Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!

(quote of Abraham Lincoln upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe-1863)

Alex started an online history class Friday that uses 3 of Joy Hakim's books. We are starting our study with the Civil War and Hakim's 7th book, War, Terrible War (1855-1865). We are truly enjoying this wonderfully written book.

Chapter 3 in the book is about Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. We have been fascinated with this story and Alex really wants to read the book. I have never read it, but plan on getting a copy from the library and we'll see if we are really up to reading it or not. I would at least like to read it myself and perhaps share pieces of it with Alex.

We read A Picture Book of Harriet Beecher Stowe by David A. Adler. We always enjoy his books and this is a great picture book that gives you a quick overview of Harriet's life.

Tonight, I enjoyed watching this video by storytelling actress Paddy Lynn. She is dressed up as Harriet Beecher Stowe and you see clips of her first-person performance. I really enjoyed her show and would love to see it in person. I'll show this clip to Alex in the morning.

And, I found this video about Uncle Tom's Cabin while searching the internet. It is actually the one we watched with our class and I noticed that a lot of the photos are photos that are in Joy Hakim's book.

This class is going to be a lot of work for both of us, but we are already learning a lot!

Divisibility War

Last week, Alex was working on divisibility rules. Here are the rules we were working on:

• 2's - if it ends in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8, it is divisible by 2
• 3's - add the digits and if they are divisible by 3, the whole number is divisible by 3
• 4's - if the last 2 digits of a number are divisible by 4, the whole number is divisible by 4
• 5's - if it ends in 0 or 5, it is divisible by 5
• 6's - if it is divisible by both 2 & 3, it is divisible by 6
• 9's - add the digits and if they are divisible by 9, the whole number is divisible by 9
• 10's - if it ends in 0, it is divisible by 10

I went online and found this Divisibility War game. Basically, I wrote down some of the numbers from their list and dealt us each out 6 cards. We took turns going through the cards and deciding if they were divisible by each of the following: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, & 10. For every number that it WAS divisible by, we put a marker on the card. At the end of the game we saw who had the most markers.

After we'd played it a couple of times, I changed the rules a bit. Now, if Alex makes a mistake (or I do!), I will challenge her and "get" her point. This makes sure she is really paying attention (and that I am, too).

She has really liked this game and keeps asking to play it. It is a great way to reinforce divisibility rules!

X-Large!!!

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WooHoo!!! I mentioned it at the end of my last post, but I just found out that blogger now has extra-large photos! I had to increase the width of my posting area (thanks to what I learned this weekend about customizing blogger), but I can now post XL photos... expecially wonderful for some of the nature photos. Yeah!

Co-op Work Day

Yesterday, we went to a "work day" at our co-op. Our classes meet in an old house on several acres. And, this year, we are working on improving our landscape with a Healthy Habitat grant we won. We spent about 3 hours helping to remove trash and debris from the back of the property.

Alex is in the orange pullover helping to pick up trash. The guys on the left are using a wheelbarrow to move old wooden beams. They will line the back of our property since it backs up agains some woods and we don't have a fence.

I spent part of my time helping to lay out the flags for several pathways we'll be putting in. I also helped with trash and building a brush pile.

We will also be composting and one of my jobs was to figure out how to put the compast bin together. It was actually incredibly easy and only took about a minute. I'm excited about learnign more about composting and we are trying to have someone come in and teach us more about this subject.

We had pizza for lunch and Alex and one of her best friends helped get the supplies together and serve us. Most of the volunteers were adults and teens, so it was great that one of Alex's friends was there. Everyone else ate on the back porch, but Alex and her friend took their food out to the play area.

Of course, as I worked I found lots of interesting things! This was VERY interesting. The brown growth is very rubbery. Another science teacher told me he thought the cell walls had broken down. Has anyone seen anything like this? Any idea what it is???

Here's another beautiful lichen! They almost looked like they had crystals growing on them!

A few months ago, some of those working on the habitat built this pond. We were excited to see plants growing in it! We also had moved some small fish there from another pond and we were thrilled to see them surviving.

I also found a really neat snail which was floating UPSIDE DOWN! It's underside was blue. I've never seen a snail do that before... but then we saw another, and another... we probably found 30 or so. They were quite small and many were floating upside down, though we did find some on the bottom among the leaf litter.

Here's Alex and her friend looking for critters in the pond. I think they were looking for more snails.

And, a crawdad! One of the other teachers showed us how to get them out of their holes. They have a hole near the bank and if you kind of step on the bank you will see dirt "squirting" out of their hole. Do that for a little bit (maybe 10-15 times) and the little crawdad will finally swim out. I'd never held one before, but I caught him so we could all have a better look. I loved how he had his little pinchers ready to defend himself. He sat still for a few minutes, and then scurried backwards trying to find a safe place to go. We put him back in the pond.

And, did you notice I figured out how to make LARGER PHOTOS!!! I see Blogger now has a choice to post "extra large" photos. Yippee!!!

Customizing Blogger

I have been busy customizing my blog this afternoon. I wanted my posting area to be wider, and I hope my photos will turn out bigger, too. They seem to look better, but I'm not sure if they actually are or not. I found a post titled "How to change width of blogger blogs" at Beginner Blogger Basics. I created a back up of my blog and went through the steps and got a wider blog!

I've also been meaning to post about how I created a custom header several months ago. I know many of you use blogger and already know how to do this, but I hadn't even realized I COULD customize a header with blogger until recently! So, maybe there are others of you out there who could use a short tutorial.

I asked Alex at Serendipity Homeschool and she advised me to go to picnik.com. At Picnik, I downloaded a photo of Alex making a snow angel in the snow. Then, I edited it by cropping it shorter. Next, I went in to "create" and added the text, "school for us." Finally, I "save"d it and typed the width of 800 (as my header width is 820).

I went into the "Layout" on blogger and clicked on "edit header." I deleted the current image and added my new photo. I clicked on the button to use the photo "instead of title and description." And, I had my new header!

Another thing I've been wanting to do is to add a signature to the bottom of each post. I followed the tips at Moms Who Blog and came up with "my" signature! You use My Live Signature to create this signature. When you get to the end, make sure you say you want to "use this signature" and get an html generated. (Oops! I didn't realize it was in a white box, but I've done enough for one day.)

I hope you enjoy my little changes and maybe it will help if some of you were wanting to try some of these changes!

Mr. Barrington's Mysterious Trunk

A dizzy feeling came over Hannah. She watched helplessly as the threatening funnel spun around and around them like a top. As the smoke completely enveloped them,one last bang of thunder shook the school. The box she was holding crashed to the floor as Nick and Jackie vanished! All at once, everything turned black.Hannah was no longer in Mr. Barrington's classroom.

And the adventure begins...

We are reading a new series of books about Texas history which has us begging for "one more chapter" each day. The series, entitled Mr. Barrigton's Mysterious Trunk, is by award winning author Melodie A. Cuate. The four books in the series are: Journey to the Alamo, Journey to San Jacinto, Journey to Gonzales, and Journey to Goliad.

The story reminds me of the Magic Tree House series, but for older children. In the first book, best friends Hannah and Jackie have just started seventh grade and they have a new teacher, Mr. Barrington. He brings out a mysterious trunk and challenges them to "choose an event in Texas history and become part of it." When he opens the dusty trunk, it is full of books and magazines about Texas. After school that day, the two friends return to the classroom to look in the trunk. Hannah's brother, Nick, joins them and helps them to open the lock. When they look in the chest, it is now filled with memorabilia and figurines regarding the Alamo. Suddenly, there is a crash of thunder and a swirl of dust and the 3 children are transported back in time to the Alamo just days before that fateful battle.

As the children get to know the people of the Alamo fame, the reader learns the history of that important time in Texas independence history. You join the 3 children and become "part of" this historic event.

The second book, the one we are reading now, is about the Battle of San Jacinto where Texas wins its independence. In this book their teacher, Mr. Barrington, is missing. In order to help him, Hannah knows she must go back into time again. Mr. Barrington's niece, Ms. Barrington, joins the 3 children on this adventure.

The third book is titled Journey to Gonzales. In this book, Nick will go back in time to try and alter history and save a friend he met in San Jacinto. Meanwhile, the girls try to stop him from this mission of history alteration. But, they end up in a Mexican camp and learn about life in the Mexican army.

The final book (though I don't know if more will be published) is titled Journey to Goliad. This book is about the massacre at Goliad and I think I'll have to preread this one.

As you can tell, these are exciting, well-written books that teach a lot about Texas history. Even if you don't live in Texas, I think you and your children would find this series captivating and educational.

As an interesting side note, I went to Google Reader to search the posts. I know I read about these books on someone's blog. Anyway, I couldn't find where anyone had posted about them (though if any of you did, please let me know!), but I found a post I'd made about "Barrington." It was a post I'd titled "Birthplace of Texas." Two years ago, we went on a field trip with one of our homeschool groups and visited 3 places related to Texas history. One of them was a working historical farm called Barrington Farm.  Barrington Farm was the home of Dr. Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas. "Barrington" is named after his birthplace, Great Barrington Massachusetts. I wonder if this is just a coincidence?

Oil Painting Lesson!!!

Yesterday we had our monthly homeschool get together with our church group. A lady who usually teaches oil painting to adults had agreed to teach our children! We had 14 kids, ages 5 to about 13, who had a painting lesson.

 

The children actually had 2 lessons. The first lesson was about the color wheel.

The children started by painting 3 spots of the primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. Then, they mixed those colors on their pallets to make the secondary colors: purple, orange, and green.

Then the painted the tertiary colors.

After explaining color intensity (she said their purple was close to a 10 and their yellow was about a 2), the teacher passed around a red piece of plastic. You can look through the plastic and it removes the color but lets you "see" the intensity!

Next, the teacher had everyone paint a line to the left of red and the right of green. She explained that the warm colors were on the right of the line and the cool colors were to the left of the line. She also had them paint two green circles and surround one with red and the other with blue (see upper right hand corner). It was a neat way to see how colors can affect the way other colors look!

For the second part of the lesson, several of the younger children quit and I and another mom decided to take over the empty easels. We weren't really sure what we were painting at first and I wasn't sure how my painting would turn out. This photo is "in progress."

Well, here's my finished painting! Hopefully you can tell there is water in the front and there are a few trees at sunset. I learned so much while creating this oil painting. I'll share a few tips with you on a separate post!

And, here is Alex's painting. By the way, this class lasted 2.5 hours!!! It was long, and I was exhausted! I can't believe that most of the children lasted through the entire lesson! (And, I like Alex's leaves better than mine. I wish I would have left more 'trunk'  and just put leaves at the tops of the trees. Something to remember for next time!)

Rocket Launch

Yesterday, one of the classes at my daughter's co-op launched rockets.

Getting ready to launch...10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

 Blast Off!!!

Several rockets were launched and one of them headed towards the trees by the pond.

Oops! Now, how are we going to get that down???

And another landed in teh pond where students and a teacher worked trying to fish it out.

As far as I know, we still have a rocket in a tree and a rocket in the pond. And they were shooting from a pretty large field. Oops!

Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"

Sunday night we went and saw a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night put on by a group of teenage homeschoolers.

To prepare ourselves, Alex and I read Charles and Mary Lamb's version of Twelfth Night from Tales of Shakespeare which you can download free here. I know it is a book used by many who follow Charlotte Mason's teachings, but this was the first time we've used it. I thought it was a great retelling of the story. It took about 30 minutes to read.

A few nights later, we read Twelfth Night for Kids by Lois Burdett. We continue to enjoy this series which includes letters and drawings by Ms. Burdett's young students, many who are 7 to 9 years old.

We had never been to this particular theater and enjoyed the intimacy of the small room. They had a full house (it seats 99) and even had to move in extra chairs.

Twelfth Night is a comedy about a male and female twin whoo are shipwrecked and separated. Each twin believes the other is dead. The female, Olivia, ends up posing as a man to make a living. It is a complicated story of misplaced love. Olivia falls in love with her boss, but he thinks she's a man. The lady he is in love with falls in love with Olivia, thinking she is a man. It is a complicated story which finally untangles at the end.

I also want to remind you of Jimmie's "Shakespeare for Children" Squidoo. She has lots of great ideas, links, etc!

Why do you capitalize Chihuahua?

Alex is currently taking an online writing class through home2teach. Each week she has grammar, spelling, typing, and a writing assignment. We just completed 3 weeks and, so far, it is going pretty well. She is learning in all 4 areas, learning to hand things in on a deadline, and learning to be more independent as the teacher doesn't want me to correct her work - she wants to catch the errors herself so she sees where Alex needs help..

This week, her teacher sent back her assignment for edits (they always have you edit your work to improve it) asking her to capitalize Chihuahua. I wasn't sure why and I happened to be on the phone with my brother and he told me it was because they were named for a place - Chihuahua, Mexico.

I just hadn't thought that one through very well! This is one of our capitaliation rules: "Capitalize words derived from proper nouns." So, for example, "I must take English and math." So, because Chihuahua is derived from a proper noun, we should capitalize it!

Here are a few other dog breeds you would capitalize under this rule:

• Chihuahua - from Chihuahua, Mexico
• Great Pyrenees - mountain range in central Europe
• German Shepherd - from Germany
• Maltese - the island of Malta
• Labrador - province of Canada
• Jack Russell - named after a person - a dog breeder
• Saint Bernard- from the place, St. Bernard Pass, which was named after a monk
• Doberman - named after a German tax collector and dog breeder, Herr Louis Doberman. According to Purina's site, "Herr Louis was a night watchman as well as a dog-catcher and tax collector and needed the ultimate protection dog to accompany him on his rounds. Thus he spent 60 years in his native town of Apolda, in the state of Thueringen, South Central Germany, working on the perfect dog for personal protection."