Tuesday, February 17, 2009

BRITISH SAILS

OK, so these pictures have nothing to do with this post . But, this cute little guy is my second son and he's mentioned below, so I am indulging myself by adding pics even ones that are five years old. And, I do love these scrumptuous pictures of him. This little guy is well known for his creative attire. Who said stripes/camo-shorts/cowboy boots don't work? Phish!

Yes, his eyes are really that blue and that big. No photoshop enhancing. And, I'm told he'll grow into those ears. I did not say that and if anyone says I did, I will deny it. I love my boys.
We read a book today in our homeschool called, "The Flag Maker." It is a story of a group of women who create the flag that was put at Fort McHenry outside Baltimore Harbor. The story explains how a man riding on a horse rides through shouting, "British sails! British sails," to warn the town that the British invasion was supposedly imminent.


Pausing to make sure he understood, I asked my six year old what it meant when someone shouted "British sails! British sails!" and he said, "I don't know, maybe the British people were selling stuff."


Oh, how I love homeschool.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Leafy Creatures

We used leaves that had fallen off the trees and used them to make some art...animal art. It was such a fun project.
So, first things first...gathering all the leaves we wanted from the yard. Being in New England, it's easy to gather the most gorgeous leaves come fall. So--um, yeah this post is a little late. These were done back in November! So...then you must wash the leaves, leaf them soaking in water...yes, I know....leave them soaking in water. Then, lie them out on newspaper after drying them. This took hours for us as we had prepared hundreds of leaves for our co-op. If you do this at home and just need about a dozen leaves, it should take minutes. So, then you need to lay them flat in between newspaper. Then, stack books on them.
Here is the book which we got from our local library. The book is very descriptive on the entire process of how to prepare the leaves.


A sneak peak inside:


Another photo of the leaves, are you impressed or what?



A cute elephant featured in the book:



Here is one that one of my sons made. They actually both made the same thing, a cute little mouse. We used rubber glue to secure the leaves onto manilla paper. Messy but nice.