I originally planned on a day or two about the ancient Hittites last week, but there was so little information I could find that I decided to just skip it. I'm sure my children's education will not suffer too greatly because of this decision. Instead, we moved onto Mycenae, which is the Greek city from which Agamemnon is supposed to have been king during the Trojan wars. Sometimes narration pages get a little redundant, so we didn't really do any for Mycenae. And in fact, on Friday, we were so busy, that we didn't really do much homeschool, which is why Mycenae has flooded over into this week as well. But even Mycenae isn't that interesting all in itself. What is really interesting is Homer's epic poems, the Odyssey and the Illiad. I've mentioned before Derek has read two different versions of the Odyssey to Joshua (he's reading them Gilgamesh now from ancient Babylon - we went a little backwards) and it is probably Joshua's favorite book ever - although he is really enjoying Gilgamesh the Hero. So instead of doing narration pages on Mycenae I decided Joshua could narrate his own version of The Odyssey. This has actually turned into a huge project because his memory is too good and he starts recounting all these little details. (In fact, sometimes I say too him, "you know, its ok, you can just say Calypso let him go, instead of retelling the entire conversation between the two." That's probably not the best teaching tool, but it helps him not get too bogged down in all the details and make the project too large for him to finish. By the way, we aren't finished yet. He's narrated to the point where Odysseus is back in Ithaca and he's illustrated to the point where Odysseus sails away from Troy. So, yes, we have a long way to go. I would like him to get done by Thursday, but we'll see. Once Derek is done reading Gilgamesh to the kids, he's going to read a children's version of the Illiad and then also the Anead. I'm sure I've mentioned that as well.
But today, because we had to read something during learning time and Derek has forbidden me to read "his" books to the kids (it is their special time together) I read Joshua a different book. It is about the man who discovered Troy, Mycenae, and some other Bronze Age settlement mentioned by Homer in modern day Turkey. He was a German named Heinrich Schliemann and his story is really interesting. The title is "The Hero Schliemann; The Dreamer Who dug for Troy" but I wouldn't call him a hero. He is kind of more like a nut. But he ended up an extremely rich nut. And a famous rich nut at that. The book was much longer than I realized, but Joshua was so interested in it, that we read the entire thing. It took us about an hour. It is a very interesting read and I recommend it to anyone learning about archeology, the Trojan Wars, or needs a subject for a biography research paper or something.
My original idea for the latter half of this week was to move onto the Old Testament lands and peoples but that might flood over into next week as well. I don't have many pictures of our history learning, but I promise it was interesting.
In science we learned about worms and leeches. so gross. But we got some of the most awesome narration pages out of it. For some reason, science narration pages don't get boring. The books were very informative, even if they were gross, the leeches especially. For our worm day we went outside and collected worms in old peanut butter containers so we could observe them digging their tunnels. Lukas has never been so excited to participate in learning time. He was right there the entire time and insisted on making his own worm house. (I think our worms are barely struggling onto life so I better let them go). The kids had so much fun digging in the dirt, finding the worms, and picking out the best leaves for them to eat. And just so you know, you can't cut a worm in half and get two living worms, although the head end of the worm might grow a new tail end. And a worm does have 5 hearts, but they are all clumped together around it's head end. I always thought they were all throughout the body and that was why you could cut worms in half and they would still live, because they would still have at least one heart. Anyway, that is false.
And a quick warning about teaching your kids about leeches and bloodletting, besides that it is gross. I did come down one afternoon to see the kids playing doctor and Joshua had drawn and cut out a picture of a leech to use on Lukas, who was forced to lie on the couch and have a paper leech suck on his ear every few minutes to help him get better. If you don't want your kids leeching each other, don't teach them about leeches.
In other news, I had a birthday last week. I turned 32. That seems so young still. But then I realized I was almost 36 and 36 is TWICE as old as 18. That seems really old. So when I turn 36 maybe I'll feel differently about my age. For my birthday I made myself a cake. It was a four layer lemon and strawberry cake with a whipped cream frosting. It was kind of fun to make, and kind of pretty, but of course, we can't eat an entire cake so I gave a little more than half of it away and just threw away the last 2 two pieces forgotten in the fridge. And I've decided, I probably would have been just as happy eating the lemon curd I made for the filling, instead of sticking it into a cake. Maybe I'm more of a lemon pie kind of person instead of a lemon cake kind of person. I also went up to Salt Lake to visit a friend I hadn't seen in a long time and it was very nice to see her. She is an amazing person and I admire her very much. That night Derek brought home dinner and we had cake. My favorite part of the day, maybe, was watching my kids sing happy birthday and literally squeal with delight as they cheered after I blew out my candles. They were so happy! And so that made me really happy. Derek got me a water bath/steamer canner, some canning tongs, an apple peeler/corer/slicer, and a citrus zester. So of course Friday I had to test them out.
We made applesauce! It was so fun using my new stuff, and it really wasn't that difficult - especially since the kids ate all the apple peels right as they came off the apple. They really enjoyed that. And I couldn't help but notice their resemblance to our science topic of the week. We also made one more stop to the pumpkin patch with our friends and ran a couple of other errands, like our weekly library trip. It was a busy day.
Also, I worked on Halloween costumes. They turned out pretty good and the boys wear theirs every day! This photos doesn't show them totally complete, but they are pretty close.
My other birthday present still isn't quite finished. My goal was to have our front room finished, meaning having all the pictures selected, printed, framed, and hung on the wall. This has been a major project and an expensive one too (but to me, everything is expensive, even milk and bread). I've hung all but three photos and a wreath up since those items need nails and we've all had colds but Derek has been maybe the most sick so he hasn't hung up the last things for me. I'd much rather have him be responsible for a hole in the wall than myself so I don't dare try to hang them up by myself. When I get those done - which will hopefully be tomorrow - I will post those photos too. I already love the room, although if I look too closely at one arrangement, I start seeing mistakes, but it's ok.
But today, because we had to read something during learning time and Derek has forbidden me to read "his" books to the kids (it is their special time together) I read Joshua a different book. It is about the man who discovered Troy, Mycenae, and some other Bronze Age settlement mentioned by Homer in modern day Turkey. He was a German named Heinrich Schliemann and his story is really interesting. The title is "The Hero Schliemann; The Dreamer Who dug for Troy" but I wouldn't call him a hero. He is kind of more like a nut. But he ended up an extremely rich nut. And a famous rich nut at that. The book was much longer than I realized, but Joshua was so interested in it, that we read the entire thing. It took us about an hour. It is a very interesting read and I recommend it to anyone learning about archeology, the Trojan Wars, or needs a subject for a biography research paper or something.
My original idea for the latter half of this week was to move onto the Old Testament lands and peoples but that might flood over into next week as well. I don't have many pictures of our history learning, but I promise it was interesting.
In science we learned about worms and leeches. so gross. But we got some of the most awesome narration pages out of it. For some reason, science narration pages don't get boring. The books were very informative, even if they were gross, the leeches especially. For our worm day we went outside and collected worms in old peanut butter containers so we could observe them digging their tunnels. Lukas has never been so excited to participate in learning time. He was right there the entire time and insisted on making his own worm house. (I think our worms are barely struggling onto life so I better let them go). The kids had so much fun digging in the dirt, finding the worms, and picking out the best leaves for them to eat. And just so you know, you can't cut a worm in half and get two living worms, although the head end of the worm might grow a new tail end. And a worm does have 5 hearts, but they are all clumped together around it's head end. I always thought they were all throughout the body and that was why you could cut worms in half and they would still live, because they would still have at least one heart. Anyway, that is false.
And a quick warning about teaching your kids about leeches and bloodletting, besides that it is gross. I did come down one afternoon to see the kids playing doctor and Joshua had drawn and cut out a picture of a leech to use on Lukas, who was forced to lie on the couch and have a paper leech suck on his ear every few minutes to help him get better. If you don't want your kids leeching each other, don't teach them about leeches.
In other news, I had a birthday last week. I turned 32. That seems so young still. But then I realized I was almost 36 and 36 is TWICE as old as 18. That seems really old. So when I turn 36 maybe I'll feel differently about my age. For my birthday I made myself a cake. It was a four layer lemon and strawberry cake with a whipped cream frosting. It was kind of fun to make, and kind of pretty, but of course, we can't eat an entire cake so I gave a little more than half of it away and just threw away the last 2 two pieces forgotten in the fridge. And I've decided, I probably would have been just as happy eating the lemon curd I made for the filling, instead of sticking it into a cake. Maybe I'm more of a lemon pie kind of person instead of a lemon cake kind of person. I also went up to Salt Lake to visit a friend I hadn't seen in a long time and it was very nice to see her. She is an amazing person and I admire her very much. That night Derek brought home dinner and we had cake. My favorite part of the day, maybe, was watching my kids sing happy birthday and literally squeal with delight as they cheered after I blew out my candles. They were so happy! And so that made me really happy. Derek got me a water bath/steamer canner, some canning tongs, an apple peeler/corer/slicer, and a citrus zester. So of course Friday I had to test them out.
Also, I worked on Halloween costumes. They turned out pretty good and the boys wear theirs every day! This photos doesn't show them totally complete, but they are pretty close.
My other birthday present still isn't quite finished. My goal was to have our front room finished, meaning having all the pictures selected, printed, framed, and hung on the wall. This has been a major project and an expensive one too (but to me, everything is expensive, even milk and bread). I've hung all but three photos and a wreath up since those items need nails and we've all had colds but Derek has been maybe the most sick so he hasn't hung up the last things for me. I'd much rather have him be responsible for a hole in the wall than myself so I don't dare try to hang them up by myself. When I get those done - which will hopefully be tomorrow - I will post those photos too. I already love the room, although if I look too closely at one arrangement, I start seeing mistakes, but it's ok.
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