kind of hogging the procedure.

This was our school room and project area back on August and September.  *Sigh.*  Things have changed...

The light hut is made from a simple cardboard box. 

Then we glued aluminum foil all over the inside.

There is a hole in the top on the right in this photo.

The light source is a "work light kit" I purchased at Ace Hardware.  It's not what's recommended but was a handy-dandy solution for me!  I just tied a knot in it so it couldn't slip through the hole into the light hut.  We put in a low- wattage compact fluorescent bulb (it is supposed to be 15, I think), and voila!  Light hut!


There is an aluminum foil curtain over it to help keep in warmth and light.
It is blindingly bright.

At this time we planted basil and chives.  We also put in some lima bean plants the Mayor had been growing since last Spring.

The light hut was moved to NY in the first trip last fall, so it wasn't along for the ride when we rolled the house over in September.  We succeeded in harvesting chives, but everything else died.  It may have been overwatered.  Recently, we started some wildflower seeds, but they also died.  Currently, we're growing two bean seeds, one in a white Styrofoam cup and the other in a black cup with a black lid, so that we can watch it grow towards the light in a pencil hole poked in the bottom of the cup. 

In non-Botany news, we made a brief visit to the Mayans of Central America and Mexico during our history studies.  We were supposed to make a gourd birdfeeder.  I had not planned ahead well enough to have a dried gourd on hand to paint, but guess what?  My mom had some!  Nana comes through again.

Gourds are so gross looking (when they have been out drying in a dusty garage), that the Little Princess wouldn't use the bathroom when I had put the gourd into the sink. 
But I washed them off and scrubbed them with steel wool, and then sanded them.  We cut a hole in the big one, and let the others speak to us about what they wanted to be when they grew up!
Then, we had to cut them open, which required a saw.  There was a hole saw involved in putting the hole in the big one.





After that the insides were scooped out.  The fibers, which used to be flesh, reminded me of loofah material.  I wish I had thought to keep the seeds, because they could have been made into jewelry.

Since we'd gotten them all wet, we left them to dry overnight and called Nana again to get some shellac to coat them.  She actually brought liquid plastic.  I did this part myself, with one assistant, in front of an open kitchen window, as it was smelly and super- sticky.  That had to dry another day, after which we sanded some of them.  Finally, we went to work painting them with tempera paints.

We ended up with two bowls with lids, two ladles and the birdhouse.  No hammers, in spite of the way he is holding that one in this picture.  There's actually another coat of paint still planned for the birdhouse, but I will let you see it anyway.

I think this project counts for both Botany and History, because the birdhouse was heavily influenced by Birds and Blooms magazine.  This month's edition happened to feature homemade birdhouses, with instructions in what colors to paint it and where to hand to attract certain types of birds.  Birds are pollinators, and pollinators are necessary for botany.  I kept getting confused and thinking we were doing it for Botany class, anyway.

I'm so glad to finally be able to show you the light hut.  Mostly I am glad to have my camera, and chip full of pictures of my kids, back in my possession.

We are now studying Ancient Greece, so for coming attractions I will mention that we made plaster frescos according to Minoan style a few days ago.  The Sleeping Giant is very proud of hers.

Making Kites

We were studying Ancient China this week, which lends itself to a tremendous array of hands-on activities!  I studied Chinese in college for two years and lived in Western China for about 6 weeks in 1996.  I also visited in 1992.  DS really got into looking at my photo album from 1996, especially since I had lived along the banks of the Huang He River, which is where China's Ancient civilization began.  I told them about how when we saw it we noted that it wasn't Huang He, it was Hong He- the River appears more red than yellow.  It's something that stuck in my memory.

My older girls took a summer language class last summer (not this most recent one) and did an on-line course afterward, but we decided not to keep up with it.  We are after all focused on moving to a very different country, and it was a little confusing to be learning bits of both. But it was nice to go back to China for a visit this week.

Among the projects we didn't get to were brush painting/calligraphy, and making jiao-zi, or dumplings.  I have a vegetarian dumpling recipe made with tofu that their teacher gave me last year, and I have most of the ingredients, but we just didn't get to it.  Next week we are going to have some catch-up time as well as some work-ahead time, so I know what I need to do!

But we did do kite-making.  I combined two sets of instructions found on the Tapestry website, but basically ended up doing our own thing.  I bought 2 tiny 48" dowels at the hardware store and had a man there cut them in half for me.  At another hardware store, I was given a bunch of teeny tin(ier) dowels.  They had all broken and the person helping me said I could have them since they weren't salable, and escorted me out the door.  Score!  I was able to trim these down to 20" each, and these formed the crossbar.

The roll of white paper I got from my mother.  I don't know where we would be without Nana's never-ending storehouse of craft supplies, but it certainly has made our homeschool cheaper!  This week she even delivered!

The next step was to tie the two dowels together with string, in the shape of a 't.'  We laid them on a square of paper (about 26" square) and marked the endpoints.  They drew the diamond shape with a sharpie.  Then, I sent 'em off to draw their design.  Some chose markers, some chose paints, some were given fingerpaints. 

DD12 helped the Little Princess draw a princess, of course, but a Chinese-looking one based on the illustrations in our Upper Grammar Dialectic literature selection, Fa Mulan.   I think it's important to point out that we did the drawing and painting before we cut them out.  Allowed for...overflow.

The next step was to cut out around the rectangle but wider- about the width of a ruler.  Then we folded that in on the line and glued it down, with the sticks inside. 

Attaching the strings (also provided by Nana), we had a little trial and error.  I punched two holes on each corner with my scissors, and threaded the string through, tying it on the back.  But I ended up doing four strings, tied together in the middle loosely.  DD10 did two strings tied on two ends which was neater.  Then she tied them together with the roll of string that she would use to fly the kite.  I tried to get a picture of the strings pulled away from the back so you could see it, but I had an interloper!

There it is!  Sadly, I didn't get a good shot of his dragon design.  I assure you it was quality work and very original. 

This Girl Loves to be Blogged, can you tell?  Her dragon design came off a website, but she did a good job of coloring around it so that it blended in, and then designed round it.  She was the first one outside to fly it this morning, and her assessment when she came inside was, "That worked better than I thought it was going to."
I hope that some day the weather will cooperate and we will get outside somewhere more spacious to really give them a try, but then I would risk breaking them...that's a tough call!  They will make such nice decorations for our Unit Celebration.

One more design for you, from the Girl who Hates to be Blogged.  This came out of her dialectic History Resource, which she really likes, The Usborne Encyclopedia of World Religions (Internet-Linked). 
At times like this I am glad that Tapestry forces me to emphasizes arts and crafts like this.  For one thing, these crafts become so much more meaningful because they relate to the time period we are experiencing. 

But additionally, I would've skipped them.  I also would've told you that I had only one 'artsy' daughter.  But this year I have seen DD12 get totally absorbed in these artistic expressions.  I have watched DS sit carefully focused with the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth while he works those scissors.  And all of them have produced items they feel genuinely proud of, and which carry a story as well.

I never really set out to enjoy homeschooling- it was just something we had to do.  Someday I could write about that.  But this year I do love it.  I feel like we've grown into it bit by bit.  I probably couldn't have done Tapestry in our first year, but I am so glad I found it now.

I'll be back next week to let you know how the jiao-zi turned out.  I might have to hunt down some gluten-free wrappers.