Celebrating Veteran's Day with the Kids

I don't really recall anyone taking time to explain veteran's day to me as a child.   Someone must have somewhere a long the line, because it's really important to me. I don't have any immediate family in the military, which makes it harder to give a personal "thank you" to all of our men and women in uniform. 

I wanted to make sure that my kids knew what Veteran's Day was and how to commemorate it.  So for our history club today we spent most of our time talking about this important holiday.

We began by reading two books:

and

The second book was used mostly to illustrate and explain the Tomb of the Unknowns and how it plays a part in Veteran Day observances.

The kids had very little knowledge of these things, so I was happy to share this information.

We also discussed the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran's Day.  This is a great website to help explain the differences and the history  of Veteran's Day.

We did talk a little bit about some of the kids' relatives that had served in the military.  This helped bring Veteran's Day a little closer to home.  But I wanted them to hear from a living Veteran. So I used Facebook to contact a high school friend of mine that I new had been serving in the Navy for many years. I asked him to message me about his experiences serving there and how he felt about Veteran's Day.

It was great to read his words to the kids and get their reactions.  We wanted to show our appreciation to him and all our service people.  So we made a banner (also a suggested activity in one of the books we read earlier) with a message of thanks.

 

We posted this on his Facebook page thanking him for his time spent teaching us about Veteran's Day and for his service to our nation.  He wrote back a fun message to the kids as well. 

But since we had the actual poster in our hands, we decided to take it over to the neighbor's house.  They are both Air force veterans and we wanted to show our thanks to them also.  Luckily the wife was home!  We also presented her with some cake that we had made from another part of our history lesson.

She was pleased and surprised by our visit, I think.  :)

Doing all of these things helped us earn our Veterans Badge for Frontier Girls/Quest Boys.  bonus.

Getting Ready for Baby

Baby #5 will be joining us in just 11 weeks or so.  The kids are very excited.  We've done a lot of talking about Baby Hazel and how she'll fit into our hearts and our home.

I thought that one good way of involving the kids in the preparation for her arrival would be to have them help me make a blanket for her.  So I chose to do a patchwork blanket this time around, allowing the kids to help me piece the squares together.

They helped pick the fabric and yarn, they helped me wash the squares and then iron them. They chose the pattern for the blocks (I bought them precut to save some time and effort) and then they helped sew them together!

Confession: Some of their sewing made for very uneven rows. I had to take a few of them apart and redo them on the machine. But I'm sure Hazel will still feel their love when she's wrapped up in it!

I'll post a final picture when it's done.  Give me a few weeks!

Homeschool Day at the Zoo

We have attended homeschool day at the zoo several times over the years. It's always a fun treat for us.  And it's even more fun to go with friends, of course.

We started at the Education Center to learn about a couple different animals from Africa.  Oddly enough, these two critters were from woodlands and desert climates.  Not really what you think of when you think "Africa".   We learned a lot about the diversity of Africa, it's climates and animal life.

We ventured out to the Savannah where we saw the Zoo's new baby giraffe, his mom and his auntie.

Apparently dad died of illness not long ago.

The fun part was watching the giraffes being herded back into their barn for the day.  Glad we didn't miss seeing them!

 

There goes baby.  Born at 6 feet tall, he's now about 8 feet.

Hippo Rides.  Two sets of Bffs.

More BFFs

The gorillas were very interactive!  The kids loved being able to get close and share hand pats through the glass.

Learning about raptors, I think. I was too busy handing out snacks to pay attention.

 

 

And who can resist a good pile of leaves?  These kids sure can't!

It was a great day at the zoo.  Happy kids.  Tired mom.  Time to go home.

Frontier Girls/ Quest Boys Service Project -Operation Quiet Comfort

We follow the Frontier Girls on Facebook, which is where I learned that Operation Quiet Comfort needed more Christmas cards from kids to put in stockings for wounded soldiers.

So we got together with a few friends and made about 15 cards to send off!  This also helped us earn some of our hours for the Servant's Heart award.

I love this program!

Don't mind the laundry racks in the background!

Our younger girls were having a preschool lesson for Letter C at the other mom's house.

Preschool Lesson: B

Ballerinas, Blueberries, Bananas, Balloons and Bubbles!

But first of all, free play! The most important part.


Next we sat on the rug together and did a review of A from last week. Then we introduced B.  We did the sound drawers, the salt box, and tracing the felt letters.

Next we read a story about Ballerinas.


We broke out the ballet slippers and tutus (luckily I have 2 matching sets of these items) and we watched a little bit of



as we followed along.

 

Using the backs of these tiny chairs served well as a substitute bar.

After expressing our inner ballerinas, we went upstairs to bake blueberry muffins!

While the muffins were baking we blew Bubbles.

 

And we read a story about Balloons:

It's amazing how time fills itself with these two lovely preschoolers.  They are so fun to teach.   And my little preschooler is pointing out all her "Big Bs" where ever we happen to be.

 

Oh, I sent them home with a B coloring page

 

Fossil Day

We are fortunate to live close to a great campus with some fun resources like a planetarium and great museums.  One of the campus museums was offering activities for National Fossil Day.  So we took the day off to go participate.   Unfortunately, many of the activities were closed for various reasons that I won't get into.  But we made the most of our visit and enjoyed what was available to us.

watching archeologists restore a triceratops thigh, discovered in Montana this past summer

Making rubbings of ancient crustations and faux fossils

The Mastadon!

reproduction of a fossil made by a rhino that was caught in a lake when it flooded with lava.

Almost as tall as a brontosaurus' thigh bone

Checking out specimens on this cool microscope

The vent provided some comic relief

The kids were a little shocked at the "inappropriate" statue outside the museum.  Yeah, it can catch you off guard!

Suzuki Festival

Hard to believe we are now in our second year of Suzuki violin. I have to first come clean by telling you that I am by no means the model Suzuki parent. I won't get into my list of excuses. But I really do struggle with daily practice. It has been a source of daily guilt for me for many months. But recently I had to just free myself from that guilt and give myself credit for the small baby steps that we DO accomplish. Last Saturday I took my Suzuki student to a festival and graduation concert held at a college campus 2 hours away. We got up at 5:30 am. We left at 6am. We were registered and in our seats, ready for a day of music and learning by 8:20am.

 

 

There was certainly no shortage of beautiful music that day.  Our jaws dropped as we heard some of the older more advanced students play their graduation pieces.  It was certainly inspiring.  But as we headed to our first class, not knowing what to expect I was slightly less impressed with the event.  Due to a scheduling mix-up, our first class started 20 minutes late.  Then the teacher who jumped in to save us was promptly dismissed when the "real" teacher showed up, which only added to the disjointed chaos.  I kept asking myself if I had really just driven over 100 miles, paid registration and lost sleep for this?

                                      

 

The day improved as we went on, however.  Our second class was a mini semi-private lesson with a different Suzuki teacher.  It was interesting to have input and instruction from a teacher we were not familiar with.  In comparison, I definitely prefer our own Suzuki teacher. 

 

We at lunch in the Student Union Building with our teacher.  Toward the end of our meal we were treated by an indoor performance from the school's marching band.

 

 
The music was so deafening that we actually had to leave.  We took a little walk in the nearby Japanese gardens.

After lunch there was a technique class, followed by something that we had never experienced before: A Delcroze class.  Never heard of it? Neither had I.  But it's basically letting kids learn about music by responding to it with their bodies.  My Suzuki girl LOVED it.  It was her favorite class and just what we needed to perk us up at the end of a long afternoon.

This was followed by the final play-in concert.  We had intended to stay.  But the prospect of a long drive home, and our increasing weariness, prompted both of us to choose an early departure.  We skipped out and we left for home.  I felt bad that her hard work that day was not going to result in a performance that she had bee looking forward to giving.  But her little slumped body and sleepy eyes meant that it was time to go. So off we went for home. 

She slept most of the way home and I struggled to keep myself focused on the road!  But we made it and we were glad we went.  I think.  I sure hope the next one will be a little closer to home!