Pizza and Chicks

Another field trip to enhance our Italy Day was to Buca Di Beppo for a tour of the kitchen, followed by lunch, and a visit to Bonnie's house to see her baby chicks.

It is such a pleasure to know you are meeting up with friends for an adventure. All of us, the kids and the adults enjoy it so much. Homeschooling friends make it all worth while. Thank you my dear friends.

Next up....moms night out!

First, the pizza; the gang in front of Bucca di Beppo

and then the chicks.

Talk to Bonnie about the name of this field trip...I take no responsibility. ;0)

April Heat Wave!

It was hot, hot, hot last Monday at Lupines. So, what better way to start the day than to make fresh lemonade. Alison brought boxes of lemons for us to share. Thanks Alison! As everyone arrived those lemons were cut and juiced. Many hands went into the making our yummy lemonade. But...we cant drink it yet...it must go into the fridge to get nice and coooold. We got to enjoy it at the end of the day with snack. 

The seniors making lemonade and laughing ALOT. What did they put IN that lemonade?

Surprise heat waves call for the slip and slide to be brought out of hiding from the attic. 

While the seniors made lemonade, the juniors had a blast getting good and wet before circle and game time. Towels please!

Esther has been leading junior circle and game time in the mornings this month. She is a natural! Here, they are playing clapping games to the count of threes; a great way to learn your multiplication tables, and fun too. You should hear these kids giggle. Great work Esther!

After lunch, the juniors worked on another felting project. Hot days are good for wet felting, as we got to sit under a shady tree and dip our hands in soapy, splashy water. This project is from the book "More Magic Wool" by Angelika Wolk-Gerche. So many terrific projects in there!  This is a seasonal tree which can be decorated with colored tufts of wool each season. Today, they made the bare tree with branches. Next week they will decorate it for spring. When summer comes along they can remove the felt in which they used to make their spring tree and make it a summer tree, and so on.....a family heirloom! 

The first part of the seasonal trees

The seniors project was to make a castle out of clay. They each first drew a castle on paper to get their creative juices flowing. Then they broke up into two groups and worked together to begin. I hope to have photos to share next week of their (hopefully finished) medieval castles.

The seniors also continued to work on their pine derby cars, the homeschool pinewood derby race is coming up May 7th.  And John was here as well to work with the kids more on archery (still no arrows), rod fencing, and this week, they added rope climbing. 

Italy Day!

Geography Club - Italy Day

This week was our celebration of Italy. The kids all made pasta and gnocchi from scratch. It was a very full morning as the kids gathered in groups to make their pastas. Stephanie supplied us with some fabulous italian music to cook by and there was flour ALL over the floor. Thank goodness for brooms, is all I can say. 

We love our potlucks, and lunch always takes ALOT longer on celebration days. 

Bon Appetit!

This batch of grated potatoes was to be our gnocchi. Thanks to my friend Rupal for bringing over the food mill at the last minute! A cheese grater just would not have cut it.

The uncooked pasta

The chefs at work, cooking their pasta creations

Bows and Arrows

After a very big meal, the afternoon activities take place. Here are the senior kids working out and getting ready for their Medieval Games Event in May. I was happy to see that they did not have the actual arrows yet, since they were in the middle of my playroom. Yikes! 

Can you see the Robin Hood expression on Jeremy above?

Medieval History

At the Legion of Honor

For the past several months the senior kids have been working on Medieval History projects. Karen led a two month art history session in which they did mosaics, frescos, made gargoyles and grotesques from clay (did you know that gargoyles spout water, and "grotesques" dont? So, when you see a building with a gargoyle on the front, is it really a gargoyle or a grotesque?) illuminations, rose windows, asian brush painting and much  more. We ended the study by going to The Legion of Honor in San Francisco to view the medieval art live and in person. Last week the kids made maps by hand of Medieval Europe. I liked that this project was drawing, art, geography and history all in one. I think they did a pretty good job! Don't you?

Spring!

The junior kids felted eggs today, in the warm sunny garden. How pleasant it was! I did this with the kids years ago, when Kasey was...oh...about 6, and she couldn't quite manage the process yet. This time around the kids made fabulous eggs. All the years of felting with the kids have really paid off. Such crafters they are.

Under Construction

Hang in there....we have work to do here ;)