Assyrians and Turkeys

There isn't much to tell, I feel. And less photos to show. We've all been a little under the weather and our school has sort of reflected that.  We did, however, still keep on top of our studying. For history we studied the Assyrians. There was only one juvenile nonfiction book in the entire library on the topic, so even though it was a little above their heads, I checked it out anyway. I, actually, found it totally fascinating. All I had really known about the Assyrians were that they were horrible. Just like a huge machine of an army that destroyed everything in its path offering absolutely no mercy whatsoever. And that seems to be true.  What I didn't know was that relatively speaking, their empire was pretty short lived - max 400 years, but that includes the built up and the destruction, so I hope they enjoyed their peak because it didn't last long.  The first day we read about daily life, which resembled the Sumerians and Babylonians. In fact, their gods and language were pretty much the same. We also read about the kings and the palaces briefly. The boys were really intrigued by the kings lion hunting past time, so of course, both boys drew pictures of lion hunts for their narration pages.  The second day we read through the library book, which like I said, was a little over their heads, but we did manage to learn some interesting things. What I particularly found interesting, was the fact that the Assyrians converted to Christianity right from the beginning - ok, beginning as in when those first missionaries were sent out after Jesus's death. And although the Assyrians do not exist as a nation now, they still exist as a people, like the Jews - so says the book. Supposedly you can go over to Turkey and Iran nowadays and find people who will tell you they are Assyrian. The book also mentioned that although nobody really knows the origin of Baklava, it is an ancient recipe that Asyrians particularly enjoyed and so they included a recipe. And we of course tried it out. Joshua said it was better than cake, but not better than ice cream. I myself, have seen/eaten enough baklava to last me my entire life.

Abigail buttering up the Phyllo dough

On our final day of Assyria we talked more about the empire and how big it was. Joshua was impressed that it covered all of the areas we have learned about up until this point - minus the Indus River valley which we actually didn't learn much about. We learned about the army and maintaining the empire. It's pretty gruesome. But I think the most impressive thing to Joshua was the siege engines. That is what he drew on his narration page. We talked about foot soldiers, cavalry, chariots, and the siege engines and also how the Assyrians would relocate groups of conquered people to squash any hopes/plans of rebellion. This only worked for so long, because since the Assyrian army wasn't big enough to maintain control of their vast empire, the disgruntled conquered rebelled anyway until nothing was left of the empire, not even the original Assyria. That had been taken over as well. Our library book had a neat step-by-step instruction page of how to make a bow and arrow out of pvp pipe which I would have encourage Derek to help Joshua and the kids make, except Joshua already has a bow and arrow out of pvp pipe. Maybe I'll just save the instructions and we can make them some other time.

Turkeys, well, they are not very complicated. We found some excellent nonfiction books about them, wild and domestic, and some dopey fiction books. The first day we just read the fiction books and made a craft and the second day we read the nonfiction books, did a narration page, and did another craft. Actually, I can't remember if we actually did a narration page. Turkeys just aren't that complicated or really that interesting.  Since we are prepping for our pre-school Thanksgiving party this next week hosted at our house, we've tried out a few turkey crafts to make sure they are preschool appropriate. Here are the things we have made.

I couldn't find any gumdrops so we went with jelly beans and there weren't any circus peanuts either, so our apple candy turkeys are just going to have to go without feet.

Sorry for the horrible photo. I forgot to take one during the day, so I took this just a few minutes ago this evening in the dark. The body of the turkey is made by tracing and cutting out two feet (from the child) and lining the heels up together so that the toes turn in opposite directions, and the feather of course are just their hands.

TP turkeys. We're going to do this one at the party. Joshua added a snood to his, if you can pick it out.

Also, for copywork for the month of November Joshua has been copying the Gettysburg Address. Last Tuesday was the 150th anniversary of the address and I am a little surprised it didn't get more attention than it did. Instead, all I heard all week long was the Kennedy assassination. That was less interesting to me, but maybe recent history isn't always as interesting to me as older history. I don't know. I'll have to get a book at the library and learn more about it I guess because it sounds like I am missing out on something. Unfortunately we didn't actually memorize the address, which was my first intention, but the language was really foreign to Joshua and although the address is short, it was probably too long for his level.

Also, last Tuesday was Kaleb's first birthday. I'll do another post about that in a minute.

And last Friday we took the kids to the Sacred Gifts exhibit at the MOA at BYU. It was wonderful. Derek and I are planning on going back sometime without the kids. This is a once in a lifetime event so if any of you are down my way and want free tickets for a certain day, snatch them up before they are all gone.

As far as bad things that happened this week, besides being sick, Abigail decided last Tuesday to give herself a haircut, but thankfully she only gave herself bangs. She was tired of the hair in her face, she said. I wish she would have told me. We have clips for things like that!

And then the next night she fell out of bed and started screaming like someone was abducting her or something! She had landed mouth first onto her open drawer and gashed up her mouth right between her two front teeth. It was bleeding pretty good but her teeth were pushed up into her gums or knocked out or anything. I thought the impact had gone straight up her nose and face, but the next morning there was a pretty good bruise running horizontal along her cheek. It took a while to calm her back down, but after removing the boxsprings from her bed so the next fall wouldn't be so long, she climbed in and fell right to sleep. I had called my friend who's brother is our dentist, she called her brother, and he said it didn't sound like an emergency but she should come in the next day to get it looked at. She's just fine. In fact, she says it barely even hurts at all anymore. But it sure was scary.

Next week - this week - is a short week. No animal. And history is of course, the first Thanksgiving.

Kaleb's 1st Birthday

Kaleb's birthday was simple and fun. Instead of cake we made cupcakes (regular and mini) and we had left over ice cream from my birthday. I know, it's getting pretty old. It may be time to just toss it. And Grammy and Grampy came over to celebrate. We had three different hand me down toys from the neighbors that they had given us maybe 10 months ago that we wrapped up and Grammy had a couple of gifts as well. Grandma Paula gave Kaleb $10, which he chose to spend on new warm socks and onesies. Thanks Grandma!

You would think it was the older baby's birthday instead of the younger's. (And I mean baby in the most affectionate way, of course. Those two little boys are my little babies.)

Butterflies Part 2

Besides making these really cute butterflies and caterpillars and caterpillar eggs...

....and reading these fun books about caterpillars and butterflies...

This book was my favorite because it had the following two pages. Actually, the book was great for a lot of reasons.

You can't read it from here, but each caterpillar is labeled.

And then on this page you can find the butterfly that goes with the caterpillar on the other pages - the butterflies are labeled too.

This was Joshua's favorite book because it had the following two pages (every picture in this book is a stunning actual photography)

That is a caterpillar pretending to be snake so it wont get eaten.

...mostly all we did this week for home school is drive 8 hours to Denver, Colorado and visit the Butterfly Pavilion. I was pretty pleased with myself for making the 8 hours drive all by myself. The kids didn't start going crazy until we were about 20 minutes away from my sister's home, so all in all, the trip there was pretty good. (I do attribute a lot of this to the DVD player in the minivan.)

The first full day we were there we went with my sister and her youngest, Cameron, and my mother and stepdad to the Butterfly Pavilion. I mentioned I had been there before, but when I was there three years ago they were under renovation. This time, although it wasn't any bigger, it looked a lot cooler and their displays were even better and better organized. They have one room that has cockroaches and spiders and centipedes and even bees (honey bees that have a little see through tube so they can fly in and out of the building. There is a little ticker that counts how many bees exit and enter the hive each day. It is really neat. In this room you can even hold Rosie, a tarantula. Last time Joshua got to hold Rosie but Abigail was too little. I didn't bother to give Lukas the chance, figuring he wouldn't be too keen on the idea anyway - just look at his face in the picture. I'm not sure tarantulas really peak his interest.

The second area was about aquatic invertebrates. There were crabs and lobster and shrimp and jellyfish and anemomes and even some fish. They even had starfish and horseshoe crabs you could touch. In every room too, there was someone who could answer any questions you had.

And then the final room, and of course the main attraction, is the butterfly room where there were so many butterflies that you almost bumped into them as you walked along the paths. Mostly, the butterflies just kind of flew into your path as you walked along. I bought Joshua a little pamphlet to help him identify the butterflies he saw. He was able to find a couple with Grandma Paula but was a little disapointed he didn't find the Blue Morpho Swallowtail - the big blue poisonous one which is his favorite. He asked one of the workers and he said they didn't even have any blue morphos. I was impressed with how Joshua took his "field trip" seriously, just in the sense that he was ready to learn. He watched and identified butterflies. He spent time actually observing the butterflies that had just emerged from their chrysallis's.  He asked the workers questions and then asked if there were any caterpillars he could see too. One of the workers pointed to a bush down the path and Joshua went down there and stared at the plant for a while searching for the little bugs, but he never found any. Still, he came ready and excited to learn and that made me very happy.

This is Joshua posing as a tree so a butterfly would land on him.

Back at home, insect related but not necessarily butterfly related, we made these cute bugs. My sister had the idea in a book of hers and she pulled out the book and all the supplies for us. They were fun and cute to make.

Also on our trip (ok the home school part of the blog post is done) we took a little walk/hike on a river trail in Boulder. The weather on this trip was pretty warm, although cooler of course when the wind blew. Our walk was a lot of fun and we spent a little time sitting on some rocks and watching the kids throw rocks into the stream. We also saw a deer and a bald eagle. My mom said that was nothing, they see bald eagles all the time on her island. And that is true. The one time I was there I was kayaking with Derek and Bob around along the shore of Lopez Island and a big bald eagle majestically flew around us and then perched itself on top of a tree just above us.

Also, the school where Claire's kids go was having a movie night for all the students and families who attend the school. It was completely sponsored by local businesses and they had free popcorn, pizza, and ice cream. The kids picked out a blanket and pillow and we found a spot on the floor and with about a gazillion other kids and parents we watched Monster's University. (Claire and I snuck off right before the movie started to do a little shopping, but we came back during intermission so I saw the very end of the show - don't worry, Bob and Gary were there with the kids.) I know my kids had tons of fun. Joshua's only been to a movie theater once and I'm sure he doesn't remember it - it was, I think, for his second birthday. He didn't sit through the movie very long and we ended up leaving early I think. But even Lukas sat and watched the movie and I think he enjoyed it, even if he didn't understand much.

The next day it was already time to go home. Another long 8 hours, but this time we had potential snow and icy roads to deal with. I was really nervous and I said a lot of prayers. I did go through some slushy icy roads over the first mountain pass, but it wasn't very much, and at the very end over the last mountain pass (do they call them mountain passes here in Utah? Or is it just a summit?) right before you come down into Spanish Fork it was barely snowing. But here is the miracle. Besides those two areas, and even above Spanish Fork, the road was wet but not at all icy or slick, the roads were completely dry. This is a miracle because everywhere around me it was raining and snowing. I could see it raining and snowing looking all directions, even in front of me, but my road was completely dry. It was more than a tender mercy. I think it was a miracle. Especially because we were all really anxious to get home. The kids started going crazy, this time, about 1 1/2 hours before we got to our destination and the last 45 minutes was a constant back and forth of hysterical laughter and crying. But we made it. And we're all home safe and sound.

Now, you wont get a field trip like that attending public school.

Next week, Assyrians and Turkeys!