Potter Puppet Pals

The boys have been watching this all morning. If you like Harry Potter, check it out!

The Vortex

Term 1 Exams

Last week ended our Term 1. We decided to have an exam week. Originally, I was just going to talk to the boys and have a discussion about what we read about, but they wanted to do some projects. 

Here's what Pokemon King accomplished:

This Country of Ours board game-It's about how the Spaniards driving the French out of Florida.

The Heroes: Perseus-This is when Perseus went to slay Medusa and chop off her head.

Story of Inventions collage-Pictures of the inventions we talked about, such as: spinning jenny, waterframe, locomotive, steam engine, steamboat, first dynamo, etc.

Our Island Story collage-The story of how Elizabeth I helped England against the Spaniards

Here's his lego movie  for a scene from The Princess & the Goblin-A boy named Curdie fights a bunch of goblins.

Here's Dinodude's accomplishments:

Toads & Diamonds board game-The story of a mistreated girl who kindly helps another person. When she does, she is given a gift that whenever she opens her mouth to talk, diamonds fall out.

Aesop's Fables: The Travelers & the Purse-Two travelers find a purse as they are walking down the road.

Aesop's Fables: The Fox & the Grapes scrapbook page-A fox sees some grapes, but is unwilling to work hard enough to get them.

Dinodude's lego movie on a scene from Pinocchio. This is when Pinocchio finds his father inside the shark. It's a little long.

And here's his lego movie summing up The Story of William Tell-The story of a talented archer who is forced to shoot an arrow at an apple that is sitting on his son's head.

 

Family Home Evening

Wally gave us an excellent Family Home Evening today. He led us on a search for a Geocache! If you aren't sure what it is, let me give you a brief overview. A Geocache is like a high tech treasure hunt. People all over the world have placed items in a container and hid the container somewhere. Here's a website with more info:

Geocaching

We went to a park and found two of them. We took a few items from each one and left some items of our own. We got a toy car, army man, toy chain link, toy puppy, and a mini flashlight. We put Pikachu (we have tons of those!), some pokemon cards (again...lots of those!), a pokemon coin (surprise! lots of those, too!), and toy dinosaurs (did you know we had some of those?!). Inside the containers, there's also a notebook where you write the date, your name, what you took, what you put in and anything else you want to write. We saw an entry written by someone from California! One of the Geocaches started in 2006! On that website you can keep track of the geocaches that you've been to. We're hoping that whenever we go somewhere, we'll look up to see if there are any near us and hunt them. I'd never heard of this until Wally mentioned it. He was so excited to try it out and I'm so glad we did.

Fairy Bread

Dinodude's Poem of the Day for today is:

Fairy Bread 

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Come up here, O dusty Feet!

Here is fairy bread to eat.

Here in my retiring room,

Children, you may dine

On the golden small of broom

And the shade of pine;

And when you have eaten well,

Fairy stories hear and tell.

We decided to look up to see if there really was such a thing as 'Fairy Bread.' To our surprise, there really is! 

All it is, is buttered bread with sprinkles on it. So, of course we HAD to make some!

Updates

I know it's been a while since I've been on. Crazy, busy, no time for anything! That's how our lives are right now. So, this might be a long post filled with a lot of new info. Or it might be a short post. It all depends on how much I am able to get accomplished in the little time I have!

UPDATE #1

Rocket got glasses! At first he was sooo excited to get them. He was talking about getting them all the time. Finally, we get them and he doesn't like them :( Part of the problem is that he (unlike everyone else in our family) is far-sighted. So, after talking to the technicians at the eye doctor's, it seems they take a lot longer to adjust than near-sighted lenses do. So, we are constantly reminding him to put them on. 

I've got 2 words for you:

Jonathan Lipnicki (from Jerry Maguire-"Did you know the human brain weighs 7 pounds?")

UPDATE #2

We had a wonderful family home evening last night. It was Bond's turn for the lesson. He told us a wonderful story about David Whitmer, Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdery. It's too long to repeat, but it was an awesome story! After that, we played a rousing game of Stick Pull. In actuality, I'm surprised we don't play it more often, considering we have a house full of boys! 

UPDATE #3

School is going pretty well. It seems like it's taking us all day with all of our daily istractions, but at least we are accomplishing what's on our schedule. Here's an update from the past 2 weeks:

POKEMON KING continues to study Marco Polo and his adventures. We are also reading about Michelangelo. For History, we've studied Martin Luther and Queen Elizabeth I. Last week and the week before, we learned about the electric battery, the electromagnet, and the first dynamo for science. Pokemon King wasn't all that interested in that, but he did retain some of the information. For our Literature studies, we've been reading The Princess and the Goblin, Heroes-Perseus, and Parables of Nature: The Master of the Harvest. In addition to these, Math and English, he's continued quite nicely on Rosetta Stone German. He's finally reached the number portion. I think he's definitely glad he's through with the clown section! He hates clowns!

DINODUDE seems to have a shorter, smaller schedule, but he really enjoys his stories. He's also been studying Queen Elizabeth I along with Pokemon King. His History stories include Androcles & the Lion and King Alfred & the Beggar from Fifty Famous Stories Retold. For his science we continue to read Paddle to the Sea. His Literature studies include Shakespeare's The Tempest, Pinocchio (not the Disney version), How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin from Just So Stories, and various Aesop's Fables. Math and English are a piece of cake for him. He, too is attempting Rosetta Stone. He's not quite as far as Pokemon King, but he is progressing.

Our musician for this term is Franz Liszt. We have been listening to Les Preludes, Liebestraum, and Piano Sonata in B Minor. Pokemon King doesn't like to listen to music during schooltime, so we've been listening to it as we clean up the schoolroom at the end of the day. It's working quite nicely. 

This term's artist is Caspar David Friedrich. His works include: On Board a Sailing Ship and Moon Rising Over the Sea. One week we discuss the painting: what colors, textures were used, how it makes us feel, what we think is going on in the painting. Then we stop looking at it and see how many details we remember. The next week we review it a little, then they paint it from memory. 

Pokemon King's On Board a Sailing Ship

Pokemon King's Moon Rising Over the Sea

Dinodude's On Board a Sailing Ship

Dinodude's Moon Rising Over the Sea 

And here are some pictures that Rocket drew:

So, that about sums up a little bit of what we've been up to. Wally's been staying late after school most days practicing hard for the spring musical. Babymoon continues to amuse us with just being here!

Wally's Lego Movie Trailer

Wally had to do a project for English. He chose to read "The Three Musketeers" and decided to do a Lego Movie Trailer. So, here it is:

Pokemon King's Blue & Gold Banquet

Gosh, we've been so busy I haven't had time to update the blog! Plus, we've all been on and off sick for the past few weeks. I'll be working on a school update soon, but right now I'll update on Pokemon King's scouting. They held the Blue & Gold Banquet last week. The theme was 'Roadtrip Across America.' This year Pokemon King got to decorate a cake with Bond.


I thought that was a cool idea. They did a great job, but unfortunately no one ate his cake. Next year we'll be adding candy to the cake. That's a surefire way to get it eaten. I was a little disappointed in the fact that only 2 kids got awards for their cakes. Last year, everyone got an award for things like: most colorful, most inventive, most original, etc. They work so hard on their cakes, I think they deserve something for it. We also had dinner, which was awesome. There were different foods from around the country. Lots of food & very yummy! Wonder what next year's theme will be!