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!

more caterpillars

Yep, we now have five. :) Spent much of the morning examining them and getting them food.

In the afternoon, we went to a homeschool fair at the local library while dh worked. Samuel spent the fair coloring pictures under the TORCH table with his friends. Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner. Finally watched some of the Olympics, including Michael Phelps winning his record-breaking eighth gold medal - yay! Samuel was very interested in the countries, their flags, and the competition. We'll have to catch some more before it's over.

Mythology

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll say that Samuel's current interest in mythology started mostly because we have been watching Stargate: SG1 on DVD. If you are not familiar with this sci-fi series, it delves heavily into Egyptian mythology, and other mythologies to a lesser degree as well. So, Shawn has been reading mythology books to Samuel. So far, they are all the way through the ones on Greek mythology and Norse mythology and are now working on the Egyptian mythology one. Samuel likes to make masks for himself of the different Egyptian gods. And we started going to a cultural program at a local museum, and the first week was on Egypt! We got to see the Egyptian exhibit, make a sarcophagus mask, and write with hieroglyphics.