October School

We began our science unit on botany this month by building an indoor plant growing box.  We like working with Rex and Alli to teach these science topics to our kids.  The boys classes at Classical Conversations continued to challenge them with new things:  owl pellets, nature hikes, and more memory work.

Let your light shine bright through the night and through the day.

Brett does his best Vanna White impersonation as Rex talks through the materials and procedures for the experiment.

The goal:  two functional greenhouses built in unison.

Classification of shoes...is there binomial nomenclature for shoes?

Griffin recognizes that Luke wants to learn about the Great Sphynx too.

Clone Trooper Griffin works on his spelling and handwriting.

Bryce flashes his board of handwriting, grammar, and spelling.

Garrett works on his IEW paper getting ideas down as a part of his rough draft.

Let's investigate these owl pellets to figure out what was eaten.

Bryce's class digs into the owl pellets.

Pop presentation time:  tell the class why they should buy the random item that came out of the mystery bag.

Nature walk time with collection of leaves and other plants.

CC Nature Hike Day

A favorite activity for boys:  throwing rocks in the river...Griffin showing some pretty good form on the far right.

October Soccer

October is the stretch run for soccer season.  Garrett's team played a number of closely contested games in which they tied twice and won once.  Bryce's team won once and tied once, while Griffin's team won a pair of games.

Grammy and Poppy joined us for a marathon day of three soccer games in 7 hours, getting to see each of the boys play.

Garrett's team huddles to talk strategy before the game.

Griffin hustles down the field to get open for a pass.

Griffin waits to attack (with Caleb in the background).

Bryce studies the opponents lineup and prepares an attack plan.

Bryce hustles (left side) to take advantage of a potential breakaway.

A reward for a soccer day--snack time.

More

There are some random things that happened this month that didn't fit into any of the other categories, so we will highlight them here.  October brings the pomegranate crop which we have to pull off the tree pretty quickly.  Bryce loves to get the fruit out and tends to splurge on the consumption of this fruit in this month.  The boys fully set themselves up for a glorious boys only night with all the amenities in the garage.  We spent an evening hanging out with Chris and Christine and their four boys on the new farm they live on. 

Project pomegranate picking underway with alliteration.

Boys' movie night--we are set, Mom, you can have your book club uninterrupted tonight.

Chris and Brett take some dirt bikes out for a short ride.

October 2015

October was filled with fall things.  We went to the Del Osso pumpkin patch to do pumpkin shooters and see the scarecrows.  We set up our first trunk or treat with a Star Wars theme--yes we already have tickets to see Episode VII.  The science of botany was selected as our thematic science of the year.  Soccer was in the home stretch, as all that remains this month is the tournament.  Hope you have had a wonderful start to the Fall.

Bryce 8y2mo

Bryce has made some more improvement at diving this month:  the biggest improvement has been in his front flip twist and his back flip dives.  His teacher has been having them start some dives by sitting in a tuck position on the high dive and rolling off to simulate the end of a more complicated dive.  You can see the little pieces being put together.  Another interesting behavior has been Bryce's fear of going to soccer practice (because of the two hours of practice, usually one and a half hours are running and conditioning), but then he gets upset if we are going to be late.

I like to get up in the tree to play or do his math book, and we hung some bird feeders this month.

I don't want to lose the outside part of school with Mom.

Bryce's soccer buddies:  L-R:  Ryan, Adrienne, Angel.

Stacking cups to make a great design with my brother.

Even I will play cards if one of the cats will join us.

Luke will always find the most interesting poses to fall asleep in.

Garrett 10y4mo

This month, Garrett has been improving on his front dive tuck, inward dive, and has been working on his sitting dives from the high dive.  Overall, he feels like he has made some significant strides this last month.  He definitely feels tired after his long day which includes going to CC from 8:30 until 3:00, followed by diving from 3:30 to 5:00, followed by soccer practice from 6:00 to 7:30.  Usually by the end of that he is ready for an earlier bedtime!

Studies show that if you read to your cats...

Team ping pong ball stack competition:  you have to build the best tower and knock down your opponents with accurate throws.

Griffin 6y5mo

Part of Griffin's schedule this quarter has included some down time while his brothers have their diving class.  So Griffin has capitalized on this time by playing games such a chess, slamboard math, and stratego.  He has become quite skilled at these three games, so be careful when you challenge him.  He has added to his repertoire that he began expanding last month.

Nursing Theo back to health was a topic of the end of this month:  he had cellulitis on one of his paws and was limping around on three legs for a few days before we started him on antibiotics.

We will now play cards with Luke joining in.

Finding a new venue to do my math book lessons...but you should really notice my bed which I actually made.

Star Wars Under the Stars

After playing the games, we served up pizza, fruit salad, Caesar salad, carrots, and later popcorn while the opening trailer for Star Wars Episode IV rolled.  We paused for an intermission when Brett came out dressed as Chewbacca to present the R2-D2 cake and the singing of Happy Birthday for our three boys (yeah their birthdays were in April, May, and July, but those months were too busy--so they got a birthday party in September, makes sense, right?).  The movie was played on our outdoor theater--fun stuff.  Grammy was the mobile concession stand selling Sour Patch kids, licorice, M&Ms, and Jelly Belly candies.

The whole crew of 22 dressed up kids, see if you can find them all...

The birthday boys with their R2-D2 cake.

Lounging on the back porch watching the movie and playing Star Wars bingo.

Grammy, the concession stand lady.

Party Games

We all had fun designing the games for the kids' birthday party that were all thematic for Episode IV.  Brett led Griffin's group (Cooper, Lauryn, Rachel, Noah, Nolan, Nathan, and Jonah) around the 6 games.  Grammy guided Garrett's group (Ian, Will, Jack, Sam, Mason, Noah, and Jake).  Poppy took Bryce's group (Jared, Bryce, Jeremiah, Ben, and Nolan) to the various stations.  We couldn't have done it without Grammy and Poppy.

Bryce, as Boba Fett, greeted all of our guests and made sure nobody parked where one of the games was to take place.

Garrett, Noah, Lauryn, Jake, and Griffin work on building Star Wars characters and vehicles out of playdoh.

The above builders were joined by Ian, Jeremiah, and Will as we waited for a majority to arrive before heading out for the next 6 games.

TIE fighters, Death Stars, Yoda heads, Millenium Falcons made of playdoh adorn the plates.

Corn hole toss your proton torpedo into the Death Star's main reactor.

Shoot your bowcaster darts at the stormtrooper head targets.

Bryce loved giving instructions on this one, he even recorded himself for the other groups so that everyone knew the safe and proper way to do it (like archery at RCP).  Bryce C, Jared, and Jeremiah prepare to fire.

Sink a basket destroys Darth Vader's TIE fighter and allows Luke a shot at blowing up the Death Star.

Griffin puts up the shot!

Noah, Rachel, Lauryn, Nathan, Jonah, and Griffin prepare for the basketball challenge.

Great costumes girls (Rachel and Lauryn)!

Make your best Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and Yoda noises.

We've got this says Griffin's group which included Cooper, Nolan D., and Nolan C. (not previously pictured at basketball).

Take your gaffi (hockey) stick and act like a Tusken Raider and send the puck through the holes.

Ready to be squished in the trash compactor?  Fortunately there was no monster in this one.

While watching the movie, there was Star Wars bingo to be played:  see the character or ship and check them off your bingo card to get tickets for a bingo and a prize for a blackout.  These were the original pictures that were then cut up and arranged in different combinations and patterns for each bingo card.

The awesome R2-D2 cake designer/decorator:  Joy.