Ryan's Reading List

I want to keep track of the books Ryan is reading and I thought a blog post that I can update would be a nice easy way to keep a running list.

Trapped at the Bottom of the Sea
Ben-Hur
These are My People
Coyotes
Deer
Mountain Lions
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Save the Florida Key Deer
Homer Price
Bengal Tigers
Amazing Tigers
True Book-Tigers
Tigers


Voyage of the Dawn Treader (read aloud)
The Silver Chair (read aloud)

New Look

I've given my blog a new look.  The old one was too summery and I wanted a fall look.  Tell me what you think.

Editing to add that I messed up my whole sidebar.  I hope I can get it back the way I had it.  UGH

Editing again to say I fixed it.  I'm not sure it's exactly the same but it's close.

Happy Birthday DNG!

Download N Go is celebrating its first birthday this week.  They are celebrating with a different special every day this week starting on Monday, October 4.  Each special will only last one day so be sure to check the Birthday Bash Specials page each day.  In addition, they will be giving away 20 lbs of fudge! Click here for details.

Lewis and Clark Preview

I just received a preview copy of Download N Go’s Lewis and Clark unit study.  I am really looking forward to doing this unit.  We have not studied Lewis and Clark in a long time and it will be really fun to do it the Download N Go way!

In each Download N Go unit there are 5 days of lessons.  In Lewis and Clark you’ll find:

Nature Study- Mushrooms

(**This is an edited post. It was originally Autumn Treasures part 3 but I wanted to make it mainly about the mushroom study so I renamed it and moved the pictures to Autumn Treasures part 2 and I'm adding more of our mushroom study here.)

Emma in front of our Maple tree.
You can see the leaves are starting to change. 

Emma and I went out alone today on a mushroom hunt in the woods.  I have been reading the Handbook of Nature Study blog. I've had the Handbook of Nature Study for many years but unfortunately it has mostly spent its entire life on the shelf. I hope to remedy that! Anyway, I knew we had a lot of mushrooms in the woods from previous nature walks so we went out and looked at all the different ones we could find, took pictures then later went back and collected a few samples to try to make spore prints.    (This is the original mushroom post that inspired me.)

mushrooms growing in our front yard

more mushrooms in the front yard

a frog (it's on the tire)

Double Birthday

Yesterday, two of my daughters celebrated birthdays.  Jenna Rae turned 5 years old and Sadie Grace had her first birthday.  We celebrated with gifts, a dinner at Applebees last night and some cupcakes at home.  Today extended family members came for cake and ice cream.

Jenna and the cupcakes (Ellie is on the left, Emma on the right)

Katie holding Sadie while we sang

Autumn Treasures Part 2

It has only been a few days since I wrote part 1 of Autumn Treasures but we have done so much in that time!  One of the activites we did on Friday that I didn't write about was a watercolor lesson. I purchased some Prang waterpaints at Staples and a couple of Rose Art trays as well.  I didn't want to spend over $5 each on Prang but you can tell the difference between the two when using them so I should make an effort to make sure they each get their own set of Prang watercolors. (though at this stage I'm not sure the younger ones really care.)  They all LOVED painting and keep asking to do it again.

Emma, Jenna, Ellie and Connor learning about watercolors

On Saturday, we visited a local pumpkin farm for their annual fall festival.  There was so much to do as you'll see in the pictures.  Before we left for the farm, I filled the crockpot with apples, sugar and spices and later in the day we had some nice homemade applesauce.  I used this recipe.

preparing the apples for the applesauce

applesauce before cooking...I sliced the apples with a mandoline

Connor, Emma and Ellie sharing a warm blanket on a chilly morning

Just before entering the corn maze