We are beginning our eighth week of school tomorrow, so I thought it time to do a brief update of our homeschool year so far. We started the second week of August to get a good head start and ensure that we would have plenty of time for breaks at the holidays. So the boys were still in summer mode. We even went to the city pool on the afternoon of our first day of school! Here are my summer boys, wearing our new school shirts!
All four boys were excited to begin their next grade level.
And Joe is thrilled to be "doing school" with Mom each day! He loves to learn!
One of the things we've incorporated this year is giving each boy a day of the week to help mom in the kitchen and prepare meals. If they have an idea of what they'd like to make, I let them do it. George is our creative food mind and always comes up with something artistic and fun! On his first week, he prepared an under-the-sea themed lunch. Can you spot the crab, the octopus, the turtle and the eel? :-)
On his second week, he decided on an insect theme: ants on a log, cheese-stick and pretzel centipedes, grape insects and cheese puff worms! (All while wearing the orange hat our friends gave him!)
Though we are dedicating much of our time to the basics - the three 'R's' of learning - I wanted this year to have a bit more focus on the arts. We do an art lesson each week and are studying classical music....often at the same time! Here the boys picked a famous painting - Van Gogh's "Wheat Field with Crows" and attempted to paint in the same style.
Here is the original work in an art book....
...and here are the boys' reproductions! How do you think they did??
We are also continuing our nature studies...and we've had plenty of opportunities. We studied ducks and geese at the local duck pond....
...and we've had too many sad opportunities to see birds up close after they strike one of the 24 windows in our living room! Often the birds are just stunned and we are able to hold them and put them in our bird hospital box to let them recuperate before they fly off...as this juvenile robin did.
But many times the birds break their necks upon hitting the window, give a few pitiful chirps and die. In one week we had two male McGillivray's warblers die this way, and then a female hit the window and we were able to release her a while later. These birds are migrating through and are often difficult to spot, so we were grateful for the chance to see them up close, but sad that we had to bury two of them in our bird cemetery.
At the end of August, we took a quick trip to go camping in a part of our state we have never been in before. The weather was beautiful and the boys took lots of hikes with Josh.
We stayed at an old forest ranger's cabin that was built in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps! Very cool! (We lowered the flag to half mast for John McCain.)
Our family is never very far from baseball. The boys found an old baseball with the covering removed and used a stick for a bat and other things to mark the bases and had a game of baseball!
The boys loved roasting their hot dogs and then having s'mores for dessert!
The transition from summer into the beginning of fall wouldn't be complete without our county fair! We spent one day riding the rides.
Our good friend Gary deserves a medal for sitting with Jack on this high-flying ride! :-)
George and Joe preferred the tamer rides!
Fearless Jack rode every ride and LOVED the high swing ride. Later Toby tried it and ended up loving it as well. Just watching them made me swoon....
The littlest two were happy to play some games and with Mom's help each won a stuffed dog toy that they named "Betty" and continue to love even now!
I decided to go on the Ferris Wheel with George and Joe, simply because we had read the story of George Ferris, the inventor of the wheel, earlier in the year and thought it would give us beautiful views of our town. It did, but this mama just does NOT like heights and I had to deep breathe through the entire thing while Joe and George happily looked around!
The best part of the fair, however, was being able to enter lots of items for the arts and crafts show. Everything we entered earned ribbons and we walked away with $125 of prize money!!!
Jack won the Judge's Choice prize for this paint collage he did:
George won three blue ribbons, two for art work and one for a Lego duck pond he created:
Joe won two blue ribbons, one for his Van Gogh reproduction!
Jack won the Sweepstakes award for the massive Lego creation he made with the help of his brothers. It was called "The Final Battle" and depicted dozens of individual fight scenes atop a massive tower....everyone was very impressed!
(George's duck pond!)
Toby was beyond happy to receive three prizes for the things he entered in the Special Needs category - a Lego creation he titled "The War Clock" and two pieces of artwork....
...including this drawing! He had $21 of prize money to put toward a Lego set he was saving for!
And even Mom won a prize! I entered four photos I had unintentionally captured throughout the year and this photo of a tree in bloom in spring outside of our dentist's office won the sweepstakes award! Who would have known??!!
All in all...some pretty happy boys!
We decided to let Jack try a new sport this fall - flag football. Football is huge around these parts, with tackle football beginning in 3rd grade. We are NOT fans of letting young kids play tackle football, so playing on a flag football team seemed like a good option. Jack is the tallest kid on the team and is an amazingly intuitive player. He's learning the rules, positions and plays of the game, but is doing such a great job.
In almost every game, he is the first one to pull a flag from the opposing team within mere seconds.
He is serious on defense and is the best blocker they have...but always keeps his eye on the ball.
And his height and intuition allow him to intercept passes numerous times each game!
He plays well on offense, too.
And though he is serious most of the time, we see a smile break out every now and then. He told me in this picture the kid was commenting on how tall he was! He is also a good sport and helps opponents up when they've fallen and always returns the pulled flags in the most respectful ways.
Watch out when he gets the ball!
...or when he's blocking for his friends and teammates! (The expressions in this photo just kill me!)
We have some big changes coming for the Meyer family. Since we're just in the beginning stages of the change, I'll leave it with this photo for now and update some more later!
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