Gearing Up For Thanksgiving

Usually in November I make a big turkey out of construction paper and hang it up, then the whole family writes the things we are thankful for on it throughout the month. This year, I decided to let everyone do their own turkey (except Aaron, Ollie, and I are sharing one). The kids had fun cutting out and gluing the feathers on. We wrote down things we were thankful for and will continue to do so all month long.

Today we started making Thanksgiving books. I got the idea from here. We read a story about the Mayflower, and then we did an art project and wrote a sentence about something we learned about the Mayflower. These will make one of the pages in our book. We'll do other pages about the pilgrims, the Indians, the food, etc. It's going to be fun.

You can tell Lincoln is my child, or my mom's grandchild, because after doing our Mayflower art project, we had snack, and he insisted that he turn his snack into a Mayflower. The goldfish is supposed to be the pilgrim. :)

The Witches: A Book Report by Lincoln Swan

Trouble With a Capital T

Ha! This kid is mobile. There is no stopping him now, and he is trouble with a capital T. But he's so happy about being a menace, I really can't hold it against him. Little twurp. I love him!

Lego Day

These two are such good friends when Lincoln is away at Harmony on Thursdays. Yesterday they spent several hours together building a Duplo castle.

Adelia's Hair Cut

So, I hadn't done Adelia's hair for a couple of days, which meant it was static and wild and everywhere. That was the first problem. The second problem was that she's had a cold and her nose has been running like crazy. Since her hair was flying all about, it tended to stick to the snot coming out of her nose. It was a mess. Lincoln felt sorry for her, because, "her hair was stuck all in her face and she couldn't see." So, showing compassion that only a brother can, he took matters into his own hands and gave her a hair cut, to get the hair out of her eyes, you see.

He took out two big chunks, right in front of her ears on both sides. That hair used to be down past her chin, but now it was only reaching mid-ear, and just barely. I thought that maybe I could ignore it, and wait for it to grow back, but it looked so awful every time I pulled it up into a pony tail. I knew it had to go. So I took her in to Fantastic Sams. And she came out with short hair.

And I think it's adorable. The end.

Sideways Eight

Yesterday while he was doing his math, Lincoln said to me, ""Mom, do you want to see me write the biggest number of all? A sideways eight. It means all the numbers that ever were all the way up to infinity!" And I had to chuckle. I mentioned that Aaron has been teaching Lincoln a little bit of programming. And along with programming, there have been some necessary conversations and mini lessons about math. And of course Aaron makes math WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY more fun than I do. For example, Aaron made this worksheet for Lincoln, and Lincoln completed it (in orange) with no whining, complaining, or questions asked...because it related to programming.

And me? I'm just happy I get to cross greater-than less-than off our list of things to learn. :)

Stew Lemmon Day 2013

It's been 11 years since my dad died of cancer. I don't have many words floating around in my mind that need to be put on paper. I feel like I've done words in years past. This year I want to do pictures. I don't have many pictures of my dad, he wasn't in many pictures, he was always the one taking them. But this year, I went through my mom's picture box, and snapped pictures of some pictures. And that's what I want to share today. (Mom, feel free to add details or dates or anything you think needs to be said about these pictures that I may have missed.)

Krystal, Stew, Kyle, Tami

My dad is in the middle, not sure who the other two are or if this is Jr. High or High School.

Krystal, Kyle, Stew, Tami, Jackson (I cannot believe I was aloud to wear that awful shirt to family pictures!)

Dad playing the guitar. Probably before I was born.

One of these is 4th grade and one is 5th but I can't remember which is which.

Rafting trip down the snake river. I am the one in back with the hat. 

More of our rafting trip. We went with the Carrols. 

Krystal, Grandma Lemmon, Grandpa Lemmon, Kyle, Stew. This was in Jackson Hole, WY

Stew and Tami, engagements? 

Dad dressed up as an indian chief. Why? How old?

Tami, Grandma Lemmon, Stew. 

Mom, pregnant with Tanner? And Dad.

Mom and Dad in Hawaii.

Engagements again?

Science Club Lately

A week ago, I taught Science Club. We are still doing birds, so I decided to teach about penguins. I made a big penguin out of constructions paper. To start off the class, I had each kids tell me what they already knew about penguins. I wrote each answer on a sticky note, and gave them to the kids to come and stick on our penguin. This represented what we already knew. Then I read them two books. And we talked about what we had learned. We wrote the new things we'd learned on the penguin's belly. Then it was time for the fun stuff.

To demonstrate how penguins walk, I brought a bunch of bandannas with me, and tied the kids' ankles together. I had them waddle around the classroom like that. When they got used to that, I explained that daddy penguins have to carry their egg around on their feet. Then I tucked a football into the bandanna and had them try to walk from one end of the room to the other without dropping the football.  

Once everyone had given that a try. We talked about how penguins huddle up to keep warm, rotating who is in the middle of the huddle and who is one the outside. We practiced that too. Although the kids weren't too sure about that one. :) Then I gave everyone a paper with a penguin on it, and had them write down one thing they'd learned about penguins.

These are the two books I read to the kids:

The other class being taught was on flamingos. I didn't get to see this class because I was teaching, but my kids LOVED it. They came home spouting all kinds of flamingo facts. Lincoln said they got to walk on stilts. And the had these super cute art projects with them when they were done. Love it!

This week Wynter taught about owls. The kids got to draw these pictures. I thought they did a great job.

It's funny to me as I watch my boys do drawings and different art projects, Lincoln tends to be very precise. He likes things to look realistic and be symmetrical and go go where they are supposed to go. Ivan on the other hand is a lot more messy, but deliberately. He doesn't care about perspective or making things even. It's almost classical vs. impressionistic at our house, and it makes me laugh.