F is for Face

Pie Face that is!

You want a game that really makes you laugh!?  Like the deep in the gut kind of laugh! I didn't think I'd enjoy playing this game at all, but we got it for one of my boys for Christmas, so I had to play it at least once. Well, when I sat down to play it with them I didn't realize how much I'd laugh, and how enjoyable it really would be. I thought I'd just be annoyed at getting splatted with whipped cream. Didn't sound like much fun at first. Boy was I wrong! We all had a blast playing together, and I wouldn't mind playing it again.

You really get the best feel of this game by seeing it in action, so here are some videos we captured from the night we played it...

No matter how many times someone gets splatted it still seems to be funny again and again!

I am linking this up with...

A review of a Middle Ages history unit study

We love projects, and we love activity based learning, so I was very excited to receive a hands on history program from Home School in the Woods called HISTORY Through the Ages Project Passport World History Study: Middle Ages. There were four of these Project Passport studies for us to choose from, and we could only choose one for this review! They all looked so fun, how could I pick? Well, I chose the Middle Ages because we are studying that time era this school year, so I thought it'd be a great supplement. Little did I know that this would be more than a supplement! It is packed with so much information that it really could be used as a stand alone curriculum for the history of the Middle Ages (or whichever Project Passport study you choose).

This unit study was given to me as a digital file to download. As soon as I received the link to my download, I immediately got to work printing. There are many pages that need to be printed in the beginning especially as things are getting set up for the whole "traveling" experience. This download includes 25 "stops," and within each stop there are several tasks, projects, events, readings, and things to do and learn. Everything is laid out step by step within each stop, and easy to follow.

The very first stop we got to "pack for the trip" by making these fun suicase looking notebooks that even included a passport. We put the boys' pictures inside their passport, and filled them out with their names and everything. They sure had fun making these. I also put everything together in a 3-ring binder as suggested so I could keep it all together. It was also suggested to make a "scrapbook of sights" for each child, but I opted to just keep it all in my binder.

There are so many activities that it took us a lot longer to get through the stops than I thought it would. We made it through about 3 of the 25 stops. We were able to get some of the foundations of the study done like creating the scrapbook, timeline, and postcard stand. I looked ahead to see what projects lay ahead, and I saw things like games, art projects, puppets, lapbook elements, cooking, and more. I look forward to those projects as we continue through the study, but for now this is what we have done.

We printed up the newspaper, so that we can write newspaper articles along the way...

We have a timeline to add people and places we discover as we "travel"...

I did a lot of the prepping in the beginning to get us started because I knew my boys would just get bogged down if I tried to have them help me. So, I cut the "luggage" folders, and printed and taped the timeline together. I didn't include a picture, but I also made the postcard holder (there are postcards that they get to read and draw on during each stop). There are many opportunities for the students to write, and create things throughout the project.

I think we really enjoyed this Project Passport study of the Middle Ages. I think it would be fun to try out their newest one HISTORY Through the Ages Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Greece. Some of the other crew chose to review that study, and it looks like it is packed with a lot of great projects too. If you'd like to see what the others had to say about their passport studies click on the banner below.

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Our weekly notebook: Batman movie, scouts, and painting

Life this week...

Last weekend our garbage disposal started leaking, so we had to replace it. Aaron got a lesson in changing a garbage disposal, and was able to also mark off a webelos "fix it" requirement to fix a leaky sink (or something of that nature). We now have a working disposal, and no more leaks.

Homeschool this week...

This is one of those weeks where we don't have much in this category. At least nothing exciting to report on. It was mostly the usual subjects, and odds and ends.

A reading lesson with Eclectic Foudations. This is a review item we are trying out. I started out with Alex, but it was just too much for him, so I bumped it up to Aric. It's actually just about right for Aric's reading and grammar level.

Aric working on a lesson in Eclectic Foundations

I'm not sure why, but somehow we found ourselves building a fort on Monday morning instead of doing morning meeting. I think I was dragging my feet that morning, so I let them.

Art this week...

We signed up for another art lesson at Young at Art. These lessons are so fun, and this one was special because it was on Valentine's day. Aric and Alex did this, which really surprised me. I signed up for it, but didn't realize how "lovey dovey" the picture would be. Well, I was tempted to cancel, but felt like we should do it anyway. I'm glad I did because these boys loved it anyway. They enjoyed painting the little love birds!

 

The final results:

Cub scouts this week...

Both Aaron and Aric have been working hard to complete all the requirements for their webelos and wolf badges and are recieving their big awards this coming week. This week in our webelos den we went to visit the mayor of Woodburn. It was a pretty neat visit that I myself found fascinating. The boys seemed to enjoy it. If nothing else, they enjoyed sitting on those big chairs! We also did a mock city council meeting, and learned how people's voices are heard. She even let them each hammer the gavel once.

The Webelos with Kathy Figley, Mayor of Woodburn

Our webelos den also had an outdoor activity for a good portion of Saturday. They had all kinds of outdoor stuff to accomplish, so they did all kinds of stuff including putting up tents, cooking with a dutch oven, and knots. It was cold, a little rainy, and very muddy, great fun for all these boys.

It took a few tries, but these boys finally got the fire started

Our fun group of boys!

Something fun this week...

We went to see The Batman movie last Saturday. They had this fun stand in Target.

Can you find Alex and Aric?

Everyone was pretty excited to see this movie. I guess that's why I got the funny smiles.

Something cute this week...

The kitty seems to always steal the show.

That about wraps up our week! I am linking this up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers' weekly wrap-up.

E is for Evening of games

It has been a fun challenge to find a game for each letter so far, but honestly I don't have anything with E, so I had to get creative with this one. It has also been fun to get our games out more in preparing for these posts. We just haven't been playing games lately, so this has been a great opportunity.

The boys in their batman PJ's ready for game night.

We decided Monday night while April (and Dad was with her) was at orchestra to seize the game time even though I didn't have an "E" game yet. As we were playing, the word evening popped into my head, and I decided that was it. We often like to spend an evening playing games, whether at home, at friends, or even camping.

We started with an game called Free Parking. But, then we decided that we weren't really in the mood for that game. We changed to...

 Apples to Apples. A very popular one for game night around here.

Then we switched to a game of Life. Wow, that game can last a while! But, we finished the whole game, and Alex won!

 It was fun to see them make choices for life in the course of one evening.

 Usually we have some snacks too, so we had some ice cream. What does a game night look like at your house?

Linking this up to:

A book and a project: bottle rocket launcher

I love to find books that have fun projects within the pages to go with them, or even books that we just read that we find a fun activity to do with them on our own. I am hoping to do more of these and share them too!



This particular book is called Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab by Bob Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith. Aric found it at the library last week, and he thought it was really fun that there were science experiments all throughout the book that go along with the story. I'm not even sure if he's read the story yet though. I think he just picked one of the projects that looked interesting to him, and decided he wanted to do it.

All the supplies for his bottle rocket launcher.

He chose to make the bottle rocket launcher. I told him that if he found one that he wanted to make, I would help him find the supplies if they weren't too much. We went down to our local hardware store for these supplies, and a very nice man helped us find all the supplies we needed. I loved that he talked to Aric about it, and gave him some hints. This was all his project, and I think the man at the store thought it was pretty cool that he was making something that he took interest in.

I had to help him with the gluing part as the chemicals are pretty strong for the pvc, but he did all the cutting himself, and he figured out where to put all the pieces. All in all this was a very easy project, and took less than an hour to build. We had fun trying it out at the park when it finally got sunny a few days later. It worked awesome!

This should be a fun new "toy" for all the boys to play with!

P.S. The actual story does look interesting. I read the first few pages! There are a lot of great reviews that say it is a good story too. I think if he wants to do another project I'll have to require him to read the story, ha!

D is for Derby

Pinewood derby, that is!

I have been doing my abc posts about our favorite games, but I am going to do something else this week. I think it's fitting for this letter, and it's kind of a game, I guess. It's a contest to see who wins, so it fits. This was Aric's first pinewood derby, and Aaron's 3rd (also his last year), so it was kind of fun to see them race together. They both did really well in the races this year.

Aric won 6 out of 6 races. His car did amazing the whole time, and didn't really have any problems.

Aaron won 5 out of 6 races. He knew he wasn't going to probably do as well as last year (he won 1st place), but he was being a good sport.

 Luckily one of those 6 races they got to race each other. That was lucky because every boy didn't race every boy. They each went only 6 times, and this is the one race that Aaron lost.

 Well, imagine their surprise when Aric was announced 2nd place!

And, Aaron was announced 1st place!

They were both confused, as were we, but they walked up and collected their prizes and posed for pictures. Aaron's face when they announced him 1st place was awesome because he totally wasn't expecting it. I wish we had got it on camera.

Well, it turns out they got the brothers and their cars mixed up. So, really it should have been the other way around. I think Aric was a little disappointed because he knew he had won every race, but hey at least they have a fun story to always remember the year of pinewood derby mix up.

I am linking this up with:
 

C is for chess

We have many versions of chess, and there are many more that the boys are always eying at the store. One of the first sets we had was No Stress Chess. This helped us (even me) get started in the world of chess. It helped us learn the rules and some strategy, so that we can now play without the helping cards.

I personally don't enjoy chess so much. It involves too much thinking, but it's a game that I'm glad my kids have learned to play.  My boys have started making up their own versions, so therefore I have no normal pictures of them playing for this post.

It's fun to make up games sometiems!

And, that's c is for chess!