Picture Study: Peaceable Kingdom

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."
These words from Isaiah 11:6 were the inspiration for Edward Hick's "The Peaceable Kingdom". In fact, he painted 60 versions of this painting in his lifetime! Hicks was a Quaker, as was William Penn whose famous treaty with the Indians is portrayed in the painting. The book of Isaiah, and in particular Chapter 11 was Hick's favorite of all the Bible. Lillie really liked this picture. I printed it off last night and she got all weepy when I wouldn't let her study it last night. I asked her some questions to stimulate her to really look at the painting. Then, for history, I read "William Penn" from "American History Stories Volume One" by Mara Pratt from the Baldwin Project. We looked at a picture of the actual treaty
I pointed out to the kids how the Indians signed the treaty using animals and symbols. I then asked them what animal they would want their sign to be. Lillie wanted to be a Lion and Jack wanted to be a Tiger.
We talked about the difference between a male and female lion. Then we made a paper bag puppet of a Lion that I got off DLTK. I have said before that those people can turn a toilet paper roll into anything. Well, they can do it with brown paper lunch sacks as well.
We didn't do math or reading today, however. After we spent some time outside, lunches and naps, Lillie was not in the mood to do anything other than the little bit we did. I have learned we have to tackle the basics first thing in the morning or they don't get done. By the way, the 5th Edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival is up and running over at On Our Journey Westward. Check it out. Lots of great articles by some great ladies!

Happy Veteran's Day

Happy Birthday Leila!

This is me and my one and only sister. She's the one on the right. I'm the normal one (just kidding, sis).For all you PETA supporters, I know her headress looks alot like that cat she's holding, but I assure you no animals were harmed to make that thing on her head.

She looks alot better now, don't she? She's the one on the right,again. I'm the one with the double chin.
Happy ?st Birthday Sis, I love you and all the kooky weirdo memories we share together!

It's Sink or Swim!

We've had car trouble the last two days. As in the one car we have went dead on us. So, I didn't get much done in the way of schoolwork the last two days. Good thing Lillie's only four and not technically school age yet. So, today, I wanted to do a little science which is something we do little of, sad to say. So, I thought we'd do an experiment from my Usborne Pocket Scientist 2 book. It is internet linked which means that Usborne has a site that gives you links related to the content of certain pages in the book. If you're not familiar with Usborne books they are wonderful!
Our experiment was to have Lillie predict ,out of some selected items, which would float and which would sink. Then, she dropped them into a pan of water to see if she was right. I explained in simplest terms why things float and sink. See, it's called the Archimedes principle which states that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up (pushed up) by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.
Just kidding. I didn't say it like that. If I had Lillie would've been like this...

Basically, an object floats if it is lighter than the liquid that is pushed back when the object is put into it. By the way, Archimedes is the dude in the picture above. Legend has it he discovered the principle of buoyancy while taking a bath. See, kids, cleanliness and personal hygiene really does pay off! Here's the pictures of this experiment.


Next, I sat three different size containers out. We counted how many pennnies we could put in each one before they sank.
First Container:9 pennies 2nd:96! 3rd: 76 pennies.

Being a Big Sister

Being a big sister is rough. It's alot of work.

Little sisters can be sooooo messy!
How do babies eat this junk!
Doin' a little Christmas shopping...

Building An Arsenal

If you're a child of God, you believe what His word tells you, right? In Psalms 127:3-5 , David writes, "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."
Psalms 127 is just as true as John 3:16. So how come our attitudes don't reflect this? I have, I'm ashamed to admit, been on both the giving and receiving ends of the comments and looks women get who dare to have more than 2.5 children and venture out into public. The Bible says we ought not to be ashamed of the quantity of children the Lord gives us. Lord forgive us (especially us ladies)if we make that mother ashamed. You know the one I'm talking about. You may be that woman I'm talking about. The mother who has given up any personal ambition she might have had to stay home and disciple her children. The mother in the Wal-Mart checkout line with 6 small kids in tow who survived the toy department and the cereal isle with no incident who is just trying to make it to her vehicle with all her children, all her groceries, and her checkbook. I've been there. The looks of pity, the fake smiles, the "you sure have your hands full" and the ever popular "so, are you done?" And then there's that look you get when you answer that last one with,"I'll take however many the Lord sees fit to give me!" You know the look, like they think you got lost on your way to the Planet Nutso.
It's not God's will for everyone to have 13 children. Sometimes it's not God's will for some to have children at all. All throughout the Bible, there are accounts of women who were "barren" and it was considered a bad thing by society. Oh my how far we've strayed from the Bible in this world. Now , it's just the opposite. It's a bad thing to have children at all! Children are the enemy! That's what this world, the media, and I'm sorry to say it, some so called bible believing churches will tell you. It's funny to me, that God's people will get in an uproar over abortion, (and we should. It's wrong, it's murder) yet we'll look down our noses at those that dare to break free from the status quot and go God's way. We ought to support, in prayer as well as in deed, those parents who are not just filling their quivers with arrows, but building an arsenal for the Lord.

Picture Study:Noah's Ark

Been slackin' again. We have not done much "school work" other than just the basics. We picked back up this past Thursday. We suspended doing the rest of our unit on the senses, but will pick up the rest later on. I did a picture study with Lillie Anna for the first time. This is one aspect of the Charlotte Mason Method. Ms. Mason suggested starting formal picture study at age six. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with introducing little ones under six to beautiful works of art. Picture study increases a child's power of observation as well as gives them an appreciation of the contributions that artists have made to our world. Now, in every medium of art or creative expression, there is good and bad. Music, art, literature, media etc. As a parent, you must choose only the best of these things to expose your children to. Charlotte Mason really "got" this.
Anyway, Garden of Praise is a wonderful resource and they provide picture study resources that are very Charlotte Mason-y. They chose "Noah's Ark" by Edward Hicks as their study but I went and googled some more of his works, chose two more, and will have Lillie "study" each one. We began with "Noah's Ark". Garden of Praise provides a list of questions to ask the student about each painting, but these questions were geared towards children older than Lillie, so I made up my own questions to ask her. Such as, what animals do you see? What colors? What animal isn't walking into the ark? What does the weather look like? What do you like about this picture? What do you not like? You could make up your own questions, anything to get them stimutlated and interested in looking at the picture. Then, I let Lillie Anna listen to an audio reading of Noah's Ark off the Garden of Praise site. Another resource they have is audio readings of many and most of the well known bible stories. After listening to it, I asked Lillie to tell me all she had learned about Noah from the story. We then talked about obedience to God and parents (had to get that in) how it is important to listen to God's voice, and how you can trust God to lead you in the right path. After the picture study, I read her a short bio of Hicks and let her paste his picture and a small printout of the picture we studied on an artist profile notebooking page I got off Homeschooling with Index Cards (another great resource).

We played a counting file folder game with a Noah's ark theme that I got off Christian Preschool Printables.

Lillie continued working on reading her "Autumn Fires" poem by Robert Louis Stevenson and did some addition practice. She is now where she can do the process by herself, though I still watch her and listen to ensure she's doing all correctly.
What was Jackson doing at this time? Between playing with his cars and begging for something to drink, he played with his magnet board (that's cheapo mother who doesn't want to seem cheapo lingo for discarded cookie sheet with dollar alphabet and number magnets) I bought Lillie Anna letter, number and shape magnets at the Dollar Tree about a year ago and Jack loves to shout out the letters etc. as he finds them. The metal cookie sheet insures that they stay where they're supposed to and not all over my floor.
I am amazed at how much Lillie has taught him :)
Here is another fine example of Jackson's super human ability to sleep anywhere and in any position.

And here is an example of Lillie Anna's not so super human ability to disguise herself so that she doesn't get caught out of bed at naptime. She really thinks that I can't see her!

Busted!