wonderful autumn!

So, here's what we've been up to:

Visited Curtis Orchard, picked our own apples, made applesauce.

Visited the Great Pumpkin Patch, picked lots of squash, gourds, and pumpkins, admired the extensive displays and were awed by the variety of squash and pumpkins they grow there! Still eating squash.

FEAST OF THE HUNTER'S MOON!!! Saw cannon demonstration, flintlock reliability contest (musket and rifle demonstration), various fife and drum corps re-enactors, a tactical demonstration between two of the military corps, witnessed colonial methods of food preparation and ate the food (lots of it!), watched blacksmiths at work, turned a giant wheel that spun a lathe on which a craftsman made us a little wooden acorn (cute!), watched traditional Native American dance and song, watched traditional Scottish dance and song, traded for different items at the children's trade blanket, learned some classic games from long ago, and more! Did I mention that we ate a lot of food? Pics to come as soon as I figure out our new camera.

Around the World Wednesday at the Spurlock Museum - first week, we learned about Papa New Guinea and drew pictures of face paintings similar to what they do there, and this week we did some Indonesian-style batik painting. Also, visited the Krannert Art Museum today, where we saw some lovely paintings (and some hideous modern art). Samuel wanted to show us something in one of the paintings, and went to point to it, and it wasn't until the last second that we realized he intended to put his finger right on the painting, causing dh and I to simultaneously shriek, "Don't touch the painting!" (Yes, I said not to touch anything as we walked in, but he was quite absorbed in the statues in the entryway and in retrospect, he probably didn't hear a word I said.) The guard who was about 10 feet away kept his eyes on us the rest of the time, yes sirree!

Games: I mentioned that we learned new games at the Feast - we bought one called Fitch, and Shawn and Samuel have been having fun learning the strategies behind this game. We also got the game that goes with the book The Scrambled States of America, and had a lot of fun playing that one, too. With the colder weather, we've been pulling out the family games: Capt'n Clever, Payday, LOTR Risk, Battleship, Uno, and Ziggity are some we've played recently.

Samuel is still blazing through Math-U-See. At this rate (which we may or may not maintain) we'll need the next level by Christmas. He is almost through his reading primer and has done some more poetry for his copywork. I had him do another apple poem, and then a quote about October that I liked, neither of which are in front of me at the moment for me to record. Oh, well.

This autumn has been quite lovely, but I fear it is slipping away too soon - the temperatures are dropping fast! Well, we will enjoy the color while we can!

fall fever

We are sooo anxious for fall around here! It's just about all that we can talk about on our daily walks - although our walks have been postponed until further notice lately, due to a huge influx of soybean aphids. They are insanely prolific this year, and, get this: they are born pregnant. They are like tribbles!

I've been having Samuel do some copywork, because I think that will help him in a number of areas - reading, writing, and spelling, obviously, but more particularly, he has some mild dyslexia issues, and I am hoping that some attention to detail and more left-to-right work will help him out with that. The first thing that he copied was the Guardian Angel prayer:

Angel of God,
My guardian dear,
To whom God's love
Commits me here,
Ever this day
Be at my side
To light and guard,
To rule and guide.

Then today, he copied an apple poem that I got from the Real Learning boards, posted by Colleen:

Red Apple
A little red apple
Hung high in a tree.
I looked up at it
And it looked down at me.
"Come down, please" I called,
And what do you suppose?
That little red apple
Dropped right on my nose!

Samuel enjoyed that one, and I think we will do a few more apple poems - several are listed here.

Still working through Math-U-See - he was a bit bored there for a while, and I have to be careful not to go overboard on the worksheets, but he still likes watching the videos and playing with the blocks, and can't wait until it gets harder. :)

Shawn has almost finished reading War of the Worlds to Samuel, and when they are done, they are going to watch the movie. (The old one, not the one with Tom Cruise.)

Still reading about the earliest humans - I read Samuel one of the stories from Yesterday's Classics yesterday - the book is Early Civilizations, in the Streams of History series. The story we read was Arya and His Seven Sons, but Arya was a boy in the story and barely mentioned, and none of his future sons were either. It was mostly about how the people lived - they had herds of cattle in the story, but had not yet begun to cultivate grain, and it talked a lot about how the men got to eat first, while the women did all the hard work. I tend to be somewhat suspicious of the "women have always been horribly oppressed" view of history, so I don't know if it was entirely accurate, but then perhaps it was. Something I'd like to learn more about, but honestly, I doubt that anyone really knows. Anyway, Samuel liked learning about how they ate and made pots and clothing and such.

Samuel is also working his way through the reading primer from Yesterday's Classics and seems to be enjoying it. He actually picked up a book and started to read it with zero encouragement from me, which was a wonderful thing. Don't get me wrong, I am not worried about his reading level - although I know that certain other people are ;) - but, it is still something that he doesn't have a lot of confidence about, so it was nice to see that he's feeling better about his abilities.

Well, I'm off to play some Lord of the Rings Risk with Samuel!