locations 3 & 4

Once we crossed Michigan Avenue... we headed for this Chicago landmark...

Cloud Gate aka "the bean"

We never get tired of going to the bean... to see the city reflected in it is just amazing...

(can you spot us in the photo above?)

After that we started across the bridge to the brand new...

Modern Wing at the Art Institute

I took just one additional photo here...
... the troops were rebelling as it was getting dangerously close to lunch time.

However, our last location made them forget all about lunch (at least for a little while).

Location #2

Here is the photo from the original post...


Did you guess that he was at the Chicago Cultural Center?

Well... that was where we were. We trekked across the loop to get there. Can you believe that I have never, in all of my years of living here, been inside the Cultural Center? We walk past it all of the time, but have never been inside.

I really wish we would have had more time.... especially now when I realize that we didn't actually see the Tiffany glass dome we went there to see... sigh.
What we actually saw was the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) Dome.

Oh well... we'll just have to go back!

Here are the kids in the GAR Memorial Hall...
The next stop was just a quick trip across Michigan Avenue!

Location #1

So, remember a month ago when I wrote the post "Where in Chicago is Alex?"... yeah... I had forgotten about it too. But perhaps that was partially due to the fact that I had a little contest for people to guess the locations and nobody played along... sigh. :-)

Since I've been slacking with taking new photos, I have decided to share some more of the photos we took that day and reveal their locations.

Location #1....

The James R. Thompson Center

Many years ago I used to work near this building. There's a food court on the lower level and I used to go there for lunch with coworkers. I can honestly say that I never really looked at the building before the day the kids and I went for Alex's poetry class.

We sat in the main area and just took it all in...
curves and angles...
... all of the glass and reflective surfaces.

One of Alex's favorite things was the elevators.... he loved that you could see all (most?) of the mechanics of them and was fascinated by watching it all work.

Alex wrote down several adjectives to describe the building and then we were off to find location #2.

here's something...

... that the kids have really been enjoying lately....

riddles!

A couple of years ago at Christmas, my sister-in-law ordered Clara a bunch of coloring books from Mindware. This book (Handful of Riddles, Geoscapes) came with her order. She gave it to Clara and I tucked it away with our school stuff. I wasn't sure what to do with it.

Now I've figured it out! :-)

Since we have defined downstairs as our school area now, I dragged out our old white board and put it in the hall. About once a week I put up a new riddle... the frequency depends on how busy we are and how long it takes the kids to figure out the riddle. I used to draw the little picture they show in the book with each riddle but it made some of them too easy. After that, I started drawing a big question mark. And most recently, I've just been leaving the bottom half of the board blank and the kids have been filling in that area with an illustration of the answer once they've figured out the riddle. This last option has been their favorite.

I wanted to order some more riddle books because they've been enjoying this activity so much. However, when I went on the Mindware site, I couldn't find any more Handful of Riddles books nor even the one that I already have. If anyone has any suggestions for good riddle books, I would love to hear them!

masks and spiders and wool... oh my!

On Tuesday the kids continued their mask project by covering their plaster casts with paper mache.


That was supposed to be their whole project for that day... however, they can be speedy little things when they want to be and they had come up with another project they wanted to try... basket spiders.

Their wonderful teacher went looking through her supplies and found black reeds and weavers.

Then the project began...



And then she got out some wool that they could use to decorate their spiders... and a bit of silliness broke out...


Here's Clara's undecorated spider...
And Alex decorating his...
Clara named hers "sweater legs" and it is really cute... she's almost done with it so I'll have to take a photo of the finished product.

After the spiders were finished... it was time to get silly with the duct tape...

I'm not sure any of this was really a good idea...
... but they did it to themselves... and they survived! :-)

it happened...

I had been interested in the literature rich approach of Sonlight for years... I loved reading the stories about kids who just couldn't put down their readers because they loved the stories that much. But at the same time, I worried that it just wouldn't work that way for us. Alex is a voracious reader at times but he also likes to read what he wants to read and has stacks of started then abandoned books in his room.

Well... it has happened... the begging of "mom, can I please read more than is assigned"... "mom, is it okay if I just finish the book".... "please, it's really getting good". I LOVE it!!! I know it won't be this way with every Sonlight book (and it hasn't been... although he has finished every book so far without complaint) but it just warms my heart so when it does. He loves history and has a better relationship with it since it's coming through literature versus a text book.

I'm so glad that it has happened for us!

the rabbit trail continues...

Alex has now added this....
... to his school work.

The rabbit trail started by him reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series continues. The characters in the books can read ancient Greek naturally because they are demi-gods. Alex thought it would be cool to be able to read Greek writing too. So, I wandered around the internet and placed an order for the Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek! series. I ended up ordering Level 2 since Level 1 was basically the Greek alphabet and the Level 2 book includes lots of review of that before moving on to new material.

As for the reason why I chose this particular program... well, there's really no big reason why. If I was to pinpoint the main reason, I would have to say... cost. This decision to study Greek was totally driven by Alex. I am not pushing it, so when he says he's done studying Greek, he's done. I didn't want to sink a huge amount of money into something he may not stick with for very long. The other reason I decided on this program had to do with the positive reviews I read online.

He's not very far into the program yet, but he's really enjoying it so far. We'll see how long it lasts!

the mask...

Okay... since it isn't a post about our Tuesday art class without a photo of Alex in a silly hat....

here you go....
Today we started our "life mask" project.

The kids started out by pairing up... the boys worked together and the girls worked together. After that, the first person to have their mask made coated their face with vaseline. Then it was time to add the wet plaster gauze strips....


They kept working until their faces were nearly completely covered....
Then once it was dry.... it was time to remove the mask!

Here's Alex checking out plaster Alex....
While they were working the instructor showed them photos of Lincoln and Washington's life masks. They were all pretty excited about them.

Their instructor is going to fill the masks with plaster this week so they'll be dry by our next class. Next week they'll paint them! I can't wait to see the finished product!

a contest... just for Tracy :-)

Send me an email (link is on the right) with the names of the locations in the post below. All entries received by noon central time on Friday October 23rd will be entered into a drawing for a $10 amazon.com gift certificate.

Where in Chicago is Alex?

Alex is taking a homeschool poetry writing class with the theme of "building poems". They had a homework assignment recently... to solve several clues to identify several Chicago landmarks and then go and visit them. We're running a bit behind on this assignment but managed to get out this morning to visit the landmarks....

#1

(no clue why he posed like that)

#2
#3
#4
#5
There was one more on our list, but Alex visited that one with his grandfather over the weekend. They visited the Hancock Building but those photos are on my point and shoot and I'm too lazy at the moment to download them.

Anyway... we had a great time and it was a BEAUTIFUL day out... I just wished we had had more time to explore... oh well... we'll just have to go back!

I'll have the answers later!

a tisket... a tasket....

... an almost finished basket....
(yes... that's my basket there in the front, next to my ever-present phone)

Four the past four Tuesdays we've been taking a homeschool weaving class with some friends. The first week we worked with back strap looms. I would post photos of our projects but in order to do that Alex, Clara and I would have to actually finish our projects. At this point I'm afraid that they may be so hopelessly tangled that we may just have to happy with the weaving we completed in class.

Back to the baskets.... the first week of working on our baskets we wove the bottom. Last week we did the sides... this week we finished the top and painted or stained our baskets.

Here's Alex working on the top of his basket...
Look... his finished "hatsket"...
Fashionable, no?
Here's Clara working on hers...
Then it was time to paint...
and paint...
and then paint some more....
I stained mine. Alex painted the rim and stained the rest.

Clara painted the whole thing...
I really need to take photos of our finished baskets! I'm so proud of them! The kids did really well with the weaving and their painting. It was so much fun and I'm very grateful to my friend who arranged the class for us!