True "Home" Schooling

We are gutting two rooms in our Pre 1900 house. That is what the deed says. This is our first home. We have lived here 12 years and are looking to move in a couple of years but this is the first time we have had the time or money to do this project. I have been so frustrated looking for a new home that I finally called off the search. We decided instead to look for some land, pay it down for a couple years, then build. So for now we are updating this gem and eying 6.5 acres in the country.

We told G that demolition was school and he was pretty excited. Shop, Art History, History, and Science. Daddy, G & Papaw removed all of the beautiful original molding last weekend, which we will put back up. This weekend we took down all of the original horse hair plaster and lath in the front room. During the process we found some amazing wallpaper. G was so enthralled with this paper that he peeled away the paint all day to even reveal the section behind him in the picture. There are three different style homes... "rich" homes as G says... on the paper.




After we removed the ceiling we found piping for a gas light. So we discussed how they used gas before electricity. We have a reproduction gas light in the dining room so we took a closer look at it. You can also see the original wiring which is some of the last in the house.

Here is the final picture of the weekend. Next weekend we will start on the adjacent room and do the same thing. I wonder what we will find?

Buterfly_Emerge

We woke up to emerged Painted Ladies this morning.
So we missed the whole process but they are still amazing.
Rather than mixing up sugar water I am feeding them Hummingbird food which is already mixed in the fridge.

Goldfinch

A beautiful Goldfinch as been appearing at our feeder this week.

Butterflies- Stages

I knew when the caterpillars arrived they were bigger than expected. It was confirmed when they J'd within the a couple days.




So we are waiting for them to emerge from their chrysalis.

Thunder Cake

With all of the wet weather here in the Midwest, We have had our share of nerve racking thunder & lighting. So I brought out one of my favorite books Patricia Polacco's Thunder Cake. G really enjoyed learning how to count the distance of a storm by the seconds between the lighting and thunder. Then we made a thunder cake. I have never baked a cake from scratch and that was the only bonus for making this one because G said it just tastes like cake. Oh well.

Butterflies- Arrival

We ordered some Painted Ladies and they arrived today.
They are bigger than I expected but at least the head caps were inside so we could discuss the molting.
After they arrived I printed out a really great book for us to complete as they grow. It is great that they arrived right after our trip to the zoo last week. What a follow up!!

We're Goin' to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

Our zoo membership is about up and since we are not going to renew it, in favor of a zoo that is a part of the AZA reciprocal program,we went to check out the new exhibits. We saw the Butterfly exhibit... MAGICAL!!!! The Koala Exhibit... yawn. Did you know they sleep a lot. The biggest surprise of the day was when we went into the remodeled Ocean building and found a SHARK PETTING POOL!! It was so cool. Have you ever heard of spyhopping? Spyhopping is the act of coming out of the water vertically, and momentarily staying out of the water in a manner akin to a human treading water. A powerful individual can spyhop as much as half of its body out of the water. Spyhops may well be used so that the shark can examine its surroundings above the surface—for instance to look at prey. One of the babies was so high up on it's tail fin it hit it's head on the sign in the water. We'd never seen such a thing before. Over all a great day at the zoo!

Pooh Sticks

One day, when Pooh bear was just walking along the bridge with a fir cone in his paw, in his own world, not looking where he was going (probably thinking about honey), he tripped over something. This made the fir-cone jerk out of his paw into the river.

"Bother", said Pooh, as it floated slowly under the bridge. So Pooh went to get another fir cone, but then thought that he would just look at the river instead, because it was a peaceful sort of day. So, he lay down and looked at it, and it slipped slowly away beneath him, and suddenly, there was his fir-cone slipping away too. 'That's funny,' said Pooh. 'I dropped it on the other side,' said Pooh, 'and it came out on this side! I wonder if it would do it again?'

And he went back for some more fir-cones. It did. It kept on doing it. Then he dropped two in at once, and leant over the bridge to see which of them would come out first; and one of them did; but as they were both the same size, he didn't know if it was the one which he wanted to win, or the other one. So the next time he dropped one big one and one little one, and the big one came out first, which was what he had said it would do, and the little one came out last, which was what he had said it would do, so he had won twice ... and then he went home for tea.And that was the beginning of the game called Poohsticks, which Pooh invented, and which he and his friends used to play on the edge of the Forest. But they played with sticks instead of fir-cones, because they were easier to mark.'

(After a great afternoon playing at the water park with our friends, we played Pooh Sticks before parting ways!!)

Batter Up!

What a Week

Carnival of Homeschooling

This weeks Carnival is up at Tami's Blog. My "Are we done yet?" post is a part of the party. Check it out!