ThadenPierce School

I learned about Listen to the Wind and Dr. Greg Mortenson through my father. We just read the book this morning and discovered a wealth of resources available through Pennies for Peace. There is a an extensive curriculum guide including a PDF for K-4th graders. There are also videos and maps, postcards, sticker templates and so much more.

If you are interested in donating and using the curriculum with your homeschool or co-op you can register (it’s free) and then jump in! It appears you can donate any amount even without registering and using this as a learning unit with kids. If you register (we registered as a homeschool) then they send the kids a letter of appreciation at the end. We’re planning to make our donation on September 1st.

I’m going to go ahead and register and use their K-4 guides and if you are interested in sending your pennies, let us know! (I’ll let the kids gather pennies and then I’ll do a credit card donation online.)

I think this is an amazing opportunity for the kids to learn about children in another part of the world and really make a difference. Even if your child just wants to hunt for pennies under your couch cushions and donate those, let me know and we’ll add them to the donation.

Yesterday our kids were invited for dinner at the neighbors’ home and I realized we need to work on dinner guest manners. The mom reports the kids did great and Christopher told her he wasn’t sure if they could have the dessert (angel food cake) because it had eggs so she called to ask us if it was okay. (Such a thoughtful set of kids we’ve got!) But still, we’re going to practice table stuff some more as guests.

And phone skills – Mo’s cousin called to talk on the phone (their first try) and Moira didn’t know how to use the phone. She’s use to video chat on the computer and didn’t realize that her cousin cannot see her nodding in response to questions. Gotta work on phone skills.

Fun Challenge and 13 Lessons to Teach Kids about Photography – Kit wants to do some photo lessons with our kids.

- typing
- timeline w/new history book
- geography/maps w/new history book
- book reports
- art projects
- piano lessons
- science projects

Remember this? Kit found them at the library and the kids are hooked.

I’m really excited by how Moira especially is sounding out along with the show.

Christopher was reading in the sea monsters research guide from Magic Tree House and then we saw this on CNN. I showed him to him and he responds nonchalantly, “OH, I know about that…”

Today it was a fractured fairytale (is that an official term?) and making crowns. It was for K through 3rd grade but our kids were the only ones there so we all attended.

This came to mind tonight, no idea why – but in another 3 years we might be ready to tackle Carlsbad Caverns which is only a nine hour drive away. Hahaha! But we could camp there and the general entrance pass is $6 per adult, free for kids under 15 and is good for 3 days. There are two self guided tours available and the bat exodus thing so you could spread it out and camp for a couple nights and spend some time exploring the caves and hiking in the area. I’m thinking if we went in September we would avoid the summer crowds and it wouldn’t be so hot. Or maybe October would be better…

Then someday much further down the line I do want to explore Arches and Yellowstone and Zion and perhaps if we’re crazy ambitious we’ll head towards Nevada and California (as the kids have begged, especially C wants to see California – his birth place.)

But first we’ll start local with the Texas parks and then slowly work our way up over the next three years. I think Carlsbad is the closest “big” national park and I remember it as a kid. I also need to see what there is to see between here and there, because I would want to stop and camp at some point on the journey. Maybe a night on the way there, camp three nights there, then head back?

Do a little science lesson about Mars then have your kids send their name to Mars.

We’re studying Botticelli this week and I was looking at birth & death dates. Botticelli died in 1510, the year after Bennet Tritton was born. Bennet is our kids’ 14th great-grandmother, born in England and came over to the Americas and had five babies, I believe? I need to go look… and obviously our Bennett was named after that Bennet – someone I imagine was incredibly strong and brave and determined, committed to crossing an ocean and exploring a new world and that is a namesake we thought was fitting for our child. Plus Bennett means “Little Blessed One” and that seemed to fit our one pound strong and determined baby boy.

But she was born in 1509 and it’s quite strange to realize she was alive back in the Renaissance? She was alive while Da Vinci was. I’m thinking we need to get our timeline up on the wall so the kids can start putting the family history dates up along with their artists, musicians and history readings. It’s hard to explain 600 years to kids but seeing the timeline will help, I know. And how neat to see it along with our family timeline?

Update – STRIKE that, she was born in 1609 – not 1509. Still, cool!