t h e m a y f i l e s is foremost a family blog, chronicling everyday life. Life including natural, healthy eating (with recipes thrown in at random), home educating (with ideas popping up sporadically), an attempt to homestead on .2 acres (with very meager yields), raising 3 of 4 children with a rare genetic disorder, and lots of highly personal family triumphs and failures. You may also find an eclectic array of musings on politics, exercise, sewing, emergency preparedness, backyard chickens, and religion. This blog isn't a campaign to glorify anyone or anything. Just simply a record.

10.04.2009

Where have I been?


Callista's version of William Tell's son with an arrow shot through the apple above his head.

Remember all those tomatoes? Now I have dozens of quarts of stewed tomatoes, soup and sauce. Remember the apple trees? Apple sauce. Sometimes the blog has to take the back seat.

Additionally...

I've noticed a lion share of my time now goes to educating and preparing to educate my children. I can't think of a better way to spend my time but it keeps me busy nonetheless. This week we made dioramas of The Apple and the Arrow,
Yet another way our apples come in handy.

made field journals of native plants,
Field Journals. We drew pictures of each plant before hand and looked at pictures in plant identification books and on the internet. Then on our field trip the girls were able to pick out the plants on their own. That is when they weren't shivering and crying about the freezing wind!

and did a leaf chromatography science experiment (this gives the children a visual of all the different pigments present in leaves.
We ground up our leaves and let them sit immersed in rubbing alcohol. Then we allowed the tip of a strip of paper towel to touch the alcohol solutions. After several hours the girls saw the hidden colors of the leaves!

Their different molecular weights cause them to travel different distances. Ahhh...the science teacher in me emerges :)
This fit nicely as we learned about fall and the changing color of leaves.

What else?

We spent a wonderful week with Brent's parents in town. The children played. Mimi joined us on a freezing leaf collection field trip to the mountains. We engaged in stimulating conversations on the economy, nutrition, religion and politics. We ate great food. And just enjoyed each others company.

4 comments:

Brittney said...

You HAVE been busy! Looks like so much fun. :) Thanks for the birthday call! We'll have to get together soon!

Tara Trythall said...

We do have a lot in common! I've been out of the blogging world for a while now. Since I've been thinking of homeschooling for a while, I ordered catalogs and have been researching. My favorite? Sonlight. Kind of crazy to then read that on your blog.

Rebecca said...

I love a lot of things about Sonlight. Especially the focus on quality literature. I do find I come up with a lot of enrichment on my own, which is time consuming. I also change the religious aspect align more closely with our church. I so highly recommend homeschooling however. I love it. I can't imagine ever giving it up! I will probably choose a different program next year...not sure yet.

EmJay said...

That leaf experiment looked really neat! I forgot to ask you how the applesauce went over the weekend. Did you have some this morning with your hot cereal? Yum!