Byzantine Empire, Mushrooms, Fungus, and LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

First, and unrelated, I found a fun Roman excavation game online and the kids really enjoyed playing it for awhile.

I didn't expect the Byzantine Empire to be so interesting, probably because I had never, ever, not once, learned about it in school. I only planned two days worth of history for it, and because of the limited resources that was fine, but really, it was fascinating! We read two main books, both of which were kind of long and wordy but Joshua paid attention pretty well. And we made a Byzantine treat with honey and sesame seeds. The recipe also called for orange blossom water but I didn't feel like searching every specialty store and paying a lot of money for something that only seemed marginally important in the recipe. So we left that part out.  Here are our Byzantine photos with minimal explanation. Hopefully someday you will pick up a history book about the crucially important empire and society and ponder how dramatically different our lives would be had it not existed and played the role in the history of the world that it did. Many of the following photos are courtesy of Joshua.

This book by far was the best of the two.

Joshua took it upon himself to make a Byzantine Empire book. He drew the bust of Constantine for the cover and was so proud of himself. I think it looks really good, too.

The Hagia Sophia. This is/was a Christian church and after 1000  years it is still standing in Instanbul, Turkey today. But now it is a Museum.

This is the Pastfeli we were trying to make.

Derek came home late Wednesday night and asked why there was a slug in the kitchen. So I decided the Pastfeli would do better being stored in the freezer. I don't think they taste very good, but Derek and the kids like them... so I guess it's ok that I quadrupled the recipe.

I chose the last week of science and botany to spend time learning about plants that aren't like what we had been learning about already, so no flower, stem, leaves, roots, seeds, etc. Or some variation of that. I picked a couple books about mushrooms and fungus, only to learn that mushrooms and other fungi aren't in the plant kingdom at all! Oh well, it was interesting. And we also learned about plants with no seeds - such as ferns, mosses, and horsetails and things like that. Essentially this group is that of plants with spores instead of seeds.  We learned some interesting things and were even able to find some mushrooms outside as well - I so wish these HUGE mushrooms hadn't been so easy to find. Personally, I think they are horribly disgusting and Derek went out to get mushroom poison right after I pointed them out to him.

Last day of preschool! For Abigail's last day of preschool I had hoped we would have a little graduation party with church dress, presentation of diplomas, a cute slideshow, maybe a graduation cake from Costco or something (that would have been a LOT of cake for a bunch of very little kiddos, but still,) I was hoping for something with that sort of feel. Instead, although we did have a cute slideshow which the kids really enjoyed, they just made a hopscotch course using the letter sounds the kids had learned and then let the kids play with chalk and run around in the back yard. It was fun, but I have to say I was a little disappointed. I don't think Abigail was though, and that is what matters. After the graduation party, and after taking Abby home to change her shirt since one little girl dripped red popsicle down the entire back of Abby's new beautiful white shirt (!!), we went with my friend and her son who was also in Abby's preschool out for pastries at Kneaders. I'd never been to the Kneaders in our town and this one was really fancy and did not disappoint! I let the kids pick out which ever pastry they wanted, and as you will see by the photos, they are their mother's children. Lots and lots of chocolate! The two preschool children were SO happy after our trip to a fancy restaraunt for their graduation. The little boy talked about how this was one of his happiest moments, and it is always so nice to hear that when you have tried to make someone feel important and valued and happy, that you are successful. All of the kids were so happy, and that made us two moms feel pretty good too. Who needs a graduation cap, anyway!

The first two photos are from the last day of actual preschool, not the party.

Shadow chalk pictures.

Joshua made me some "Celtic brooches."

We had to get a few to-go containers for their desserts since they didn't finish them the entire 30 minutes or more that we were there. When I put Lukas' mint chocolate cupcake in the container I realized that the entire time he had just been eating frosting and hadn't even gotten to the cake part of the cupcake!

To finish Joshua's 1st grade year, besides the history and science, we had some copywork, grammar, and spelling to do - he finished his math last week. I was running out of relevant copywork material, so I just had him copy the grammar rules summary section of his grammar book - we literally used this book cover to cover, and his last grammar assignment was to write a letter. I added a stipulation that he had to use a minimum of 10 sentences. This is what he came up with. I am very proud of him. We took two days to do this assignment so I did help him correct his spelling and grammar for the final draft, but he took responsibility and even addressed the envelope by himself.  I am going to keep him doing spelling for another 6 weeks or so because his spelling is so atrocious, but after writing this nice letter, Joshua said he would like to write two letters a week all summer long too. We'll see how well that goes.

Then to celebrate the end of 1st grade we had a movie and popcorn party and then went to our local library to sign up for the summer reading program. It's like school has ended, but not really. At least I have a break of academic preparation for awhile. I'm looking forward to it.

And in final news, we finally cracked and shelled and stored our last box of walnuts from our two walnut trees! And good thing, because the next little walnuts are already the size of grapes on the trees outside. We are also getting closer to being done with the food storage room. Just some more sanding, then staining, then staining a second coat, and then caulking. And all this before Thursday because that is when the carpet guys are coming in to instal the carpet that has been sitting in a roll in our playroom for the last two months! Then we can finally get our shelves back in and realize we have hardly any food storage to store - except jars and jars and jars of walnuts.  I'm excited for the food storage room to be finished also because this means we can work on getting that last tree trunk cut down behind our shed, grind the 8 or so stumps along the edge of our property and then start putting up new fences! And all this in preparation for Derek to build a chicken coop so we can finally get some chickens!! Derek is thinking this will all be done by this fall and we can get the chicks in October. I'm not going to mark that down on my calender, though.

Happy Norwegian Constitution Day!

In case you forgot to celebrate it again this year, mark your calendars now: May 17th, Norwegian Constitution Day. And if you did really forgot, you can enjoy our celebrations from yesterday.

Flowers are Amazing!

Thank's to Joshua for the title of this post.

For science this week we learned about flowers.

Our first activity was to dissect tulips, which were graciously donated by neighbors. My tulips died weeks and weeks ago, but that is another story. We found the petals, the stamen, pistols, stigma, and even some ovules. We talked about how if the pollen cane get onto the stigma, it will creep down into the pistol and turn the ovules into seeds and then in turn the seeds may become flowers themselves. This brought up the whole concept of pollination and bees, bugs, etc., why flowers smell and have colors, and about how the fruit grows. Each little apple blossom, if pollinated, is making way for a new apple full of new seeds! Here are the photos.

A Pistol

here you can see where the blossom fell off and the ovules are growing into seeds deep inside what will someday be a delicious pear!!

This is the picture we used as our dissection guide.

She had to make one of just petals.

All of Joshua's creations. Even a sword made out of flowers. He is still a boy, of course.

Our second flower project was to create our own ideal flower gardens (this was not academically challenging but it was artistic and fun to do). We have a bunch of gardening and seed catalogs so we just took some scissors and glue to them and made our creative creations. Abigail said she wanted to paint too, so we got out some paints as well.  I even made one too. Mine is what I am eventually going to plant around our front tree and outside the front bedroom window where the shade makes it almost impossible to grow anything else - even tulips and daffodils it seems.

And then I planted marigolds in my garden! I've never done this before, but everyone else does it so I figure it's important. Many people think it helps keep away certain bugs, but a couple of websites said it doesn't. Unfortunately, nobody is claiming it keeps ALL the bugs away, which would be wonderful. My gardening know how come essentially from just copying everybody else, so if you see me cutting a roast in half...

You can't really see, but there are marigolds planted between the mounds.

Derek too the day off of work on Friday and we went on a little hike above our old neighborhood in Springville. I was surprised at the many wildflowers there were up there, so I made the kids pay attention to them and called it a field trip.

And last but not least, our biggest healthiest tomato plant blossomed! We've got two little flowers on this plant and it makes me so happy because this is one of the plants we started from seed in our kitchen. I feel like a success!