"Cavemen" Paintings - Otto Style

Today for ancient history we took a virtual tour of Tour of the Lascaux caves in France, which inspired a cool art project.  

Using the Actual drawings from the cave as a inspiration:

We took paper bags from the grocery store inside of them out to uses as our canvas.
Pencils were used to lightly sketch out the outlines of what we wanted to draw.  We also traced our hands, as each paper was to be signed with a hand print (in the spirit of the Lascaux cave paintings). 
Chalk pastels were used to get that "spray paint" look of the cave hands by scribbling outside our outlines and blurring them with our fingers
Oil pastels were used to color in the rest.  If you want to be as authentic as possible, use neutral colors and highlight in black.  About half of us did, and half of us didn't*.
Finally, to get that cave wall appearance....simple crumple, munge and wrinkle the paper over and over again.  This also smears some of the colors giving it a more realistic cave painting look.

This was a really entertaining project for everyone and simple to do.




* Lance chose to do an "air strike in caveman times"

Jared did "patriotic" dinosaur

Titus went authentic with a buffalo hunting scene

Amber did an elephant near a palm tree and pond

Holly and I chose to emulate the horse room (though I added a bull for fun)

Ending Early

Salt Shakers will not perform this year, which is sad on many levels.  The kids were just days away from performing and had put so much work in before everything shut down and this is the last season of the troupe, they will never have a chance to perform together again.  I am currently looking for a new troupe or maybe I'll have to create one, we'll just have see.

Here are some highlight photos of the TCC Co-op we were in that ended this month.  I was teaching High School Chemistry class, in which Lance was a student.  Thankfully we had covered all the required materials before the shut down and only had to do one virtual class before cutting the class short and giving the final exam.

Titus was taking an American History class, where he did lots of neat crafts, projects and a great presentation one day.  When co-op was in session Titus became quite the pool shark during lunch.

Amber had a Science course where they did lots of experiments and met many interesting animals.

Lately, Amber and Titus have been continuing their study of the Natural world around them, in our backyard.  Most recently, they found this beautiful dragonfly and some neat pond creatures in the creek.

Gardening is getting very popular right now.  My neighbors have been offering free plants, daylillies, liropia, rose of sharon and even some extra hot pepper seedlings.  The yard is really shaping up.

A professor from Texas and former teacher at the Air Force Academy offered a free virtual College Physics Class that Lance started the first of the month.  The class meets twice a week for instruction and assignment.  He teaches in a very Charlotte Mason style and Lance is thoroughly enjoying the class.  The book you could read online for free but I got Lance a hard copy, its called....wait for it...."College Physics".  A very creative name don't you think?  It's so big I think it could be classified as a lethal weapon.  I'm glad I hadn't decided on a Physics curricula for the fall yet, now I can just check the box.  As a bonus, Chris has really enjoyed talking to Lance and discussing his physics assignments, its very cute to watch them nerding out.

Even a "college student" needs a break, and as there are few places one can go.....Lance took Titus and Amber fishing today.  One lady walking the trail asked him "Are they both yours?" Oyeevey!

Continuing Tae Kwon Do virtually has been really, really hard on the kids.  What they like most about TKD is the relationships they have with the Masters.  Thankfully, Master Kim made their day today by at least dropping off their new belts in person and allowing the kids to give him a hug.  That was a huge spirit lifter.

Goldfish asked their employees to take pictures of what they are doing during the quarantine.  Lance and Mac got together to do their photos:

Signs say "Will Work for Goldfish" and "Need job"

Another thing we have been working on is finding more family board games, Carcassonne is our latest favorite find.

Change of Focus

Hunter likes my new bird feeder too.

This unplanned break has given us some time to get caught up on yard work the past month.

Time for Lance's shin splints to heal.

Try some new recipes.

Build a home gym in the garage. 

 

Challenge ourselves and our neighbors with math problems.

Watch the bees.

Give Polo a good scrub.

Though he never stays clean long.

Time to be more creative.  As Chris put it, "Ya never know what the kids are doing upstairs until they come down and try to rob us."

And that wraps up March.

Happy Birthday Lance!

We had our traditional morning breakfast celebration today.  Jared added some neat little extra's to the table and Lance sported this new "amazing" hair-do.

In the afternoon, he and some friends (Mac and Connor) sneaked out to a disc golf course.  There was more horsing around than playing I'm sure, but fun was had either way.

Upon his return we celebrated some more with his favorite, yummy lasagna and rootbeer.  This year there was a twist, not knowing you couldn't buy beef literally anywhere, I took a chance and went to the "Butcher's Market" to look for meat.  There we got venison and bison instead; it turned out to be a delicious discovery.

The next day we were rebels and met with the S Family at a new park with lots of different climbing apparatuses to enjoy.  Boys of course eventually took a ball down to the field, all boys need is an open area and a ball to have a good time.

Spring Is Here

March 3, we went with our friends the W family to the Raulston Arboretum Homeschool Days.  They had different labs set up for the kids to learn about plants and then after we explored the arboretum together.

When we got home we made homemade ice cream, you know since it was clearly so hot.

March 5, we went to Prairie Ridge Ecostation site.  Our guide showed us their butterfly garden, the bird observatory, the experimental tree forest and a breeding area for salamanders.  We hope to go back and see the salamanders after they emerge from their jelly balls.

March 8, Titus did an incredible job at baseball tryouts tonight.  He's turning into a formidable pitcher, in addition to his defensive skills.

March 12, Titus attended a very education "Robotics Lab" at the Museum of Natural Science downtown.  While he was in class, Amber and I explored the museum, especially the butterfly conservatory.

After the lab we went straight to Lance's second baseball game of the season.  They won the game handily and Lance did some awesome dives into home to score multiple runs.  We didn't know it at the time but this would be their last game of the season.  So the Storm had an undefeated 2020 Spring Season.

The world was getting nutty during Lance's game but Jared was till able to sneak in the NFAA State and Sectional Indoor Archery Tournament over the weekend.

Then by Monday, the world had come to a complete halt and all field trips and activities stopped.

USA Indoor National Tournament

This has become a special weekend each year for Jared and Chris as they travel up to to Virginia to compete.  They bring Memoir '44 to play in the hotel and have a great time at the tournament and hanging with the team after.  Here's Chris' write-up for the year:

This past weekend, Jared and I (Chris) went up to Harrisonburg, VA for the 51st US Indoor and JOAD National Archery tournament. We did this last year and had a great time. Each day, Jared shot two rounds, each round consisting of 10 "ends" with each end being 3 arrows. On Friday, his two rounds total 518 and one round was a personal best of 264. Saturday he shot a daily best of 521 and on Sunday posted a 519 to finish out a very consistent weekend. This year was his first shooting in the next level up, so he was competing with kids in the 15-18 age group. He has certainly set the tone for his archery future with consistent performances and incrementally improving his scores. I would expect Jared on the podium in the near future.... :-)

 

AHG Award Dance

Tonight was the American Heritage Girls Award Ceremony with desert and dance afterward.  This is Amber's first year in AHG and she's really enjoying the activities. Amber earned the following badges:

• Home Care and Repair
• Archery
• Horsemanship
• Daughter of the King
• Aviation
• Sign Language
• Insect-a Inspect-a 
• Social Skills and Etiquette
• Our Feathered Friends 

Being home-schooled helps (as many of the girls are) in getting lots of badges, since I can easily cater her curricula to meet the requirements. It also gives a focus to our extra-curricular activities, which is a win-win.

After the award ceremony, it was really special to see Lance and Amber dancing together, so sorry I forgot to take a picture, I was just enjoying the moment.  As a bonus, I too danced the waltz with my oldest son that night and Amber too danced with her handsome father.

Strange Weather

There is nothing stranger than North Carolina weather.  Last week we were in shorts laying the sod, then this week the kids were sledding in the snow Thursday and by Sunday, the snow was all gone and we were helping Miss Kathy move and doing a Scavenger hunt at the Arboretum in beautiful sunny weather.  I guess that just about sums up the week.  The only thing to add is that the Amazing Otto Family won the scavenger hunt, having an amazing time and earning us free tickets to the big plant sale later this year.

Country LIfe

Birdzilla laid another mega egg this week, her eggs don't even fit in our egg containers and our other eggs aren't small.

On Tuesday, we went to a really neat show called "Hillbilly Science Spectacular".  This had to be one of the most entertaining science shows we've ever seen.  What made it even more special was that Titus was picked to be his assistant.  You can watch the video at this link: Show

Each year in writing class during Valentines week, Miss Penny takes these silly pictures of the boys:

She also texted me the following after Chris picked up the boys at class today, "Funny story - When your younger kids were calling out to Lance and Jared after class from the car, Lance looked at me and said, "We're just fostering them.  We're not going to keep them." LOL

Saturday was the big day of reclaiming our backyard.  The yard had been a mud pit with not even many weeds growing through the wet fall and winter.  Now with the help of our friends in the S Family we have a beautifully sodded backyard.  It's such a joy to look out the window and see the lush green grass and ironically with many hands, it really took very little time to put down.

Happy Birthday Titus!

 

To celebrate Titus birthday we had the S Family over for a birthday bash, the Saturday before.  All the kids had a great time playing together.  Then today, his actual birthday, we celebrated at Goldfish with a different group of friends.  As luck would have it, he and his friends were the only ones in the pool during free swim and Lance was able to join-in and add to the fun.

Then this evening we had a third celebration at the home with our family.  Titus is such a great kid even three celebrations doesn't seem like enough.  LOVE YOU TITUS!