After compiling over 270 entries and generating a random number……

Congratulations #211 Michelle A. (Akumerapi)!!!!

You have won one Complete Student Set of maps from Pin it! Maps.

This set includes:
8 — 18 x 24″ Pin Maps (World, North America, South America, Central America/ Caribbean, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia/ Oceania)
2 — Foam Sheets (18 x 24 x .5″) with plastic corners
30 — 12 x 18″ Control Maps
1 — set of 1147 flag labels and national flags
Flag poles and flag bases
1/2″ Transparent Scotch tape for colored flag labels
3/4″ Transparent Scotch tape for national flags

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway. I wish I had 100 sets to give away! But I do have a coupon code for anyone still interested in these gorgeous maps.

10%off Promo Code: FARM  expires 10/31/15

A big big big thank you to Pin it! Maps for their generosity with this giveaway and their overall awesomeness for creating Pin it! Maps in the first place. Having this lovely affordable alternative to the more expensive Montessori wood maps means a lot! To be honest, I like these maps more than the wooden ones. 🙂 Thanks again, Pin it! Maps and all the lovely folks that entered our giveaway.

The avocados are almost ready for harvest and we have finished week 7 of MFW Adventures! I really had no idea how to prepare for our last true Colonial week. The boys were pretty saturated with information going into Monday. We’ve read tons of books, done handicrafts, and played “Colonial Town” dozens of times, where else could I take things? Well, I thought it would be a great “application” week. It was a bit of an experiment for us. Here’s how it went…

We have a few of these books by Edward Tunis. Frontier living, Pioneer Living, Early Colonial Americans, etc. We found them at a curriculum rummage last year. They are very thick and definitely not something my boys could pick up and plow through on their own.  But we did enjoy looking through these together. We pressed on with our Beautiful Feet study. We read “The Matchlock Gun.” I surprised my eldest boys one night by rousing them after we tucked all the kids in for the night. I served them guava and cream cheese cupcakes, hot mint tea with honey and read extra chapters of “Matchlock Gun” by our “fireplace” (with the heat turned off). They loved having this extra attention with no little brothers around to interrupt the reading. We enjoyed this time together so much. I plan on doing this every couple of weeks with books they are particularly enjoying.

One of my husband’s best buds from college came visiting this week. We planted another mango tree in the orchard and asked him hundreds of questions about Army life! The kids love getting to practice their hospitality skills with their wonderful uncles (they are blessed with many!)We are grateful for these wonderful visits with friends that stop by the farm.

Science took an unexpected turn this week. We went on a field trip to our local grocery store/bakery with a group of families from our church. We took time to bake bread and break it together. But when I sat the boys down to make the napkin holder….well…they were not very interested.  Instead they begged to brave the heat and mosquitos for some colonial games outside.

I have no idea where they got the ideas for these games, but within twenty minutes I was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down my face. They had the best time coming up with these incredibly weird, silly games.

Once they grew tired, we started talking about Colonial life in Michigan and the boys wondered what sorts of things they would pick to eat from nature if they were to journey into the wilderness. “Lets go on a QUEST to answer our QUESTIONS,” the second born snickered. We decided to walk through our back hollow and look for things we would use/eat to survive.

We took our items inside and tried to figure out wether or not any were edible. After a few minutes of research, we concluded that we had gathered exactly ZERO edible items.

We ended up sketching our finds in our science journals and recording our observations for the day. Afterwards the boys were discussing together the incredible difficulties and uncertainties of early pioneer life. It struck me that somewhere along the way, these stories had made a deep impression on each boy. Pioneers had evolved from romantic idea to historic reality characterized by difficulty, ingenuity, tragedy and courage. We made a list of characteristics the characters in our books demonstrated that we, in turn, admire and would like to incorporate into our own lives.  The boys have each expressed a desire to explore colonial history further, which is very encouraging to this homeschool Mama.  I love the natural applications they came up with and the fact that this study left them hungry for more.

Halfway through the week, we hightailed it out of the farm and down the coast to my parent’s home.

We wrapped up arithmetic, spelling and reading in between swimming pool sessions and adventures on the beach.

Today the boys and I stood before a small reef, holding statue still and waiting for the little tropical fish to accustom themselves to our presence. The shadow of the tall white lighthouse looming over us from the shore. Striped yellow fish, orange fish, needle fish and  two small barracudas, darted out and around our legs. We held our breath and whispered quietly back and forth as the fish circled our legs.

#1: “Mom, most pioneer days seem like they are over. But people can still have pioneer moments if they look for them, don’t you think? This right here is a pioneer moment because I’ve never had a barracuda next to my big toe before. But I’m exploring with courage and honor.”
#2: “Where is the courage and honor part?”
#1: “Well, I am not screaming scared about the barracuda and I have the honor not to splash and scare the little fish away.”
#2: “Hmmm. I guess it is a Pioneer moment! How about that!”

When our curriculum box arrived last spring, my eldest closed his eyes tight and whispered over and over, “Please let there be Indian stuff, please let there be Indian stuff.”

Needless to day, before I even cracked open the planner, I knew the Native American unit would be our first “extra big” study! My goal for the two weeks was a lofty one. Scrawled under unit 4 it reads: “Draw closer to Jesus and let the boys have a BLAST!”

I had a hug list of fun crafts and potential projects. I sat the boys down and said, “What would YOU like to do?” Well, they pretty much wanted to do everything.  The first four days of our unit consisted of read alouds and handicrafts.

We read the “Native Americans” book, included in the MFW package, a tremendous hit. The boys adored it! We finished Squanto and reread the D’aulaire’s “Pocahontas.” We read through a few of the books from our “If you lived” series. The boys got a nice stack of books from the library—igloos, pueblos, pottery making, bead work, etc. They watched Reading Rainbow’s “Legend of the Indian Paintbrush.”

While I read from this enormous stack of books, the boys keep their hands busy with the following….

Matching Native Americans to their appropriate homes. These Montessori cards are free printables. Click here for the main page which lists tons of other free printables. The dwelling cards are listed under “Native American Homes.”

Plains Native American cards

We made a few dwellings. Search pinterest, you will find a zillion links for printable homes that your kids can color, build and then fight over. (#Teepeegate2015 was REAL folks). We tried to make an igloo with tiny marshmallows but…well, have YOU ever tried to make an igloo out of marshmallows? Its hard! And marshmallows are delicious. So instead we ended up eating our building materials and imagining what an igloo made of marshmallows would have been like. The answer was, “beautiful and delicious.”

I made a busy box for my sensory needs Tot that everyone ended up loving and enjoying. Its pretty complicated so I’ve included detailed directions for precise execution.

Step 1: Container capable of containing
Step 2: Dried corn kernels.
Step 3: Toob of Indians

I wondered if it would be a Tot*astrophe in the making, but alas, my two year old understood the concept of “you dump it out = you lose it forever” and we never had any problems going forward.

I needed Tot’s hands busy so his brothers and I could tackle this:

Indian beadwork belts.

This lady’s website is pretty stellar so I won’t bother explaining what we did.  Just click and go.  DISCLAIMER: These are totally addicting. We made nine belts and guys, I am seriously contemplating making something I can wear in public. Apparently, the fashion sense I had as a nine year old never completely died. (GAH! Pony beads!)

I over guestimated how many beads we would need for those belts and we ended up with a hefty bowl of leftovers. No problem, Indian necklaces for all! Even the tot joined in. (Hello unintentional fine motor skill therapy sesh!)

This was life for DAYS, people. I read lovely books out loud and my kids made things they were excited about. I didn’t throw in any worksheets or maps for fear of breaking this incredible learning trance they were in. I am amazed at how much information they retained! We had a few moments of “so what did you learn today?” in which the children spit out more information than even I remembered. (My poor old brain).

Then we had a two day explosion of art work. I mean, the kids just would. not. stop. drawing. pictures.  Galleries started to sprout up everywhere.

They are currently making a mural for my bathroom wall. My son sweetly offered, “we’ll put lots of interesting things in the picture so you have stuff to look at when you are in there forever.” Anyone else hide out in the bathroom sometimes when hubby gets home? I totally do! I hide in the shower and eat chocolate or cry or read a book. Apparently  my kids think I have an intestinal disorder and are now, God bless their little hearts, offering artwork as a way to help me cope.

Buffalo skin paintings were lots of fun. The boys adored Draw Write Now book No. 3’s tutorial on Indian Pictographs and they made up hilarious stories. I spit out my tea when my son translated his drawing “Indian leaves teepee. Gone for three days. Squaw gets mad and hunts down Indian. Indian does dishes alone. Release the chickens! Run across the river. Don’t step on Buffalo poop.”

Sign language day was another classic. And by classic I mean that I spoke the words: “Son, please never do that in public. Thank you very much.”

Yesterday they built a totem pole.

Child #1:“Mom, you are the green one!”
Child#2 “Great job! Looks just like Mom!”

Thanks for keeping me humble, kids.

We tried to grind corn for about three minutes until we realized that it was pretty much the worst thing ever. Everyone conceded that we are spoiled rotten humans and we moved on to boxed corn bread.

We ended our unit with Teepee building. One of our neighbors hauled out a ton of brush and branches to their curb a few days ago. I made Hubby and #2 ride over in the truck and haul some back. The boys had a great time building up teepees together. It was miserably hot, but they loved it and are planning to spend all day Saturday building. I will be inside doing absolutely nothing Indian related.

I am loving our MFW Adventures year. Really, I just love being with my boys. I am so thankful that I get the best hours of their day. Not just early morning mumbles and late afternoon grouchiness. I get the WHOLE DAY! I get all the fun and all the memories (and all the fights and all the tantrums). I was miserably sick this week, but I stayed grateful and in the moment because Jesus kept showing me each day the incredible blessing and honor of homeschooling.

We made these little beeswax candles a few days ago for our John 8:12 projects. I filled a pan with water and placed a glass pyrex measuring cup in the pan. I filled the pyrex cup with beeswax pellets. Once they melted, the boys poured the beeswax into these tiny jam jars. After the wax set, we trimmed the wick and walked around the dark farmhouse, candles lit, while reciting our verse and reflecting on the overwhelming greatness of Jesus.

If the boys learned a lot about Native Americans this week, great. If they had fun, super. But did they grow closer to the Lord? That is how I am measuring each week. Not by facts memorized or books read. Did they grow closer? Is their light shining bright? Lord, may they remain in you and never walk in darkness.