Who is Ray and why do we have his baseball??
After hearing the chant "Rays Baseball, Rays Baseball!!" for a few hours, that question rang in my brain.
Matthew just celebrated his 11th birthday and in continuing our tradition of incorporating baseball into our lives, we scheduled a trip to St. Petersburg to take in a Tampa Bay Rays game. From our house to the stadium it was a two hour drive. First pitch was scheduled for 12:10 which was great, since we could leave just after breakfast and be home for dinner.
I loaded up the boys and left the girls at home. The drive over was rather quiet; I don't think the boys were 100% awake, even at 9am.
We stopped at a Panera Bread near the stadium for a quick lunch break. The workers kept asking us if we were going to the Rays game. I can't figure out why, maybe it was all of us wearing Rays jerseys?? Well, all except Titus. After lunch, we arrived at the stadium and the first order of business was to buy Titus a jersey. He wanted one with a number on the back and we found one he liked.
First pitch was nearing and we headed out to find our seats. I feared we would have to walk around to the other side of the stadium to get to the outfield, but thankfully, the entrance we came in was just by our seats. We located our section and sat down just before first pitch. The first 5 innings were very quiet, baseball wise. It was "Parks & Recreation Day" at the ballpark and the stadium was filled to the brim with kids. It made for a very loud experience with boisterous kids and constant activity in the aisles as kids needed food and bathroom breaks. Also, the freebie of the day were noisemakers - inflatable cheer sticks. The kids loved them. Each package came with two and had to be blown up. They are basically long cylindrical balloons which make a loud noise when banged together.
The Twins tied up the game in the top of the 6th and we needed some drinks and snacks. I went down to grab something and Titus and Jared tagged along. Our timing was very poor as the Rays hit back-to-back home runs, one of which was hit very near to our seats! In the replay, I can just see Lance as he watches the ball come in and he points towards it. Very cute.....
The game really came alive after that and the last few innings were much more exciting. Thankfully, the Rays held on and won 4-3.
The drive home was much more lively, with the boys using the cheer sticks as swords and having many, many battles in the car on the way home.
We were able to attend another theater production at the Orlando Shakespeare theater yesterday. This time we saw a comical rendition of "Sleeping Beauty". We went with the Mae, Matthew, Sophia, Lance, Jared, and Titus. We took up nearly two rows in this cozy venue.
As we entered, we realized the boys were highly out numbered and we smiled at all the young ladies dressed up as princesses. Apparently they all understood there would be audience participation; a detail we had missed.
First, they asked for six girls to volunteer to play the "Wise Women" and then they asked for one boy. To our delight, they picked my beautiful Thespian Jared! He was to play the young Prince Lester. He was rather thrilled too.
He did a wonderful job with his facial expressions; the couple in front of us even took the time to complement his performance. He even did a little ad-lib when they threw way his "horse" and he said "You can't treat Poppy that way!" and the other actor had to ask "Whose Poppy?" and Jared said "My horse."
Mae and I kept looking at each other and smiling throughout the play, it was a truly delightful rendering of the old classic. All the kids enjoyed it as well.
Unfortunately, they did not allow any photography during the show but we did get to take pictures with the actors after the performance. Above is Jared is with Princess Rose and below with the older Prince Lester.
I have had this beautiful three volume set of Character Sketches sitting on my shelves for over six years. Chris and I bought it at the last FPEA Convention we went to years ago. The books link a character quality you want to encourage in
your child with both an animal and a story in the bible. Being the
animal lovers that we are it seemed perfect. The drawings inside are gorgeous (Audubon quality sketches) and the concept so inviting we couldn't resist. The issue was that the boys were not old enough to appreciate them until now.
As part of of our new school year that started this week, we have added this into our study. After reading the suggestion of how to use the book, Chis and I decided to divide and conquer the task and this is how it worked.
The first animal was the Great Horned Owl. On Friday, the boys and I read the scientific pages about the Great Horned Owl and then spent some time learning to draw a great horned owl. Here's the neat drawing video we used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjnp84HNT7A
Then we decided that breakfast on Saturday was the best time to get everyone together to do the study. It didn't quite happen like that, but Chris did get together in the morning with the boys while I took Amber outside so that she wouldn't distract them.
First, Chris asked a general question about what they would do if....(choice the bible character had to make). Then he read the bible story, they discussed some more and then read how the Great Horned Owl showed loyalty in his timing (the character quality).
Then we told the boys to get dressed and we took a trip to the "Audubon Birds of Prey Center" to see a Great Horned Owl in person.
Much to our delight, a volunteer was willing to not only talk to us about these beautiful creatures but actually took one out for the boys to see up close. He even pointed out their asymmetrical ears and gave a demonstration of how their wings allow them to fly silently compared to the other raptors on hand. I was so thrilled I forgot to take any pictures till the boys were examining the feathers. The picture above is a picture Chris took of the same bird (we think) years ago when he was doing some photography for the center.
We had a delightful time after this exploring the rest of the facility. It was so exciting to have the opportunity to explore a subject from so many scholarly and hands-on angles. We may not be able to do a field trip each week but my goal is to make it fun in some hand-on way.
Next week the animal is the Canadian Goose. Thankfully we saw them in person on vacation since they aren't in any zoos around here. Though ironically we did get a photo opportunity at the Birds of Prey Center....
I'm a tough schoolmarm. I only give the boys three weeks off in the summer but the reality is that I know how life goes and I know my children. If my boys turn off their brains too long they don't restart easily (like a car trying to start in really cold weather). Also, I know life will happen (illness and other distractions) so that if we school year round we generally avoid the stress of feeling behind when life does happen and we take a short break.
However, we are not starting full time schooling till our friends go back to school in August. I'm hoping to ease them into a very different schedule for the coming school year. We are using a lot of different curricula and strangely (if you know me well make sure you're seated) much of it is from the same source. I'm a self admitted curricula/book addict but am overcoming my addiction for the sake of my children. LOL
Here's the full time schedule. Right now we are at about 60% and will ramp up over the next six weeks. Adding something new each week till we are functioning at full capacity (I hope).
LANCE (5th Grade):
Latin - Latina Christina I
Math - CLE Grade 6 and XtraMath
Spelling - All About Spelling
Grammar - English Recitation Grammar Workbook I
Writing - Classical Composition: Fable Stage
Literature - CLE Grade 6 and Memoria Press Literature Guides (Lassie and Door in the Wall)
Geography - Geography I: Middle East, North Africa and Europe
Science - God's Design for Weather and Planet and Wonders of Creation (Weather, Ocean and Geology), and Planet Earth by Tiner w/ Notebooking supplements
Classical Studies - D'Aulaires' Greek Myths and Famous Men of Rome
History - Greeks and Romans via Tina's Curricula
JARED (3rd Grade):
Latin - Latina Christina I
Math - CLE Grade 4 and XtraMath
Spelling - All About Spelling
Grammar - English Recitation Grammar Workbook I
Writing - Introduction to Composition
Literature - Memoria Press Literature Guides (Grade 3)
Geography - Geography I: Middle East, North Africa and Europe
Science - God's Design for Weather and Planet and Wonders of Creation (Weather, Ocean and Geology), and Planet Earth by Tiner w/ Notebooking supplements
Classical Studies - D'Aulaires' Greek Myths and Famous Men of Rome
History - Greeks and Romans via Tina's Curricula
TITUS (Pre-K):
I have ordered and have on my shelves a variety of resources to try with him this year. I'll post later when we find the combination that works best. He is showing both ability and interest in reading so that is the goal this year.
You'll notice a number of similarities in curricula between Lance and Jared. Much of this is driven because of my change to using Memoria Press. Jared is right on target for 3rd Grade but if I rush Lance ahead in all subjects he would be missing important foundational elements. Doing subjects together is not new to us, frankly I feel its part of survival when you have multiple kids. To that end, we have always done Science and History together as a family. I have just expected more out of Lance than I did Jared; by using the note-booking method this is easily achieved.
We start out our new year this week and I'm sure I'll tweak things along the way but I think we are closer than ever to being on the best path for our family.
