Feeling the BLUES

I found this "blue photo challenge" over at I Love Faces photography website.  While I am not the best photographer I love this photo of my little grandson Beckham taken by his budding photographer mom.  So if the challenge photo this week is "blue" then I can offer that in this picture with his bright blue eyes and shirt.  Pay  them a visit and enter a photo.

Fun in the Sun

Having fun at the beach. Mary is testing the waters.

Robyn totally teased her sisters when she counted to 10 and yelled, "JUMP" Only she didn't jump!

Robyn, Mary, and Janai

7 sweet daughters

In The Woods-Literally

Here are some fun photos of our 10 day camping trip. We were the only campers occupying the campground and talk about quiet and peaceful. Well, as quiet and peaceful as it can get with a bunch of kids!!

I'm so thankful Mary was small enough to fit in the outdoor tub because she needed to be cleaned up several times a day. However, I waited until evening to wash her so she could go to bed clean!

"Oh mom, for real, are you really bringing school along?"

Tubing down the shallow river was one of their favorite activities of all.

A Visit From Grandma and Grandpa

It was so fun having grandma and grandpa out for a visit from Colorado.  We all miss them so much and the kids love it when they come.  Especially so because they come bearing gifts all the time for the upcoming year of birthdays and Christmas. (And imagine that, they have 48 grandkids, and 3 great grandkids)  This time, Mary, after seeing the bright packages was determined to open up her presents.  Grandpa told her she could open them when the snow is this high-he then held out his hand about waist high to illustrate.  Hours later she was still asking (more like whining) to open the gifts.  We kept telling her no over and over and then she finally said, "Fine, then can we pretend it's snowing?"  Uh, sorry Mary, while Wisconsin does get lots of snow I've yet to see it fall in September.

Grandpa loves to sing.  He had Robyn play one of 

his favorite pieces on the piano and then he couldn't

resist singing along to our delight.  And Mary was 

determined to be seen!!

Family Pictures EVERYWHERE-A Few of My Faves

10 of our 12 kids and mom

8 of our 9 girls

Our daughter Juli with her family and our son Vance with his family

Lapbooks, Timelines, Journals!! So Many Choices

We are on chapter 9 of A Child's History of the World and enjoying it very much.  I couldn't decide between one large scale timeline, individual lapbooks or timelines, individual notebooks where they journal what is being learned or some other approach to journal what we are learning.  So here is what we came up.  I bought a bunch of poster boards and as I read through the chapters I highlight different things that I want to stress upon and research more such as the pyramids, egyptian gods, the Rosetta Stone, etc.  This photo is of the first 8 chapters of the book.  When we are finished with the whole book I am going to have the large book that we create bound and covered in order to keep it nice.  Right now I hang our current page on the wall until that next one is complete making it easy to recall what they have learned so far. We study science, geography, art, and music together too so I think I will make one for each subject.

"Why Don't Students Like School?" Well, Duhhhh

I found this article posted on the Well Trained Mind Forums and loved it so much I had to make a post about. I've only copied a portion of it here to wet your appetite!!!! And for the record as one who experienced 18 years of what is called "school" I second the author's quip that- SCHOOL IS PRISON!

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Ask any schoolchild why they don't like school and they'll tell you. "School is prison." They may not use those words, because they're too polite, or maybe they've already been brainwashed to believe that school is for their own good and therefore it can't be prison. But decipher their words and the translation generally is, "School is prison."

Let me say that a few more times: School is prison. School is prison. School is prison. School is prison. School is prison.

Willingham surely knows that school is prison. He can't help but know it; everyone knows it. But here he writes a whole book entitled "Why Don't Students Like School," and not once does he suggest that just possibly they don't like school because they like freedom, and in school they are not free. Here is the link to the whole story found in Psychology Today.