Fall Hike

We took a beautiful fall hike last Sunday. What a gorgeous day. We hiked at McKeldin, They have great trails through the woods, and one that ends at the rapids. Even though the air was warm, the water was freezing, but that didn't stop the kids from playing in it.

Apple Picking!

We had a blast today picking apples at Larriland Farm. We met up with a bunch of friends and picked a gazillion apples.

Curriculum!

We are finally settled into a new year of homeschooling. We've been going at it for 4 weeks now, heading into week 5. I thought I'd post what Molly is using for 7th grade.

Literature: She's reading from the late Renaissance to early modern time period. Formal reading list includes:
Don Quixote,Perraults Complete Fairy Tales, Gullivers Travels, The Pilgrims Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Wordsworth poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Coleridge), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Way to Wealth (In Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and other writings), Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, The adventures of Tom Sawyer, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, A Christmas Carol, Edgar Allen Poe selections, Narrative of Frederick Douglas

Math: Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals and Percents. This is considered pre-algebra review, she'll start algebra 1 in 8th grade

English: Rod and Staff

Vocabulary: Vocabulary From Classical Roots

History: History Odyssey level 2 early modern

Spanish: Spanish For Children

Critical Thinking Book 1

Science: Ellen McHenry's the Elements and Carbon Chemistry. Also the Mystery of the Periodic Table

Art: Artistic Pursuits and claywork classes

Music: Classical Music Start up volume 1 and 2 and piano lessons

These are her formal subjects. She is also taking a yearbook class, and is in 2 plays, A Christmas Carol and Charlie Brown's Christmas. She is also in a drama ministry troupe which has performances once or twice a month.

The Little Mermaid

Molly had a great time being the evil jellyfish Evsam in TOL's performance of the Little Mermaid.

Bad Mommy Moment

I am a horrible mother. Molly broke her arm last night. 4th of July, we are all getting ready to go see fireworks at the Farm Museum. I knew Molly was riding her scooter, I also knew how she was riding it. She has been doing this trick for about a week now where she rides 2 razor scooters at once. She has one foot on each scooter and straddles them. I know, its really a dumb trick, dangerous too. Why did I allow her? Was it because I didn't foresee the danger? Didn't really think about it? Negligence? Or was it because I knew she would have a fit and scream at me that I was overprotective and don't allow her to have any fun? Probably a combination of reasons. Well, she was coming down our hill and she crashed of course. She broke her arm right below her wrist. We spent the evening in the emergency room, where they wrapped her arm and referred us to an orthopedic dr. to set it.
I feel about this big right now.
So today I'm buying everyone armour and having them drink copious amount of milk :)

Benny's 4th Birthday Bash

Some pics from Benny's dino party. He had a dinosaur fossil cake, a dinosaur egg pinata, and a hunt for fossilized dinosaur eggs. The cake was just chocolate covered in chocolate graham cracker crumbs to resemble dirt, with dino bones on top made out of sugar cookies. The pinata was a balloon covered in paper mache and painted to look like a dino egg. The fossils the kids hunted for were made out of a mixture of coffee grounds, flour ,salt and water. Once I made the clay, I pushed a toy dino inside, then reshaped the egg. They then bake in the oven till they are hard as rocks. It was a rainy day, but I think the kids all had fun.

Our Newest Pets

Last night, while cleaning out his tractor trailer, Mark found a mother mouse and her nest of babies. They all escaped except 2 unfortunate creatures who are now pets to the Prunty children. Well, they probably won't survive that long, they are very young, but we're giving it a go. Our current read-aloud book happens to be the Adventures of Nutmeg and TumTum, who are, of course mice.