The Feudal System

Every Friday we have been meeting with some friends to work on school art projects.
Our Tapestry of Grace curriculum is full of art activities that we can make that go with our studies.  For the past four weeks we have been working on a series of dioramas that show the levels of the feudal system from the Middle Ages.

  Bonnie and her friend MacKenzie have worked together on their dioramas while Bryce and Brian have done their own.  True to form, the boys' dioramas are sparse and full of guts and gore, while the girls went all out in details.  During the week, Bonnie keeps working on hers making them as elaborate as our supplies will let her.  I asked her to take some pictures of her dioramas and want to share them with you.

 There are four levels in the feudal system.  The lowest of all the levels is the peasant.

 

Peasants would live in hovels...

 and worked the land. 

 The next level in the social ladder was the knight.  Bonnie wanted to depict her knight scene with a man being knighted by the king.

 I loved the fact that she gave her people eyebrows.  lol

 Above the knight was the king.

We are not sure why the queen is looking terrified.  Did you notice the bust of the queen in the corner?  There is another one of the king on the other side.  Bonnie also made tiles out of clay that she placed on the floor of the castle and also used to decorate the base of each pillar.

 At the top of the ladder is the church.  Now some might want to argue that the king should be on top, but it appears that the Catholic church had a huge influence on the decisions of the royalty at that time.  I mean, they convinced everyone that they could decide whether or not you could go to heaven.  They even gave you a free ticket to heaven if you fought in their holy wars, so no one wanted to tick off the papacy.

With Saran wrap and some color pictures, Bonnie created the allusion of stain glass windows.  On the ceiling of her diorama is another picture surrounded by more of her handmade tile, something reminiscent of what Michelangelo would have painted.

Great Job Girls!

Pumpkin Run

The Pumpkin Run is a cross country run/walk held at the historic Leavenworth Ski Hill. The course winds through 100 acres of rolling, wooded National Forest lands. The trails consist of grass, dirt and gravel. The Ski Hill trails sit several hundred feet above town and provide great views of the nearby mountains and fall foliage.  

There are three runs you can enter - 1k, 2k, and 6.5k.  All proceeds from the run benefit the youth nordic club.

One of Todd's students had signed up to participate in the run, but was unable to run that day.  He asked Todd if he would run in his place, and, of course, Todd did.

The fun part was that everyone was encouraged to wear costumes. 

One particular group came dressed as the cast from the Simpsons.  You can see Willy, the janitor here.  Behind Willy is the inanimate carbon rod. lol

Todd came dressed up as a dorky sports official.  He wore his stripes and put in his "bubba" teeth.  We couldn't find his coke-bottle glasses to complete the look.

Todd ran in the 6.5k which was mainly adults and a few teenages.

Winnie the Pooh is one of Todd's students. It was his brother that asked Todd to run. 

I think the adults had the most fun with their costumes.  We had Padma (Star Wars), Kirk (Star Trek), the plaid monster, lots of fairies, ....some..well, only they know what they were dressed up to be.

Todd ran a respectable time, especially for one who was asked to run at the last minute. 

It was a fun way to spend a Saturday morning. 

I Never Knew

I am beginning to wonder if I slept through school or they never taught us half of this stuff.

We watched the second half of Part 1 on the Crusades.  I have to admit that I know very little about the Crusades.  I knew it was labeled a "holy war."  And I do remember that King Richard the Lionheart was off fighting in the Crusades while Robin Hood was robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.  Other than that....nothing.

We have Part 2 to watch tomorrow and Friday.  It is an hour and a half documentary and we did better to split it up into two 45 minute segments. (It is a little boring.)  I am curious to hear more about the Crusades.  To go with the documentary we are reading about various famous men in Famous Men of the Middle Ages.  We are also reading Our Island Story which centers on what is happening on the British Isles.  With all of that together, we are getting a fair picture of what happened in the early AD 1000.

He has what????

We just got back from the doctor's office and found out that Brian has Osgood-Schlatter disease. He has a painful knot under his knee that is related to going through a growth spurt.   It should go away when he is done growing, until then he will have to live with it.  Our doctor's visit would have been pretty benign except that they realized that Brian was behind on his immunization shots.  He ended up getting three shots before we left.  I guess that is one way of making sure the kids don't ask to see a doctor.  They may end up getting more than they bargained for.

Technology...Gotta Love It

This morning's school got started a little late.

I was going over our to-do list and mentioned that I wanted to watch a youtube video for history.  The kids balked.  They did not want to crowd around the computer for another of mom's videos.  Bonnie asked if we could hook up the Wii to the internet and watch the movie on the TV.  I tried to make excuses but decided they might have a good idea so the morning was spent figuring out how to connect to the internet through the Wii.  It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought, especially since we have wireless internet. (I keep forgetting that.)  Once it was all hooked up we watched the History Channel's documentary on the The Crusades: The Crescent and the Cross.

Another new find that has enhanced our school day is spelling city.  Go to www.spellingcity.com for your children's spelling work.  They have tons of lists or you can create your own list.  With each spelling word, they include the definition and use it in a sentence.  The kids practice spelling their words, they can make flashcards with the word on one side and definition on the back, they can play games with their words, and take spelling tests and vocabulary tests.  They can also print off handwriting worksheets in manuscript and cursive with all of their words.  Most of the things you can do on this sight are free, however for $25 you  can do a whole lot more.  Hey, that is the cost of one spelling workbook so it is definitely worth the cost to upgrade to a premium membership.  Oh...do you use sequential speller?  All the word lists from sequential speller are already on there for your child to study and learn. Do you have a high school student?  They have SAT word lists.  Our Tapestry of Grace curriculum has vocabulary words for each week.  I put them on the site to create our spelling list for the week.  It is worth looking at.


Finally...a conversation from yesterday...

After the church potluck, the senior ladies were all working hard in the kitchen washes dishes and putting things away.

One lady said to the other, "Who is going to wash all of these dishes when all of us old women are gone?

I yelled, "Get a dishwasher."

At which point, they turned, looked at me with disbelief, and then started howling with laughter. 

Missionary Hike 2011 at OneTrueMedia.com

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

I'm Not Alone

Monday night I went to a Homeschool Mom's Night of Encouragement.  I really went to get to know other home school moms in town and hoped to find someone to connect with for possible co-ops, fellowship, and encouragement.  Guess what?!  I found a mom who uses Tapestry of Grace.  I am not alone here in the Pacific Northwest.   Unfortunately, we are not in the same year.  She is in Year 1 while I am year 2, but at least we can use each other as resources.
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Did I tell you I have lost more weight?  I have lost a total of 16 pounds so far.  I had to do a double take when I stepped on the scales the other morning.  The number in the tens place went down a digit.  WooHoo!
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We got word from both of our prospective buyers.  The one couple did not want to change their offer but the second couple came up three thousand more.  We should close on our house in two weeks. 
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Lastly, I enter the field of a working mom in November.  I have been asked to be the church secretary.  Til the end of the year I will be sharing the office with my mother-in-law.  She will work Monday and Tuesday and I will come in Wednesday through Friday.  However, in January she will retire and I will be there five days a week.  I will still be home schooling.  The kids will be doing their school at church.  We did a trial run of schooling at church while my in laws were on vacation.  The kids said it worked out alright.    The extra income will come in handy for school and it will help us to save up for a house. 

Oh, and I did get all my baking done and the circus was a lot of fun.