Edward Ardizzone

Missy, Troubles and I are reading through our Edward Ardizzone books. We love his sketchy watercolors with their soft colors. Having visited the ocean recently, the children are quite taken with the Little Tim series. I have found all of ours at library sales, but some are available for fairly reasonable prices online. We've already enjoyed "The Little..." series, written by Graham Greene and when we finish the Tim books that we have, we'll read "Nurse Matilda" or the beautiful "A Child's Christmas in Wales".

Maurice Sendak

I have a large collection of Maurice Sendak's books. Everyone knows and most folks love "Where the Wild Things Are" (book only, skip the movie!). Many folks have seen and enjoyed "Seven Little Monsters", "In the Night Kitchen" and "The Nutshell Library". Some were even familiar with "Higglety Pigglety Pop!" before they made the short for the Wild Things movie.

Having written and/or illustrated over 90 books, some are bound to be out of print and/or lesser known. I recently found out from Little Lamb Books that Maurice Sendak made a pop-up book. It's called "Mommy?". As soon as I read about it's existence, I ordered one from Amazon. It came yesterday. It's classic Sendak, with slightly creepy but cuddly monsters and a simple storyline that lends itself to imagination. It's been in one child or another's hands since we got it. Troubles rolled out of bed this morning, layed on the couch for about five minutes, then stretched out on the floor with it, naming the various monsters and watching the mechanics of the book as he slowly opened and closed it.

"Outside Over There" was Mr. Sendak's last book, written in 1981. He has finally written and illustrated a new book! It's called "Bumble-Ardy" and it's due to be released in September. I can't wait! I have it in my Amazon cart even now.

Whatever the title, you can't go wrong with a Maurice Sendak book. Go get one today and READ with your children!

Tide Pool Study

We went to the Oregon coast and were blessed to be able to see some tide pools. While walking to them, the Lambies collected random crab parts. Later, they assembled the fine specimen you see above.

Many of the children spent the 2010-2011 school year in "Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures". Therefore, these animals were familiar and they had *that* much more fun seeing what they had studied.

Someone else pried this starfish off of his shelf and left him out on the rocks, upside down and vulnerable. We held him for a little while, noticing his rays, suckers, eyespots and mouth. Then we returned him to a pool, in a safe location.

There were SO many mussels! We recalled reading in "Pagoo" that they sent out strings to anchor themselves. Looking carefully, we did indeed see byssal threads! We also identified several kinds of seaweed and sea grass. We had a great time, learning and playing in God's great creation!

Summer Learning

We are on summer vacation right now, as many of you are, too. Around here, the learning never stops, even on vacation! 100 EZ Lessons go on, a few times a week, for the littlest Lambies. Everyone has time for reading favorite books and various projects have been started, worked on and/or finished. Lots of time is being spent on physical education in the forms of biking, basketball, football, skateboarding and swimming. My eldest son is learning the manly skills of lawn mowing and pool maintenance. He also has expressed interest in learning how to make jam. The girls are doing lots of cooking, beading and some creative writing. The Littles are doing lots coloring, painting and imaginative play. We also like to spend lots of time in our beautiful mountains, hiking, camping, fishing, and admiring God's amazing handiwork!

I try to do something "schoolish" every day or so, besides reading, so we have less loss of skills to deal with when we start again. Here's some of the things we have done or plan to do:

Learning Wrap Ups
Puzzles
Homemade Play Dough
Schoolish Computer Games
Sewing
Cooking
Math-U-See blocks (the Little love building with these!)
Janice VanCleave's books (when I want a bigger project)
Anatomical models
Work in the garden
Playmobil
Lego blocks
Lego games

Do you have any activities that you do especially in the summer? Any websites, kits or ideas to share?

Book Review: The Fight of Our Lives

I recently received this book from Thomas Nelson to review. What a timely title! I appreciated that author realizing, and stating, that things are changing so quickly that some of the information would be out of date before the book was published. I found all the information given worthwhile. There were so many things to think about while reading of the threats to our dear nation. There have been many more attempts at terror inside our nation than has been covered in the media. The appeasement that our government is practicing is so apparent! Reading this book should be on the to-do list of every American that still cares about America. There is still time to change our course.

Gold Mini Unit

Gold! Everyone loves gold. It brings to mind a sense of adventure, like pirate gold, or security, like golden riches. We are studying gold today, but with a different mindset. Our memory verse is "How much better to get wisdom than gold!" Proverbs 16:16. There were many, many verses having to do with gold.

I used Printshop to design a bookmark with our verse on it. The children got to choose a colored ribbon to tie in a punched hole.


We did a pot of gold coloring page/handwriting page.

I showed them some gold that my husband and I panned out of the American River years ago and my golden ring and earrings. We also looked at pictures of ancient golden jewelry.

We read parts of some books:

King Midas and the Golden Touch by Nathanial Hawthorne, illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt
The Story of California by May McNeer, the gold rush section
Eyewitness: Rocks and Minerals, the gold section
The Wild West by Tim Wood, the gold rush section

I didn't use anything from it, but this is a neat looking resource!

We could have had goldfish for snack, but I can't stand the ingredients in those things. I could have made hardtack, but didn't think that would go over well. Instead, we juiced some beautiful oranges and had some fresh OJ with sandwiches.

Wednesday Morning Math

So I was correcting math with 9 year old Polly. She got four problems wrong. Not too bad, but not her best, either. I started off the correction session by saying, "You missed four problems, and you did the same thing wrong in each problem." She replied, in all sincerity, "Wrote down the wrong numbers?"