Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Posted by Cindy on March 23, 2010
This was a fun little activity Eli and I did as we talked about March winds. It’s super simple, too. I colored water with food coloring then let him use an eye dropper to place colored dots on a piece of card stock. He used a straw to blow the colored water all over the paper. He called it his windy painting.
Posted by Cindy on March 22, 2010
As spring kicks into gear, so does our schedule. And so does our time spent outdoors, which is why I’ve disappeared here a bit lately. We’re also moving into our final month of school (giddy jumping up and down) and trying to tie up loose ends. I have a lot of posts in the works, but in the mean time here are a few of the things that have been keeping us busy.
Nature walks!
Mahayla has been bottle feeding this calf since day 1 when his momma had to be put down. He was named Giant because he was as big as a three-week-old calf the day he was born. Giant follows her everywhere!
Speaking of calves, we find them all over the farm like little Easter eggs hidden in the grass.
Caleb is learning learning the ins and out of a tractor.
Eli picked his first wildflowers of the season for me!
He's also been learning how to correctly pick flowers for a vase.
Mahayla and her Papaw have been riding whenever they have a chance.
The big kids and I took a trip to observe misdemeanor and criminal court last week. It was fascinating! We had permission from the judge and the county attorney, so they were expecting us. During a brief recess, the judge took the children on a behind the scenes tour of her office and where she sits behind the bench. I took a small notepad of paper which proved to be invaluable so we could write notes to one another about what was happening during the proceedings (since we couldn't talk.) This was a VERY good field trip!!
Caleb has had a wonderful time playing Upward basketball this year. His team didn't win many games, but they had fun and played with good attitudes. If you've never been part of an Upward sport, I highly recommend giving it a try. You can beat the positive Christian atmosphere!
There you have it! I’m SO thankful spring is here!! It was a l-o-n-g winter and our entire family has been rejuvenated – thank you, Lord!
Posted by Cindy on March 12, 2010
I had mentioned in my WWII post about the Cincinnati Museum Center. Besides the Cincinnati History Museum, this historical building – Union Terminal – houses the Duke Energy Children’s Museum and the Museum of Natural History and Science. (Oh, yes, and an Omnimax Theater and Amtrak Terminal.) For a very fair price, you can choose to tour all three of the museums in one day. Below are some pictures from our day…
Besides WWII, the Cincinnati History Museum takes you through the history of Cincinnati from the earliest Native American settlers to about the 1950′s. You get a lot of history about how Cincinnati developed because of it’s position as a river town and how the Ohio River’s resources helped it grow into quite an industrial area.
This is one of Henry Ford's Model T cars.
This is a trolley that actually rode through Cincinnati. In this section of the museum, they talk about Civil Rights and how black Americans were treated during the 30's-50's.
The Museum of Natural History and Science was VERY EVOLUTIONARY based. However, we have been so well equipped by the Answers in Genesis ministry, I had few problems discussing such topics as cave development, the ice age, archaeology, fossils and such. The museum was quite nicely put together, so I’m glad we chose to go. However, if you aren’t secure in your understanding of creation vs. evolution, you’re likely to be frustrated by the abundance of “millions of years” and “Darwin” talk.
This general store was part of a section about technology advances through the years.
Eli loved flossing giant teeth in the special human body exhibit.
Eli liked playing in the sand with dinosaur models, while the big kids enjoyed the real dinosaur skeletons.
The biggest hit, of course, for Eli was the Children’s Museum! The bigger kids weren’t quite as interested, but they had fun “keeping Eli busy”. 
The ball zone is great fun for all ages!
The water zone had Eli completely soaked by the end. Ugh. But is was fun nonetheless. The big kids and I were able to make our own lock and dam system, which is something we had learned about in an earlier unit study that had confused the kids a bit.
Eli's favorite part was the construction zone!
Caleb helped the little ones load the rocks into the crane bucket for transport to a dump truck.
The museum was also offering a gooey experiment station the day we went. The children were able to play with Oobleck and make their own slime to bring home. Can you see all the little people sitting behind Mahayla? She felt pretty out of place, but handled the situation fine. All the other older children just happened to be in school! (Great for us!)
Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2010
World War II was yet another touching unit in our household. We have grown to love history SO much through the use of living literature, good informational texts and projects. History was something I yawned over year after year in high school and college. I couldn’t imagine EVER liking it! It’s been a refreshing journey full of learning for me as well as my children to learn history in a real and meaningful way.
As with all our 1900′s studies, we continued the notebooking posters for each topic.
We also took a trip to the Cincinnati Museum Center where they house a Cincinnati History Museum, among others. About half of their displays just happened to be on WWII! I couldn’t believe it since we had originally visited it as a link to the Great Depression since the building, Union Terminal, was built during the Depression.
Below is the list of resources that have been in the sidebar. I hope you find them useful! This week we started into a study on the 50′s and 60′s!
WWII Resources
I hope you’ll forgive me for the length of this list. There are SO MANY wonderful books and such that are worth making a part of a WWII study. I just couldn’t help adding them all.
Websites
Very Kid-Friendly Research Links
Posted by Cindy on March 5, 2010
My sweet daughter is a teenager. That’s so hard to believe! She’s one of the most loving, helpful, kind, and hardworking young ladies you’ll ever meet. I love watching her grow each and every day in Christ’s beauty and wisdom. Her daily life is a powerful witness for Him and I can’t wait to see what He has in store for her future!
One of her greatest passions is horses. Her Papaw Bill has waited years to have a companion in the barn who loves horses as much as he does, and he’s finally found that partner in Mahayla. They spend hours feeding, cleaning stalls, grooming horses and riding trails together. She gets up before the crack of dawn every morning to help take care of the horses before her Papaw heads off to work. They’re an equine pair, that’s for sure.
Papaw gave Mahayla a very special gift, indeed, for her 13th birthday – a new trail riding saddle. The first picture shows her expression when she saw the saddle (Papaw Bill is in the background of the picture.) And the second picture shows Eli taking over the saddle before Mahayla ever had a chance to look at it. 
Now all we need is a little warm weather and I have a feeling the trails will be worn often.
Happy birthday, Mahayla!
