The Art Lesson

Among all of the comings and goings and bustings and buildings, we still manage to have school.

This year I've decided to make art more of a priority.  All of the boys have great potential, however, art is one thing that has always ended up on the bottom of the list and isn't usually practiced because of that!

This particular day was absolutely beautiful.  I taught my kids how to do 'blind countour drawings.'  We practiced several times on this day and even little Grace got in on the fun!

She is drawing all of the leaves she sees.  Note that these are not leaves of three, just leaves of one!



Civil War Days in Lamoni

These photos are so hot out of the camera they are still smoking!  We had a great time and we could hardly wait to tell about it!

We started off in the Rebel Camp.  Great southern hospitality!  Beautiful horses and fabulous weaponry!

This gentleman is pulling out his sword so we can see what it looks like!  He also told us about how it was used in battle and if you didn't hold it properly, you would most likely break your sword when you ran it through a soldier.  The Cavalry carried the swords and a shorter rifle than the infantry men.

The horses, we were told, were 'battle proof.'  Many of the horses there had been filmed in battle scenes for movies.  In fact, when we got to see the cannon go off, the horses that were tied not hardly 20 feet away didn't even flinch!

Beautiful afternoon for kicking back in camp and resting a spell.

Ka-boom!

How's this for a 'trigger finger' - I captured the cannon right when it fired!

Here's another 'trigger finger.'  I think I'd be a little more scared around this one!!

After hanging out in the rebel camp and talking with everyone there, we walked over to the federal camp.  We got to play with guns here too...

Heavy?  Yup!

Now here is a really pretty cannon!

Its a howitzer mountain 20 pounder, and was used by the military from 1840's until 1910.

This Union Soldier is all decked out and ready for battle!

And this little guy looks like he's ready for a nap!

And what is a war without the surgeon?

He opened up all of his gear and told us all about it!  He can do an amputation with the above tool in nothing more than three minutes!

Pretty primitive, eh?

Something for Everyone at the Springfield, MO Discovery Museum!

Impressive display! It looks soooo realistic! And then after looking at it through the giant magnifying glass, I saw its heart beating! This is a 9 day old chicken embryo. Pick me! Pick me!

The coolest globe ever!

Super magnets!

Static Electricity!

The giant bubble blower, and a docent that looks and talks like Einstien! Except he is from a different part of Germany than Einstien was.

Brusha, Brusha, Brusha!

I'm not so sure about a future in show business!

DNA Extraction and Precipitation at the Springfield, MO Discovery Museum

Here we got to swish water in our mouths for 30 seconds. The water and whatever we managed to collect in it while swishing became the focus of our study. The swishy liquid was poured into a test tube. A detergent was then used to disolve the cell walls and nucleus envelope so that the DNA strands would be released. Alcohol was then added to the whole process, which caused the DNA to precipitate together. Here you can see the collection of little white dots near the top of the contents of the tube. Before it looked like this, the little white dots aligned in a way that they looked like spiderweb strands. And he wants to be a scientist!

How Many Can You Fit on Your Snowmobile?

The Apple Farmer succesfully got it running again!! Which meant we had to take a break after writing our essays on the first three articles of the constitution and the division of powers in our central government.

So does snowmobiling count as PE? Or is that stretching it a little?

Play Time!

My Kitchen Sink is clean and shiny - so I played Photographer (and lost track of time)! ;)

I opened my original image up in photoshop elements and experimented with some fun and new things! The results are comparable to a vintage photochrom postcard from the late 1800's.

Our Butterfly Adventure

(The Story Behind the Photograph)

On the day that this photo was taken, about this time two years ago, this lovely specimen had just emerged from her chrysalis. We found her when she was a hungry green caterpillar. We put her in a jar and she made a really neat chrisalys the very next day. About 2 weeks later the crew came shrieking into my room. They excitedly shared the news of her emergence and could hardly believe that this orange and black creature was once a fat green worm! She never minded being handled, and as soon as we had all had a turn to hold our sweet little Monarch, we took her out to our zinnia bed and let her be on her merry little way.

For Some Must Push and Some Must Pull-ey

Who would have thought a simple pulley could provide so much entertainment! Human Resources and the Attorney found this pulley in the packing shed. Between Taffy's tie down cable and Her Royal Higness's swing, this forgotten pulley has gotten more hours of use in comparison to what it was probably orginally intended for. It first began as the Kitty Zip-line. After making a few adjustments, the crew tried to gather up the kitty's. I looked out the windows to see a streak of white, a flash of orange, and black was apparently long gone! Since cooperation was not likely with the feline subjects, The Attorney and Human Resources donated themselves to the cause. They are still trying to work out small problems, for example, how to get the pulley to carry them to the end of the cable instead of stopping in the middle of the cable....

Holes

The Attorney (Left) and Human Resources (Right) are excavating the spot where we are putting our cold frame. Since they have figured out how to dig, holes have been popping up all over the yard. I imagine that the treasures (rusty elephant, buttons, rolling pin handle, rusty drawer pull...) found while digging have spurred this amazing drive for digging holes, since prior to starting the project, and learning that it would entail the hard work of digging, you would have thought that they were going to turn in complaints to their union representatives!

Our Swallowtail Has Emerged!

After finding our Swallowtail caterpillar last fall, we put her in a jar and to see what she would do. It was just a couple days later, that she made a cocoon. She hadn't done anything since then and we were beginning to think that maybe she wasn't going to do anything more!

May 8th, The Attorney came running into the kitchen, excitedly announcing the news of the Swallowtail's Emergence. We grabbed the camera and took some great pictures before we sat her out on the lilac blooms next to the chicken house.

This is a picture of the President and the Swallowtail.