In the past few weeks, Benjamin and Rachel have both performed for their peers.  The Amazing Benjamin has put on a couple magic acts and Rachel has showcased her piano pieces.  Here are a few photos from the homeschool Presentation Day at the local bookstore/music venue and from our enrichment group’s Talent Show.

“And for my next trick…”

A few “volunteers from the studio audience” look on skeptically when Benjamin declares that he can make the rope pass through him.

Rachel played a nice version of Skip to My Lou after only a few months of lessons.

Rachel was the youngest and very first participant in the Talent Show this year.  It’s hard to go first!

We are very proud of them both!

As the days get longer and warmer, children (and teachers) all over start getting antsy for the end of school.  Homeschoolers are no exception.  Each May we look forward to those events that signal that summer is rapidly approaching and mark the accomplishments of the term.  Last Tuesday was the last class day in our enrichment program, last night we had our art show, and today was Field Day.

From the Art Show

Rachel’s lovely watercolor frog.  She is a frog lover like her cousin Sarah Elizabeth.

Benjamin took Oil Painting this year.  This is one of our favorites.

A colorful still life Rachel cut out in her mixed media class.

This includes an interesting reflection and could be displayed this way or upside down.

From Field Day

I love the classic drag-your-partner, win-at-all-costs going on to the left of Benjamin.

Rachel was quite happy with this ribbon because 3 is her favorite number.

The “Pillowcase Race.”  I distracted him so Benjamin was slow getting out of the gate.

I only saw one child cheat and hold the ball on the spoon with his finger while running.

Lydia may have been too young to compete, but she didn’t miss out on the best part- Snow Cones!

Unlike children, adults actually enjoy quiet “boring” moments when no one is talking.  I’m a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom whose husband travels a lot so I get my fill of “quality time” with the children.  I was having one of those “I need a sanity break” moments today and I thought I had figured out a way to get one.

After a quick salad, I put the toddler down for a nap, strapped the 15 pound infant into his “frontpack,” and left the older children finishing their lunch.  I thought I would get a little exercise and have a few moments of solitude walking in our driveway without anyone making demands of me.  I put on some Chris Rice music and headed out the door to be alone (okay, at least with only the infant, but that’s something).  It was not to be.

Our driveway is a hair under 1/4 mile long from end to end with the house being at the crest of a slight hill.  The driveway is paved which makes it great for walking, bike riding, etc.  I headed out on foot to try and work off some baby weight.  I had hardly made it to the toolshed before two dogs joined me.  They jostled me and each other trying to get their heads up under my hands to be petted.  After acknowledging them both with pats and compliments I continued on.  Another 100 feet and two cats came barreling past me, quickly throwing themselves onto the pavement immediately in front of me and rolling onto their backs to have their bellies scratched.  I obliged and continued on.  At about that point, I picked up a small herd of goats who paced me from their side of the fence giving me the rough side of their tongues for not bringing treats.  I spoke to them by name and made my apologies for the oversight.

I managed to make it to the mailbox without tripping over any cats who continued to do their speedbump impressions right in front of me (never have I met felines who accompany humans on walks, but this is frequent with them).  I herded the dogs away from the street and started back up the hill.  When I got to the barn, I picked up a flock of about 25 chickens.  They assumed that my general heading toward the henhouse meant they would get fed again and they swirled about my ankles as I walked.  As I neared the house, the bovine bellowing began and the cows picked up the pacing where the goats ran out of fence.  Just to make the picture complete, both Benjamin and Rachel were on the porch waving me down when I reached the house.

So goes the life of a homeschooling, farming woman.  It’s certainly never lonely.

Public speaking is listed as one the greatest fears people have.  Though Joe is an old pro at it with all the conferences he does and courses he teaches, public speaking is also one of the hardest skills to master.  It is no simple feat to give a well-organized, informative presentation in a confident and effective manner.  It can take years to become comfortable speaking before your peers, or worse yet, your superiors.  For that reason, we feel that it will be more easily accomplished if our children get an early start.  That’s not to say that we are pushing them into careers that will require it.  It’s just that we would like them to be well-rounded and prepared for whatever God calls them to do.  Here they are giving speeches to their peers and the parents.

Fourth graders all have to speak on the topic My Family.  Benjamin had practiced and practiced until he hardly even needed to glance at his notecards.  He made a point of making eye contact with his audience.  (I apologize for the picture quality-  I was zoomed in pretty far from the back of the room.  The leader also promises to have his name spelled right by the next meeting).

Rachel spoke on a topic near and dear to her heart- cats.  She read several books and looked up information online so she could develop a speech that told about their needs and development, personalities, and appearance.  She felt very nervous but it didn’t show when she spoke.

Both children did a great job and we are proud of them.

For the city folk out there, “4-H is a community of young people across America who are learning leadership, citizenship, and life skills” (quote from the website).   All the groups I’ve known of have been in rural areas, but they may exist in urban areas too.  We joined last year as Clover Buds, but Benjamin has now moved up to the higher level.  It has been a great experience for us.

Our homeschool 4-H group had a super field trip on Thursday.  We all met out at a rock climbing wall/ high ropes course/ zip line built and maintained on a university experimental agriculture farm.  Joe was able to go with us and I think he had as much fun as the children.

Rachel preparing to climb the rock wall.

Off to a good start.

“Let me rest just a second…”

Benjamin scales the rock wall while another kid tackles the high ropes.

Joe nears the top.

Don’t worry grandparents, that sad look is because we didn’t let Lydia harness up.

Benjamin has made it to the top of the pole.

Now for the really scary part.

And there goes Joe…

All the way across and down the zipline.

What a great adventure!

Several times a year, the Adventure Science Center in Nashville (formerly the Cumberland Science Museum, but I am dating myself) offers special science learning programs for homeschoolers.  Wednesday we went for the first time.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Benjamin spied the new zero-gravity and Space area through the huge windows.  That had to be our first stop.

Waiting for weightlessness.

Boing!

Boing!

There were also some workstations that gave you a taste of what working in space would be like.  You had to keep your feet on the wheeled chair and try to operate the controls.  You quickly found out that without gravity’s pull (and the resistance your feet gave against the floor) you were the one moved, not the levers and things.

And of course, if big brother and sister could do it, Lydia had to also.

The first scheduled activity of the day was a visit to the new planetarium.  We took our reclined seats, but not for long.  The loud music and foreboding voice alarmed Lydia and Benjamin and I both became motion sick, so we tried (unsuccessfully) to exit quietly and go back out to the exhibits.

Lydia got in a little exercise climbing stairs

… and she put some miles on this ambulance racing to rescue scenes.

Benjamin had courses in Dinosaur Detectives and Pond Creatures.  Rachel got to assist in a Senses course, holding and displaying a snake skin and then she also had a Pond Creatures class.  In that one, the students learned to use microscopes and make their own wet-mount and well slides to observe tiny organisms in lake water.  They both had a good time.  I wish I could have gotten pictures of them doing those but we weren’t always in the same place and I was alternately chasing a napless toddler and nursing a newborn, occasionally both at the same time.

Before we left, we had to revisit an old favorite.  In this area, the children can use real wheelchairs on ramps, a small basketball court, concession stand, etc to see how challenging it could be to get around if you are handicapped.  It helps drive home the need for wheelchair-friendly public places and compassion for the disabled.

Just prior to a pick-up game of B-ball.

Being about 45 minutes from a large city, the state capitol no less, offers us many opportunities for educational field trips.  Last weekend at the Bicentennial Mall in downtown Nashville, there was a Tennessee History Festival.  We got there right after it started and took a walk through history.

Along one side of the mall area, there are markers that tell what was happening in the state during each era.  Here are some of our favorites.

This fellow was truly half Cherokee from the mountains of East Tennessee.  He told us many interesting things that we hadn’t learned in our other studies of Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears.

The blacksmiths gave the children lessons in shaping metal, how to know if the fire is hot enough, and how a bellows works.

We don’t have the faintest idea what this was about since the actors had gone to lunch (that’s a mannequin on a stuffed horse), but it sure looked cool.

Lydia kept running off and grinning over her shoulder while we were trying to listen to this man.  As a result, I didn’t catch much.  He was talking about the British and why the taxation wasn’t sitting well with the colonists, but I’m not sure exactly who he was supposed to be or how involved Tennessee was.  We all thought is was pretty neat that he had a cup made of a horn that he kept around his neck on a string.

This scene fascinated Benjamin.  Periodically, these British soldiers would fire those huge guns and boy, did they get attention!  They were loud!

The Confederate Army was resting beneath a tree just prior to their battle with the Union soldiers.

The Union Army met them on the battlefield.

There was plentiful gunfire as soldiers fell.  The middle-schoolers who were there on a field trip cheered every time one went down.  Joe asked us later who won this time.

I doubt there were any strollers on the sidelines in the original battles.

Of all the great things we saw that day, this one was still Benjamin’s favorite-  the park rangers were using these to patrol the area.  I guess the Segway falls into “Tennessee Present.” 

We are part of a marvelous homeschool group that gets together for plays, quiz show days, field trips, and so on.  Today was Presentation Day.  We met up at a local bookstore that graciously provides use of the stage, microphones, and lights it has for music events.  Students got the opportunity to present a project of their choice (or parent-teacher’s) before an audience of their peers.  There was a very vast array of topics today, from a demonstration of how to make a pin-hole camera to recitation of an entire long psalm to musical performances on various instruments.  All ages from Kindergarten through 12th grade participated.  Here are pictures of our children on stage.

Benjamin decided to play Amazing Grace in front of the assembled crowd of homeschooling mothers and students.  It’s really hard to volunteer to perform but he did well.

Rachel prepared a presentation on the life cycle of the butterfly.  A volunteer from the audience rushed the stage to hold her poster.

Lydia was pretty good and patient through most of the program, but Rachel went last and Lydia could wait for her chance no longer.

Homeschooling is working so well for our family, but it has a few downsides.  Not being in a large group setting, we have to intentionally plan times to practice being in front of peers.  We try to take every opportunity we have to work on public speaking skills, planning and organizing a project for presentation, firm deadlines set by other authority figures, and objective feedback from others.  We are fortunate to be able to participate in 4-H, scouts, our enrichment group, and this local Christian homeschool group to meet these needs.

We belong to a couple of wonderful homeschool groups that get together for field trips, “presentation days” (opportunities to give book reports, recite memorized Scripture, etc. in front of an audience of peers), fine arts, and so on.  This last Friday, we met up with about 30 other people to go ice skating.  It felt wonderful to go from the 95 degree parking lot to the 45 degree rink.

Benjamin and Rachel had a great time zipping around the ice while Lydia and I watched from the bleachers and visited with other moms and toddlers.   The picture quality is terrible since I was having to photograph through the plexiglass wall, but here are a few shots anyway.

Benjamin began with a few more layers on, but quickly worked up a sweat.  You can see that he wisely brought kneepads along to cushion his falls and insulate his knees from the ice.

Rachel made great strides this time.  Last time she barely let go of the wall, but this time she was off and running.

Lydia spent most of her time practicing her bleacher climbing and taking her boots off (and then fussing to have me put them back on so she could do it again).  This child has a thing with shoes.  If they’re hers, she wants nothing to do with them, but if they belong to someone else (she thought the boots were Rachel’s), then she NEEDS them.  The more ill-fitting, the better.

We had a good time and hope to go again this year.  It’s nice to have opportunities to do something fun while fellowshipping with other Christian homeschoolers.

Yesterday, Laura and the kids started back to school. Not to be outdone, Lydia grabbed her multi-purpose stool/desk combo and started doing her own version of schoolwork.