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I’m not sure what made me think that just because we were taking the week off from formal learning it would be a week of leisure. It’s week like this that make me wonder how in the world we ever get anything done while we’re officially schooling.
Monday started off normal enough. The kids got some of their regular schoolwork done and we worked a bit on our knights project before I headed to the doctor. Tuesday was crazy with an early morning music recital practice, followed by a quick lunch, a trip to the recycling center and home to get everything ready for the performance. The kids did great!
Wednesday was spent working on shields and swords for the kids’ costumes. Late last week or early this week, Josh came up from the basement playroom wearing a really cool knight’s costume. I had totally forgotten about it! Brian’s parents picked it up at a clearance sale after Halloween, along with several other costumes.
It turns out that there were Middle Age style dresses for Brianna and Megan in matching colors! Can you believe that? So, I painted the shields (cut out of heavy cardboard) to match. Brianna drew the dragon that was on Josh’s costume and colored it silver, then, we copied it onto some sticker paper that I had and stuck them on the front of the shields. We were all very pleased with the results:
Thursday morning, I was blessed to go to a homeschool seminar with speaker Joyce Herzog. It was very encouraging, inspiring, and not just a little convicting. I’ll probably post more about it later. I picked up many practical and encouraging tidbits, about both learning style differences and hands-on, fun things to do in our homeschool that include all ages, skill levels and curriculum styles. It was well-worth the small fee and the time to go.
We came home from the seminar and, after a quick nap to try to clear the NyQuil/Zyrtec induced fog I’ve been living in, we worked on finishing up the swords for our knights and we-don’t-need-a-knight-to-protect-us ladies. I’ll post a how-to on those later, too, but I was pleasantly surprised that the end result was very close to the mental image that I had:
Today was the highlight of the week: our long-awaited Night at the Museum party, inspired by this post from Cindy West. It was great! I was so very impressed with so many of the displays. We’ve got some really creative kids in our group. First, here’s my crew, dressed and ready to go:
Our display, including our “swan cake” (For Middle Age feasts, a swan was often carefully plucked, roasted, then, redressed before being served. We just made a cake in a Bundt pan, put white icing and coconut on it and inserted the swan head that Brianna drew on cardstock.):
New York (Don’t you just love the lights on the Brooklyn Bridge? They actually worked!):
The African Plains animals:
We had two Civil War displays and both of them were excellent:
The Old West, along with a partially constructed log cabin:
We also had two Teddy Roosevelt displays:
And, finally, Ancient Egypt and Ocean Life (I love the blue whales! Aren’t they cute?)
Tonight we’ll be wrapping up the week with a baseball tournament, rather than a date night. *sigh* Oh, well. The ball games are always fun to watch and I guess we’ll get another date night eventually.
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Wow – your children looked incredible for the Night at the Museum party! You guys did an awesome job on the shields!
Samantha
What a fun week. I think?! lol! It sounded like you did a lot of fun things. I loved those costumes. They’re really impressive! Sorry I haven’t been able to play along the last couple of weeks. By the time Friday comes around, I’m done and can’t do our week justice in writing about it. I’ll come back to read, though. =)
Looks great! I love the costumes! It has always amazed/amused me that they would dress up the food to look like the animal in nature. I bet the tables looked spectacular.
I will say it again.. I LOVED your family’s display! 🙂 It was good to talk to you again too.
Love the costumes, swords and shields. I have a feeling that ours won’t turn out half that well, but I’m forwarding your blog to the rest of my HS group anyway.
Can I ask how you rigged the back of your shields?
Jenny
My kids just told me about Night at the Museum 2! I’m sooooo excited. This really looked like a fun time. Great projects. And, your kids all dressed up in their costumes were awesome. Good job Mom!
You absolutely can ask, Jenny. I almost included a picture of the back of them. We (meaning, my husband, since I turned the project over to him once I’d finished the fun part) cut a thin strip of cardboard and creased the ends so that it was shaped something like a curved handle on a cabinet. We used packing tape to stick the two ends to the back of the shields, with the middle sticking up to make a handle.
I’m not sure how much sense that makes. I’ll try to post some pictures later this week.
Thanks, ladies. We had fun. It must have actually been a big hit because no one complained about dressing up. They actually looked forward to it.
Julie, I’ve been leaving the Wrap-Up open until Tuesday, so you can always add yours at the first of the week if you’d like to.
What a fun idea and great costumes. Busy week but sounds like some good memories made. 🙂
WOW! What creative fun that NATM gathering looks like! What a great group to be a part of.
What a crazy week, I can’t wait for a schedule to slow down either. But they’ll have some great memories to look back on one day!
Love it, love it, love it! THIS is what I envisioned OUR Night at the Museum party to be like. Lucky you!! And super great job!!!
That sounds like a blast, what a fun and neat idea! You kids look great all dressed up 🙂
Thanks for leaving the posts open till Tuesday for procrastinators like myself.
What an awesome week! It looks like it was so much fun!
Your kids do look Narnian. We just watched the movie for the first time last night. LOL!
I’ll have to bookmark your post. We’re going to be making swords and shields for the Armor of God unit we’ll be doing soon.
The whales would have been great for the J is for Jonah week.
Love the party outfits. Im certainly envying the meeting you went to. I need to hear something motivating on homeschool about now! LOL
Yes, Mrs. Darling, I think this time of year we can use all the encouragement we can get. 😉
I’m not sure WHAT to comment on! That amazing cake!?!? The knight costume? All the hard work?! This is a stunning and amazing event and it looks like tons of fun was had by all! That’s awesome.