Homeschool fun

Here's some of the fun things we did the last two weeks of October for our schooling....

 Ice skating!

This was a first for Duncan, Ashlyn, & Madelyn, and only Morgan's 2nd time on the ice!

They all did great!

(Balance is not one of Ronan's strong points, and he asked to be dropped off at the library for two hours while we were skating-he was in heaven there!)

 I was impressed with how well Duncan took to it, having never been on the ice before.

Way to go Duncan.

The girls and I talked a lot about apples in our fall unit. Counted apple seeds,  different colored apples, etc.  We finished it off by making applesauce.

 Yum, yum.

 We made some Colonial scenes.

And talked about how people would dye their material during that time.

We experimented with some fruits and vegetables to see what would make the best dyes.

 We boiled pieces of cloth in pots with the fruit/veg.

 We were all surprised at how well the onion skin came out!

For science we are studying Chemistry, and talking about the atom.

 We decided to make 'atom cookies'.

 Blue for neutrons, Red for protons, brown for electrons.

(Do you know what element we made??)

Carbon

 We did some weaving.

And worked with clay...

 Clay projects are a favorite around here.

And threw in a little Halloween fun too...

Happy October!!!

Camping

We had a quick overnight campout with some friends of ours.

Rain was in the forecast, but we ended up having good weather and had a great time!

 Duncan in a tree of course.

 Beautiful morning walk down by the river.

 Madelyn and Brian

 Ashlyn

 Ashlyn roasting a marshmallow by the campfire.

We had a beautiful full moon that night!

No need for flash lights to walk to the bathroom.

It was a really beautiful night, with great company and good times!

Columbus Day

To celebrate Columbus Day in our Homeschool, we read some books, watched a movie about Columbus, then went outside to play 'Columbus lands in America'

Madelyn had her mind set on being an Indian, and a good little Indian she made.

I was voted to be Columbus.

Ashlyn started out as a 'Lady' in a beautiful dress that came to America with Columbus, BUT Madelyn looked to be having WAY too much fun as an Indian, so she quickly decided that she too needed to be and Indian.

Sure had fun with these two!

Ren Fest 2013

The Maryland Renaissance Festival has become one of our family traditions in the fall.

The girls love to get dressed up and step back in time to Henry VIII's England.

This year Morgan decided not to dress up, but just wore her flower headpiece instead.

Duncan in the stocks!

Brian mentioned that the kids weren't looking pitiful enough for being 'locked up', so Madelyn gave it her best miserable face!

Ashlyn did a pretty good job too!

A highlight for the little girls is always the pony rides.

We had hoped to ride the elephants, but due to a ton of rain the previous week, and really soppy conditions in the elephant area, they were not out the day we went. Sad.

My little princess.

While watching the jousting contest, there was a man in front of us with a horse head mask. Madelyn mentioned to Brian how cool it was. The man overheard her, and turned around and asked if she would like to try it on.

It made her day!

Jousting knights.

The kids with King Henry VIII

(Hayden and Ronan didn't want to join us this year, so we left the party poopers at home.)

 

At one point Duncan came up to my side pretty quickly, when I asked what was going on, he pointed to the sign below...

He thought they were being a little excessive there. (hehe)

 

The kids each took a turn at some archery...

I was impressed with how good of a shot Ashlyn was

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(The blurry white line is her arrow hitting the red circle.)

Fun times!

Madelyn even did it!

We enjoyed our day of fun foods, performances, music, rides, and games.

Till next year, RenFest!