Just for grins

A fun Sunday afternoon at the zoo. No particular reason, just because it's 75 degrees and we can. LOVE IT. Tori, who loves to journal, took her nature journal along anyway and created a couple of great pages, but otherwise we just mosied around and soaked up the naturally occuring education.

In the Jungle Building:

On the tram tour:

Joe bonding with a goose:Joe and Sam on the playset in the gorilla exhibit:

The reason for our "MIA-ness"

You may have noticed the lack of posts lately....here's why:

PUMPKIN SALES! We decided to try our hand at pumpkin farming again (last year was a bust) this year. In June, we hand planted 7,000 pumpkin seeds and by mid summer we had a very promising looking pumpkin crop. Pumpkins everywhere. Then came the rain and powdery mildew. Pumpkins dying everywhere. We were able to spray a fungicide and stop the mildew from spreading, but we suffered probably about a 25% loss on the patch. OUCH. Then came the rain. Again. And unusually high temperatures.....not a good combination for the latter stages of pumpkin growing and we were hit with at least another 50% loss. Thankfully, the weather began to cool off and our pumpkins quit dying from heat stroke/rot. When all the trials were said and done, we had about 800 good, basketball or larger size pumpkins left to sale. We also had a hundred or so 'baby-boos'.

We set up shop at two different local craft fairs and ended up selling out about all but 5 or 6 pumpkins, which was great! Those two days were some LONG days, but it went well and was a good experience for all of us. We learned that pumpkin farming is a pretty labor intensive effort if you plan to try to do it for profit, so I think that from now on we will be "providentialist" pumpkin farmers. We'll always plant some pumpkins just for grins and to give away to family and friends, but I fear our days of labor-intensive and cost-ridden pumpkin farming may be over. WAHOO and Amen!

A Columbus Day Reprieve from school

I (mom) had my first ever teacher inservice day on Columbus Day. It was a beautiful rainy day and I organized/lesson-planned/cappaccino-ed the day away to to the sound of NOTHING but the rain.



Daddy and the kids had a fun-filled day planned to Great Plains Nature Center for some serious exploring and nature study, but the rain stopped those plans pretty fast. So, they opted for visitng The Museum of World Tresures in Old Town, which fit in perfectly with our study on ancient Egypt. Here are some pictures of the excursion:

There were some other pictures that were too blurry to even bother posting, but I wish they would have turned out because one was a really cool shot of the kids with the life size T-Rex skeleton in the background.

Tori's Narration

Miriam: A Novel

by Beatrice Gormley

Copyright date: 1999

Number of pages: 192

Number of chapters: 28

Type of book: Historical fiction

Book report/narration by Tori. Typed by mom.

Yesterday I finished reading my assigned reading book, Miriam. It is a story about Moses and Aaron's big sister, Miriam.

The book started on Aaron's birthday and they were having a party on their roof because all of their cousins and relatives couldn't fit into their tiny hut. Ancient Egyptians had a flat roof because they used it as extra living space. In the middle of the party, the slave driver named Steward Peneb came with orders from the palace that the Pharaoh had sent out a new decree that no more Hebrews could have baby boys. Shortly afterwards, Miriam's mother got pregnant and they were really worried that it was going to be a boy. Miriam's family asked Steward Peneb what the punishment was for having a baby boy and he said that her (Miriam's mom's)hands would be cut off if she had a baby boy.

It turned out that Miriam's mother had a baby boy, but they kept him hidden for three months. Then Miriam had a dream of what to do with their little brother (they hadn't named him because they were afraid to mention him). The next day, the princess's pleasure boat was sailing out and she was swimming when a basket floated up with a baby in it. Princess Bint-Anath had never been able to have any children of her own and she believed that this baby was sent to her by the gods. Miriam ran out and said that she knew of a nurse for him, but the Princess's head lady-in-waiting could tell by Miriam's face that they were somehow related. When Miriam brought her mother for a nurse, the head lady-in-waiting (whose name was Nebet) tried to convince the Princess to not accept her. The Princess accepted anyway because she was very stubborn.

Princess Bint-Anath raised the baby, whom she named "Mose", as a prince. Miriam stayed at the palace and took care of him for about two years, with her mother. Miriam started to feel like she would rather be an Egyptian than a Hebrew because she liked the ways of the Egyptians. For example, she liked the food, clothing and music that they played. She even started learning how to play the lute a little bit. She became one of the Princess's favorite musicians. Her mother got very homesick and wanted to go home. She didn't like the way that Miriam was acting because she thought that Miriam had forgotten about all that she had left behind at home.

They returned home after the baby was old enough to wean. Miriam was amazed when she saw how small and puney the Hebrew houses were. She was happy to be home. Aaron threw himself into Miriam's arms and started crying when she got home.

The book I read wasn't really my favorite, but I still really liked it because it was very touching. Most of it was probably fictional because we don't know that much about the life of Miriam. I would probably recommend this book to someone because it's just a fun story to read.

Four words that I would use to describe this book:

1. Egypt

2. Miriam

3. fun

4. fictional

Book Report from Hailey

Book Report/oral narration by Hailey, typed by Mom.

Mummies in the Morning, Magic Tree House Book #3

by Mary Pope Osborne

I just finished reading the book, Mummies in the Morning. It takes place in Ancient Egypt in a pyramid.

How the story started: A little boy and a little girl named Jack and Annie went to the Magic Tree House and got a book about pyramids and opened it up and said, "I wish we could go there." Then the tree house whisked them back to the time of ancient Egypt. They saw a black cat and followed it into a pyramid where they saw an Ancient Egyptian Queen's ghost named Hutepi.

My favorite part of the story: My favorite part of the story is in chapter 4 where they had to find the ghost queen's Book of the Dead or else she couldn't go on to her second life, which is what the Egyptians thought they would have after they died. The Egyptians thought that she would have a second life and she would be a Queen in that life too.

How the story ended: Jack and Annie got trapped in a tunnel underneath the pyramid and they heard the black cat meow and they followed it out and finally saw the sun again. They went back to the treehouse. It was a long walk back to the treehouse. They took the book of Frog Creek Woods, because that's where they lived, and they said, "I wish we could go back home" and the treehouse whisked them back home again. Annie said, "I think mom is making peanut butter and jelly for lunch" and they ran home and she was. The end.

I really like this book series and if I could talk to Mary Pope Osborne, who wrote the book, then I would ask her to make books of all different times and a book where Jack and Annie get whisked back to the time before dinosaurs, like when God created the world.

Four words that describe this book:

1. Egypt

2. Jack

3. Annie

4. exciting

That's it.

Hailey.

Bullet Math

Noah was working on subtraction today. He decided that his subtraction problems needed a bit of illustration, so rather than crossing out the birds for "7-4=?", he shot them down. Note the boy on the ground holding a gun and the bullets whizzing upwards to the birds, which, I am told, are turtledoves, since it's turtledove season and all....

Our best school friend

The library.

Oh, how we love the library! At any given time, we will have a BARE minimum of about 50 books/videos /audios checked out. More like 90 most of the time. With online reserving and renewing, it has never been easier.

Since switching to a more reading-centered approach last year, I am constantly amazed at how fast the kids will DEVOUR the books that are laying around. When a new batch of library books are brought home, the excitement rivals opening Christmas presents. It does my heart good to see my children learning to appreciate literature in ways that I never did. Best of all, the "bigs" love to share it with the "littles" and cozy up on the couch for a story.

We are also unearthing some pretty amazing older stories. No offense to modern authors, but the authors of old seem to write circles around the modern day 'twaddle' that we find on bookshelves. I love a good Dora the Explorer video as much as the next person, but when it comes to comparing a Dora book to a Beatrix Potter book, the difference in quality of writing/content is phenomenal! Why do modern "child experts" feel that everything has to be watered down? Kids can get it. Give them a chance....