December 13 - 17 2010

LLATL: Mary traced around a circular object,cut out the circles and created a snowman. Mary then drew a snowsuit and cut out a snowflake. She then identified the three objects.

Mary's Ocean scene

Aidan's Ocean scene

Stringing bells. Classification,measuring,patterning and simple knot tying. The wool stringing made the job more challenging. The chidlren had to "whet" the end of the wool and push it though an unlikely space.



FIAR book for this week: Very First Last Time

December 6-10

Homeschool Hazards!

The children estimated the amount of Lego in the Lego pillar.

Giant Lego Tree.

Our FIAR book for this week was Papa Piccolo. Set in Venice Italy A story about a single tom cat in Venice who overcomes his sour grapes attitude and learns to love 2 precocious kitttens.

These are the children's lapbook art. They made use of Meditareanean colors . The pictures wre traced and detail and color added. Mary stayed true to the coloring of the cats int he book. Aidan took interest in the srchetectural detail and added some speed illusions to the path of the kittens. The children also learned some other Italian names like: Marco Polo. Please note that this is added info.. We traced Marco Polo's trade route to China. Fun:)

November 29 - December3

The insides of Aidan and Mary's lapbooks.

Sorry..the blg does not allow for rearranging. Here is Mary's Russian Lapbook.

We managed to fit quite a few families in the house. Great fun!
Aidan at his Birthday party enjoying Lego building play time with his HS friends and friends. They build ships and buildings and cities.. The friends create a sense of comraderie and we were so glad that he got to share such a wonderful day with people who care for him.

Aidans's colored Russian Architecture and spaceship. Mary's is coming.

Watching Uncle Ashley and his brothers singing.

All of their children were brought out on stage and some sang solos.

Very inspiring.

Going backstage after with Auntie.

Waiting for the concert to begin with Tomas and and Mary's beloved friend "Auntie Jenn."


Mom carved out wax on a candle to uncover the wick. Aidan was then allowed to strike a match and to light it in a controlled environment. Mary watched and made sure we were staying safe.
We learned that fire is dangerous.



The children had a full weekend. They were invited to a Christmas Concert Gala put on by our family. It is a Christian Christmas COncert. The children dressed up to be courteous to the Singers. They sat nicely and were able to bring along a friend that we knew would enjoy it as well.



This weeks FIAR book was "Another Celebrated Dancing Bear" It was about a bear that wishes to dance like his bear friend. It is about friendship and is set in old Russian style. The artwork is done in beautiful etchwork.

The children were incredibly inspired by our lapbook that I created for them. It is a classic Russian (onion)turret skyline with a space ship shape on the side. They took great care in adding candy cane type colors to the turrets, shapes to the architecture of the buildings and loved adding detail to the space ship.

SPACE RACE was a key word for our brief talk about Russian history.

We realized after looking at the map that Russia has some serious land mass.