Bayeux Tapestry

HISTORY: While studying the Early Christian Church and some of the events that occurred in and around England during that time, we watched this animated video of the Battle of Hastings portrayed on the Bayeux Tapestry. The kids thought the video was great and wanted to make their own tapestries telling a story so we rolled out large strips of paper and they drew out different stories. When Chris got home that evening, Amber was very proud to show him her story with the picture of a dead horse. Chris couldn't figure out why our little girl who usually draws princesses and flowers was drawing dead horses until I explained that there were dead horses on the Bayeux tapestry so I guess she thought that is what she should draw too. So funny, maybe The Battle of Hastings is a little too mature of a topic for our four year old.

While I'm making fun of myself for my homeschooling lessons, watch this video by comedian Tim Hawkins on homeschooling, bad copy but so funny.

Mabry Mill

Before going to the mill, we stopped at a candy factory to see how the candy is made and to taste some samples of course.
Mabry Mill is a watermill located on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd County, Virginia. It is a tourist attraction mainly for the picturesque views of the mill itself. A short trail around the mill connects historical exhibits about life in rural Virginia. The trail allows visitors to view the gristmill, sawmill, and blacksmith shop. Mabry Mill was built by Edwin Boston Mabry (E.B. Mabry). E.B. Mabry returned to Floyd County in 1903 and began the construction of the mill. It was first a blacksmith and wheelwright shop, then became a sawmill. By 1905 it was in operation as a gristmill. By 1910 the front part of the mill was completed and included a lathe for turning out wheel hubs, a tongue and groove lathe, a planer and a jig-saw. Between 1905 and 1914 E.B. Mabry bought adjacent tracts of land, mostly for the purpose of acquiring more water power.

Clarissa waves out the window of the mill.

One of the exhibits around the grounds is this old log cabin, we thought it was funny how short the doorway is compared to Grandpa, I guess people were shorter back in the day.

On our way home from the mill, we stopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a picturesque view.

History Presentations - Medieval Style

It is time for our Presentation group again. We have been studying Medieval History so the kids chose their Presentations based on some of the things we have learned.
Jared talked about many of the medieval weapons that were used including bows, swords, daggers, lances, poleaxes, battleaxes, etc. He made a whole box of weapons out of wood and cardboard to show what they might have looked like and their uses.
Amber and Krystal worked together on a diorama of King Arthur's castle and the Knights of the Round Table.

Clarissa's presentation was about the games that children played during medieval times. After her report, the whole group participated in some of the games such as: Cobbler, Cobbler, Where's my Shoe? In this picture, Amber has the shoe and is hiding it from Clarissa. All the children pass the shoe around while the rhyme is being said and when it's done the person in the middle has to guess who has the shoe.
Another game was Oranges and Lemons which is a way to pick teams. At the end, the two teams play Tug of War against each other.
And the last game, perfect for a Fall day, was bobbing for apples. Most of the kids really enjoyed getting all wet trying to get their apple.Grandpa enjoyed the presentations and seeing what all of the other children talked about as well. Then at the end, he got to participate in a little medieval reenactment using medieval weapons. Michael, my friend's nephew, makes medieval armor and weaponry to use in reenactments so he had fun giving my dad some tips and pointers.

New River Gorge

We met Grandpa and Grandma Mattson in West Virginia to explore the New River Gorge.

Grandpa Hansen enjoyed visiting another state out East and learning about West Virginia coal mining in the 1800s at the visitor's center. We even stopped on the railroad down by the river and collected some coal.


The New River Gorge Bridge is a steel arch bridge 3,030 feet long over the New River Gorge near Fayetteville, West Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains. With an arch 1,700 feet long, the New River Gorge Bridge was for many years the world's longest arch bridge; it is now the third longest. The bridge is crossed by an average of 16,200 motor vehicles per day. The roadway of the New River Gorge Bridge is 876 feet above the New River, making it the fifth highest vehicular bridge in the world, and the third highest in the Americas.

A rugged, white water river, flowing northward through deep canyons, the New River is among the oldest rivers on the continent. The park encompasses over 70,000 acres of land along the New River, is rich in cultural and natural history, and offers an abundance of scenic and recreational opportunities. Although is is serene in this picture, there are many rapids between class 3 and 5 on the river in other areas.

Down by the water, we found this Water snake.
As we drove along the highway that followed the New River, we stopped to see several waterfalls.This section of the New River is called Horseshoe Bend. The cutout down by the river is for the railroad, we got to see a train go by while we were watching.

Pandapas Pond and Beavers

After Stake Conference in Pembroke, we stopped to have a picnic lunch at Pandapas Pond.A turtle basking in the sun is most likely a red-eared slider or yellow bellied slider.

This pile of sticks is actually a beaver lodge.

Beavers
In 1911, beavers were almost extinct in Virginia and were restored in 1932. They are active in and around Pandapas Pond and the wetland. Male and females live together in beaver lodges, are monogamous, and can live up to 20 years. Their lodges include an indoor platform that sits above the water level. They can hold their breath under water for up to 15 minutes. They typically breed in March and give birth to two to six young in May.

Beavers build dams that raise water levels; which kills trees and opens up the forest canopy. The result is a wetland that is ideal for pioneer species.

Beavers are second only to humans in landscape disruption. In addition to wood, beavers eat shrubs and cause them to sprout horizontally instead of vertically. They eat aquatic vegetation, apples, and can grow up to 80 lbs.

Grandpa Hansen with the kids in front of the southern wetland section of the pond.

Hike to Cascades Waterfall

Field trip #2 was a 4 mile round trip hike to the 66 ft. tall Cascades Waterfall in Jefferson National Forest near Pembroke Virginia. The Fall colors were beautiful, the weather was perfect and I was really proud of my Dad for making the hike with his Parkinson's disease.
We met many of our other LDS Homeschooling friends there and had a great time. We probably ended up with about 45 kids there total.
Two happy hikers (whether or not they show it).
We found many interesting things today. One was a Garter snake at the waterfall that I picked up and let all the kids touch. Another is this Giant Puffball Mushroom that grandpa found at the waterfall. As it turns out it is an edible mushroom but when we tasted it, it didn't have much flavor. Finally, we found this green Hedge apple fruit. Hedge apples are known for their ability to ward off spiders and other insects when placed in fruit bowls throughout your home. It is also known as a brain fruit as that's exactly what it looks like, a green brain. Fun discoveries, all in a day's work.

Two Weeks of Homeschooling Through Field Trips

My Dad came to visit from California and we planned over two weeks full of fun and visiting the sights in Virginia. After a driving tour of some of the old homes in Radford, we stopped to tour the Glencoe Museum.
Built by Confederate Brigadier General Gabriel C. Wharton, the house and grounds provide an intimate view of a lost way of life.

Gabriel C. Wharton was a native of Culpeper County and graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. Wharton spent several years working in civil engineering before entering military service for Virginia and the Confederacy in 1861. While stationed in southwest Virginia during the early years of the Civil War, he met the family of Dr. John Blair Radford, for whom the City of Radford is named. In 1863, Wharton was made brigadier general and married Anne Rebecca Radford, Blair’s eldest daughter.

After the Civil War ended, Wharton returned to civilian life and to his original interests of mining and the railroad. In 1869 Wharton and his wife were deeded 554 acres of land by Anne’s father, and by 1875 the couple had completed the home that now houses the museum. Wharton chose the name Glencoe for his home because of his wife’s Scottish heritage.

We finished off the day with a trip out to nearby Claytor Lake to see the Fall colors and enjoy the peacefulness of life in Southwest Virginia. The kids learned that little fish like the granola in granola bars, but don't prefer the chocolate chips.

The Armor of God

HISTORY/SCRIPTURES - In our ongoing study of King Arthur and knights, we decided to take a day to study armor and it's meaning in the scriptures. The first order of the day was to get everyone outfitted with various armor. We learned that the early knights would have just worn boiled leather, then armor evolved into chain mail, then a mixtures of chain mail and plated armor, until the picture of knights we think of now with a full suit of plated shining armor.
The scriptures we explored were: Romans 13:12 "let us put on the armor of light," 2 Nephi 1:23 "put on the armor of righteousness," and Ephesians 6:13-15 and D&C 27:15-17 which are both the same and describe what each part of the armor of God represents, as follows:
Helmet - salvation
Breastplate - righteousness
loins guard - truth
feet shod - gospel of peace
Shield - faith
Sword - Spirit and word of God
Gauntlet - we read scriptures about hands and decided that the gauntlet represented service, as in lifting those who are downtrodden and laying on of hands in the Priesthood

MATH - We continued with the Life of Fred. Jared and Beryl are moving forward on operations using large numbers while continuing to work on double and triple digit multiplication and the girls worked on filling in the holes on hundreds charts and did a great job.

Enjoying Fall

MATH - One of my favorite things about Fall is CANDY CORN! So we decided to do math with candy corn. We needed to find out how many were in the bag so we dumped the bag out and the girls put them in piles of ten and then counted by tens to find out that there were 125. Next we put them in piles of 5 and counted by fives to find out that we only had 123. What happened? All you have to do is look at Amber's face in the picture above to know what happened to the missing candy, plus it was a good lesson in subtraction. I asked the girls to write the number 123 and it came out something like 100203, uh oh, looks like we need to review place value again. So, out came our decimal street maps and our base ten blocks from Math-U-See to review place value. It only took a couple times of practicing for them to remember not to include the zeros because where the number is indicates it's place and how many blocks live there. Next we had to divide the candy corn evenly amongst our family. There are 6 people in the family, but one of them (Dad) does not like candy corn so we only needed to divide by 5. Jared did the division problem, but didn't tell the girls the answer, they figured it out by manipulating the candy into 5 even piles and found out that everyone could have 24 with 3 left over or remainder 3. Hey! That's the same answer Jared got. Also, along with Life of Fred, Jared and Clarissa have started using Khan Academy for math testing and practice. It is an online resource for math and science for all levels. They are having fun filling up their star charts by mastering practices.
HISTORY - We are still learning about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table so we read a story about Lancelot and then read about Captain Moroni's character and code of chivalry in Alma 48. We also made an acrostic poem about Knights:
K - killing enemies
N - noble and brave
I - iron weapons they used
G - gallantly they fought
H - horses they rode into battle
T - trustworthy and true
I thought this poem was really funny after having just read in Alma that the Nephites did not delight in the shedding of blood and would only raise their swords against their enemies if their enemies raised them first, but the first thing the kids chose for knights was killing enemies. On Friday, we watched a King Arthuresque movie called Avalon High. The setting is a modern High School, but the kids take on characters from the King Arthur tales. We had fun testing our knowledge by trying to pick out the characters.
Jared is enjoying the Fall weather by doing his bride work for Life of Fred math outside.
SPELLING - Our creative spelling practice for this week was to put alphabet stickers on Lego blocks and use those to make spelling words.

READING - Clarissa and Krystal both have scripture assignments for Primary so I typed up their scriptures and we made Rebus stories with pictures for the hard words out of their scriptures to help them be able to read them on their own. Both of their reading abilities are improving daily, it is so exciting.

WRITING - Jared was given a talk assignment for Primary so he wrote out his talk about prayer and the time that he had to decide whether to go to Lego League or church and prayer helped him decide to go to church, then he typed it out on the computer.

The Settler's Museum of Southwest Virginia

This Friday we headed about an hour south for a field trip with our homeschool group to The Settler's Museum of Southwest Virginia. Our first stop was the 1890s Lindamond one-room schoolhouse. The kids were called to class by the teacher ringing a bell. She then told them that the girls needed to sit on one side of the room with the boys on the other. The schoolhouse is the original schoolhouse and still had carvings on the walls from boys and girls over 100 years ago. The teacher told the kids all about what school would have been like for them in those days. My kids liked the story that the kid's dogs would follow them to school and sit under the schoolhouse so that when the kids ate their lunches, the dogs could eat the crumbs that fell through the cracks in the floor. Also, posted on the wall was the punishment for misbehaviors like 10 lashings for playing with cards, 7 lashings for coming to school with dirty hands or face and 4 lashings for girls and boys playing together.
The teacher eventually passed out McGuffey's readers to the kids. Jared read the saying, "If at first you don't succeed - try, try again." There was more to it that I don't remember.

Then it was time for recess and a potty break. The kids loved the see-saw, but no one took advantage of the outhouses up on the hill.The part of recess the boys enjoyed the most was this log with flat ends. The object of the game is for two people to stand on the flat ends and try to keep their balance while trying to throw the other person off. After challenging each other they thought it was fun to see how many boys could fit on it at the same time. Who would have thought this simple log could provide so much fun.


After recess everyone went inside for a sewing lesson. Each of the kids, boys and girls, sewed a bean bag. Everyone enjoyed it and the bean bags provided fun later in the day. When they were done with their bean bags, they had to wash up in the basin at the back of the room, then we headed to the picnic shelter for lunch.
After lunch we toured the 1890s farm. This is what the farmhouse looked like. It was originally a one-story cabin that they built upon and it eventually became this beautiful farmhouse.This is the view of the living room. Daxton played a number on the organ. Then the tour guide played "God Bless America" and we all sang. The little green piece of furniture with two seats facing each other is called a courting chair for use when a couple is courting, how funny.
Upstairs in the girl's room was this spinning wheel and amazing loom.
After touring the farmhouse, she took us on a tour of all the outbuildings: the meathouse, the washhouse, the wellhouse, the woodshed, the root cellar, the grainhouse and the barn. The boys tried to get water to come up from the well, but even with priming it, they never got much, I guess life in the 1890s was harder than we think.
Everyone enjoyed the tour and learned a lot.

Too Perfect

Sometimes our school is just too perfect and it's not because of anything I do. For instance, before school started I purchased the whole set of the Sir Cumference math books by Cindy Nueschwander knowing that they would go well with our Medieval history studies. For history this week our plan was to start our study of King Arthur so Christine suggested that we read Sir Cumference and the First Round Table. That was our plan, but we had no idea that The Life of Fred Fractions was going to introduce Radius and Diameter this week as well. While Fred talked about the diameter of pizza and bicycle wheels, the story of Sir Cumference and the First Round Table helped solidify in the kid's minds which measurement is the radius and which one is the diameter, plus added the measurement of circumference. It was one of those moments when the stars aligned and everything was just perfect.
HISTORY - While reading several versions of The Sword in the Stone the kids designed their own shields (Mon). They also colored wizards while I read about Merlin (Tues) and Princesses (or Knights) while I read about Guinevere (Wed). Also on Wednesday, we read more about Medieval life from the book, A Kaleidoscope Kids Book: Knights & Castles and learned about things like Chivalry and Honor. We decided to make our own Code of Honor. Each of us came up with ideas to add to our Code of Honor like: Obey your parents, Respect others, and Work first play later. Then we taped together two long pieces of paper, burned the edges with matches, painted the "parchment" with tea to antique it and Jared wrote out our Code of Honor with Old English lettering. Finally we each signed it, then Jared attached it to rolls to make it into a scroll and tied it with a red ribbon. On Thursday morning I had to refer to the Code of Honor to remind the kids about the rule of "work first, play later."



MATH - In Life of Fred Apples, we learned about negative numbers as the temperature outside dropped below zero (in the story), we also learned about counting by fives, and about deciduous trees. The girls played a temperature board game to reiterate below zero, did a skip count by 5s maze to get the page to the knight, and picked apples off of our deciduous tree to make their own apple fritters for lunch. Jared and Beryl played a $1000 board game to review large numbers. On Tuesday, we continued to learn more about circles by reading Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi. Then, we collected several circular items like lids and such and used yarn to measure the circumference and the diameter, finding out that the circumference string was always 3.14 times longer than the diameter string. We also went grocery shopping and Jared and Clarissa continued to learn about budgeting money as they had to purchase their items for cooking dinner on a $5 budget. On Thursday we read two math books, The Smushy Bus (basic artithmetic) and The Lion's Share (fractions).

SPELLING - To take advantage of the beautiful Fall weather outside, my creative idea this week for practicing spelling words involved DIRT! I gave each of the girls a plastic lid and had them go out into the garden and put dirt on their lid then practice writing their words in the dirt. They loved it, of course.

WRITING - Our Thursday writing assignment also took advantage of the nice weather. We all sat outside and the kids each wrote for about 20 min. about what they were observing outside. The girls did a great job and wrote a lot more than they usually would, but my favorite part was when Jared ended his writing by saying, "Life is good right now."