Medieval horse-inspired giveaway!

Okay, I smell a giveaway!!!

It's been too long since I've done a giveaway and the mood is upon me.

**Name the title of a favorite horse book and leave the title in the comments for a chance to win the book mentioned  in my Medieval Times review post earlier [and] also the book Guinevere's Gift, which is a great King Arthur tale with horses.

***********

This giveaway is closed, congratulations to Ali, who is the winner!

This is a fun book, here is the write up at Sonlight's Curriculum site:

"Award-winning author tells the story of a young boy and his rigorous apprenticeship and training at Vienna's Spanish Court Riding school, home of the famous Lipizzan stallions."

and a review from one of their customers: "Loved this story of a boys perseverance in pursuit of his dream. And my son loved watching YouTube videos of Lippizaners once we finished the book."

from Random House:

"On the night of Guinevere’s birth, there was a prophecy that foretold she would one day be highest lady in the land and wed to a great king. But 13 years have passed, and the prophecy couldn’t be further off. Guinevere is now an orphan and a ward of her aunt and uncle, the king and queen of Gwynedd. Tomboyish and awkward, Gwen is no great beauty, and nobody takes the prophecy seriously–especially not Gwen. But then one day Gwen meets a strange young man in the woods who claims to be part of an ancient tribe whose mission is to guard and protect her. Then she stumbles across a sinister plot brewing within the castle walls–one she alone might be able to prevent. Guinevere is beginning to realize her destiny is more complex than it seems–and this is only the beginning."

***this giveaway is an independent giveaway, totally of my own dreaming up. Open only to the contiguous U.S. addresses only. Sorry. Void where prohibited.

{{ make sure you click the +1 button on the rafflecopter box that says 'leave a comment' so you can enter the giveaway, follow the directions it gives you, you will then leave a comment and go back and click the "I did it" button }}

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Medieval Times Partners In Education Program

~sponsored

Did you know that Medieval Times has an educational program?  I didn't either, until we were invited to attend a matinee show along with other schools.

Medieval Times has an educational area on their website here *Medieval Times Partners In Education where  you can read about different aspects of Medieval life and printout pdfs for classroom use.  Schools and homeschools can plan a Medieval Times field-trip to complement their study on the Medieval Ages.

The Matinee program consisted of time to view the torture museum, the horse stables and the gift shop before the show.  We were then treated to a tournament show, interesting educational information on the role of women in the castle, the training of apprentices, the horses used in the show, and a yummy lunch.

I don't know if Josie or Demi-Sky loved the jousting more.  Josie was definitely a fan of all the sword-play.  She was of the opinion that a great plot-surprise would be a girl as disguised knight.  I have to say that I agree.

We all know which parts were Meg's favorite, right?  Answer:  all the parts with horses in them :)

The show breeds and trains beautiful Andalusian horses.  {sigh}  I used to be a horse-crazy girl like Meg.  These horses captivated me.

**Homeschool-Mom-Nerd-Moment*** raise your hand if you remember a book about this breed used in a Sonlight Core?

Bueller?  Bueller?

These horses are just beautiful, and are trained in the art of dressage and dance.

Art in motion. No hyperbole.

Meg just stood, looked and inhaled.  She has applied for a job as a stable-hand here, but didn't get the call.  Could you imagine the scene in the house if she got the call?  Seriously, she would have mucked out all the stalls for free that day, and missed the show even, just to stand in the stalls and inhale the horsey-scent.  Yes, she is that horse-addled.

all in all, it was a great day!  The show was fantastic, the educational parts went well with the story of the show, the food was great...and we got a chocolate chip cookie!  A great day, indeed  :)

*Disclosure: I was compensated by Medieval Times with entry to the show in order to do my review of the program. My opinions and experiences are entirely my own.

7 Quick Takes -Flies and other homeschool relics edition

~1~

Meg's homeschool chemistry experiment went a little south and several large blue-bottle flies escaped. But wait, it gets even better!  Meg then went away for highschool girl's church camp and left me home alone with the two youngest kids and her escaped flies for company. Yes, I live the glamor life!!  Early on in our fly campaign, we discovered  this jumping spider on the outside of the glass, spending time stalking a few flies on the inside of the glass. It was fascinating to watch.  Eventually, I opened the window on top (double hung old-fashioned windows) and a few flies flew over and ended up between the glass and screen, which is where the spider happened to be.  I have to report that the spider did catch one of the flies, with Amie and Demi watching, mezmerized.  More homeschool science, yay...

~2~

Amie's Hogwarts for Muggles class last week was a potions class.  The kids had containers of  interesting things like "dragons breath", "mandrake tears" etc.  They conducted several experiments with their concoctions and made a lap book filled with chemistry facts.  So much fun!

~3~

extra bonus photo of my cute doggie.  I {heart} her.

I was lamenting that Oliver (a.k.a. Evil Kitty)  is a favorite photo subject because he is so much more easier to photograph, even though my dog is my big love. So, I thought I'd try to spend more time capturing her on camera.  She is a hard subject because she is so dark, she tends to show up as one big blob.

~4~

My sister and I spent an afternoon packing up mom's china.  This set of china has some history; her eldest brother brought it home from Hong Kong, during the Vietnam war- on the aircraft carrier he was stationed on...tucked away in boxes in the freezer. He was the cook. It's a special story, we wanted to make sure that her china ended up safe and loved.  I was lucky enough to take it home with me.  My sister took home another all white set.

~5~

my man-cub just moved up from a boy's size 6 shoe, to a man's size 8 shoe.  I was kind of sad.  Sky traveled up North for a family wedding, I stayed home with the two youngest, while Meg and Josie went to church camp.  Demi needed some up-keep done, such as a haircut (he wailed to me after it was done that he was now almost bald...I said, "good" in my best grumpy cat imitation) and then he needed new shoes and socks. Mission accomplished...it's sad though, how quick they grow up.

~6~

The new Dr. Who season starts this coming Saturday!!! We are so excited!  We are planning special food for the viewing, kind of like superbowl, but instead with time travel and mad men with a box  :)

Dr. Who Series 7 part 2 prequel

~7~

Just found out last night, that a new Miss Julia book will be out on Tuesday!  It has been a few years since the last one.  If you don't know Miss Julia, she is definitely worth a read- she is a very Southern older lady with moxie and a nose for mystery.  Outside her hard, proper shell is a heart of mush.  She is one of those characters that makes you wish that book characters were real and lived in your neighborhood :)

Miss Julia to the rescue

7 quick takes Friday is hosted at Conversion diary, hop on over!

7 Quick Takes -missing in action edition

Howdy, howdy, howdy bloggy friends!  Whew, blog-break!!  Life has been crazy-busy here at {Home} -a girl can't catch her thoughts, much less blog...!  Here's all the crazy that I live:

~1~

Josie went in this week for her audition for the performing arts high school she'd like to attend next year.  I swear, this whole process has taken a year off my life, at least.  I admitted earlier that I think I have A.D.D. -at the least, I am scattered, Bridget-Jones -homeschool-mom and so imagine me trying to navigate a months-long process of detailed applications, different deadlines for different things, requesting transcripts, remembering deadlines, organizing/labeling/displaying artwork tastefully.... etc.  I had one midnight panic attack (I woke up Sky, sobbing my heart out because I thought I had messed up a transcript thingy- and it was either wake him up or call my E.S. in the middle of the night) and a dozen mini-panic attacks where my heart would jump and I'd ask myself "have I missed a deadline?"  and "the audition is on this date, right?" and then I'd have to go online and re-check.  And re-check.

Once we had everything packed-up, labeled, displayed in a beautiful manner...my mad scrapbook skills came into handy at 1 a.m. as Josie and I cropped digital art and used double-sided tape to put things into place.. who knew that particular skill would come into such important play?!...once it was all ready, Josie was dressed up, hair curled, subtle make-up in place....I delivered her to the door of the school and walked away.

The rest was up to her.  Poor thing then had to draw for 90 minutes.  She survived, and I did too.  We have to wait several weeks now to see if she got in.  I try not to think about it.  She really wants to go.

~2~

Standardized State Testing season has begun.  Demi and Amie had p.e. testing, and then Josie had to take the Math portion of the California High School Exit Exam the morning of her audition for the arts school.  Yeah, fun times.  Poor thing.

We also ended a round of key assignments for the charter school (my high school students) * I really hate these, stuff for a future post.  I contemplated pulling Meg out three months before graduation to avoid these.  I asked Meg how she would feel to get a diploma from St. Jennifer's Academy and she was a bit ambiguous about it.  I decided to try to wait it out.  We also had portfolio samples due.  This month has been really, really crazy!

~3~

Amie loves her Hogwarts for Muggles class.  They had a class all about owls and dissected owl pellets, measured out different owl species wing spans, studied their diets and did a craft.  This week, they studied frogs and made chocolate frog candy.  She has such a blast with this class.  I love the lapbooks she brings home.

~4~

Demi is taking an eight-week creative writing class through Biola Star.  This is his first class with Biola, his older sisters have been taking high school classes with them for years now.  It is a great class to get his feet wet with them.  Next year in 8th grade, I am hoping to have him take an intro to composition class and Latin with them.  It is very strange to think that next year I might only have one student taking classes with Biola Star.

~5~

Monday I said goodbye to our very last hen.  Our flock has slowly diminished to one lone hen, and she was very, very lonely.  Ironically, Annabelle was the ornery hen.  Once she was alone, her personality changed and she became timid and tried to hang out with us when we were outside.  She was pretty misanthropic before, this change was pretty big.  We found a friend who has hens, to adopt her, so she left for hopefully a happy retirement with new friends.  It's a bit strange, I keep catching myself saving my morning blueberries for her, or checking outside to see if she has water, or just looking outside to see what she is doing.  I am no longer Hen-Jen.

~6~

The Bible College boys are back for Sunday Night dinners (we miss them when they are on break), the weather here has swung from cloudy/cold to hail and rain, to sunlight on the same day as hail, back to foggy and then today it was really warm.  I am hoping the warm weather is back.  The hail was pretty exciting, since we really don't get wild weather here.

~7~

Gas prices here in So. Ca are painful!  I am hoping they go down soon.  I drive about 60 miles each way to take Amie to her Hogwarts class once a week, Demi's writing class is 20 miles away, and Josie's fencing class is 45 miles away. We are about to yell "uncle!" with the gas prices!

Well, bloggy friends, I am really looking forward to getting back to a normal, quiet homeschool week after this week of chaos/stress.

Hope your week is wonderful!

**7  Quick Takes happens every Friday over at Conversion Diary

The week in progress- Oak Meadow History

Our homeschool is much more productive when I type up weekly assignment sheets for the high school students.  Not that I always do, ahem...but I should.  Here is what they look like, not high-tech at all...

I type them up on google docs (it's in the cloud so I can move around on different computers) and I don't mess with tables or charts, just type them in and add big, bolded o's for the kids to put a check-mark in when completed.

This is Josie's sheet.  She is on week 16 of Oak Meadow World History.  I simply look through the OM syllabus and through the textbook and decide what she should do for the week.  There is a lot of reading and information to cover in the textbook and we have to keep moving, so I try to keep the work not too-involved most weeks.  Her Biola classes also keep her very busy.  This week, I pulled the bolded words out of the text and asked her to make a definition page, this is not in the OM syllabus.  The OM syllabus has a list of great essay questions after the reading, so I did assign one of them, and then asked her to think about another (because I know she has a lot of writing to do with Biola already)  As I was looking through the chapter in the textbook, my mind keeps wanting to go down rabbit-trails...so I did add in two documentaries from Netflix, and some extra reading and short 2 minute videos from history.com  -because I just have to do the rabbit trails... {help me}  I made an effort to keep it simple so we could move on to the next chapter next week, but it was an effort...

She has gotten behind in her Math, so I am assigning two pages most days.  Her Biola class syllabus are pretty involved, so I just ask her to check and follow them, and then check mark that she did so.

My younger students just do what I tell them to, though some weeks, I do sheet for them, too...but not often, it's just a bit too much for A.D.D. mom

I am really enjoying Oak Meadow, I like that it keeps me moving, and that everything is in the textbook...as long as I don't get distracted!

how's your week?

7 Quick Takes Friday -wild parrots of spring edition

~1~

Here in So. Ca we don't have seasons that stand up and shout, so to speak.  But, I know Spring is here when the magnolia tulip trees in the neighborhood bloom.  I {heart} these trees.  This is the tulip tree across the street.  I opened the blinds in our big front window the other morning and saw a flash of green.  The wild parrots were in the tree, eating the flowers.  I see seven here, how many do you see?

~2~

My kids are sick, so the great homeschool progress we made last week has been nullified this week.  Yeah, team!! We did manage some read-aloud time, we read 3 more chapters of Don Quixote (but didn't finish it) and we finished the chapters on Jamestown and John Smith in The Story of US vol. 2.  Amie continues to love her Hogwart's for Muggles class and Demi starts a new 8 week creative writing class tomorrow.

~3~

I was so excited to have this book arrive from paperback swap:

I read the first in the series, An Assembly Such as This- and thought it was the best Pride & Prejudice spin-off that I have read.  Our library didn't have the sequel so I was so excited to get it from paperback swap.  And then, about 1/3 through it, I started thinking that the story seemed really, really familiar...and then I realized I have already read this one and I needed vol. 3  Oh well, this one is a really good read, so I will finish it and order the next.  This is so good that I suggested to Sky that he would like it.

~4~

Did I mention my kids are sick?

~5~

Sky is building a really large round table for someone (6 feet in diameter).  He made this amazing jig to enable him to cut out a huge circle, he is really amazing.  When I saw it, I told him that I would have just run around for days, trying to find a really big circle to trace...and that is why he is the "do-er" in this relationship and I am the "non-doer"...

~6~

Demi-Sky's lacrosse game last Saturday was amazing. They were missing some key players because of an out-of-town tournament, and because of bad weather and they had just enough players to take the field. This meant that there were no substitute players, the boys had to play the entire game with no resting.  This also meant that if players were taken off the field for a penalty, that the team was short players on the field. This is Demi (number 57) and a team-mate out for a penalty. Ahem.

~7~

Sky and I are a bit practical and we don't like going out to crowded restaurants, which is why we don't have date-night during the weekend, so we spent a very quiet evening home for Valentine's day.  The highlight was taking Emma to the groomers for her "day of beauty" which was actually a gift I gave myself- a nice smelling dog is a gift that keeps on giving...

hope your week was wonderful, internets :)

7 Quick Takes Friday is hosted over at Conversion Diary, hop on over!

Friday- the view from here

This morning was kind of full, Meg had a dentist appointment and then we went to lunch at the home of some old, dear friends.  (we had a sweet time, this very large family has daughters who used to babysit for us) After lunch, we went home and sat around the table to dive into our school work.  (Except Josie, who has been sick. She worked on her Biola Star homework, but I let her off the hook for other work)

Amie and Demi did Math - because every day is Math day :D  then handwriting and then worked in their spelling notebooks- writing half of their list words in complete sentences, and then a page in the spelling workbook.  We did a grammar worksheet and then I read aloud two chapters from Don Quixote.  (I have renewed it the maximum times from the library and was hoping to finish it, but not gonna happen...sigh)  We discussed the story, I pointed out some literary facts about this classic.  After, I read aloud from A History of US Vol. 2, about Jamestown and John Smith.  Demi then used the book to complete a worksheet I made from the reading. -Amie did the worksheet a few days ago, I don't know why Demi didn't do it... ( I am forever a worksheet girl, I have realized it is just quicker to make my own...)

Meg worked on her Biola Star homework (British Lit, Chemistry and Economics) and then worked a bit on her week's work list I made up for her.  She also practiced her violin.

Sky came home from work and did some woodworking in the garage, Amie and Demi worked on their creative writing stories, Josie read and slept.  Meg studied.  I parked myself in front of the fireplace and wasted time on the internet.  We are having a cold-spell here in So. Ca, it was in the 50's today, which I cannot handle. (I know, I am a wimp)  I whined to Sky about how cold I was and then sat in front of the fireplace till it was time to make dinner. (Demi-Sky did not have lacrosse practice today due to rain)

On the menu for dinner?  Left-overs. Score!

After dinner, I made up a batch of my grown-up oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  {they are grown-up cookies because they have more oats, less sugar and double the cinnamon and nutmeg}  Here is my recipe:  Grownup Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

We then watched Groundhog day with the kids - we rented it.  This was the first time the kids have watched it.

The kids went to bed and now I am sitting in front of the fire again, playing on the computer.  Not a bad day in homeschool land...

7 Quick Takes -homeschool winter formal edition

~1~

This was Josie's first formal dance; Homeschool Winter Formal.  She went with Meg and two friends.  I heart the girl-power!!  I also loved the photo opportunities :)  They had a blast, the dance was at the hotel at Knott's Berry Farm.  The girls got ready at our house, and then I took them out for photos.

Josie is on the right in burgundy, and Meg is on the left in cowboy boots {of course}

~2~

I have admitted my adult-A.D.D.-ness, and will try some home remedies first, like green-tea.  I already self-medicate with diet coke and dark chocolate... I think it might be time to discuss this with my Dr. I spend so much of my time spinning my wheels aimlessly, it is very frustrating.

~3~

Sky thinks I should start drinking coffee, since coffee has more caffeine then green-tea.  (the A.D.D. thing) I'm just not willing to go over to the dark-side.  Sky is a true coffee-snob, he drinks french-pressed coffee.  Right now, his favorite blend is one he picked up on San Juan island.  I am about to experiment with bullet-proof coffee for him- basically it is good coffee blended with almost a stick of grass-fed butter.  I'll report back....does sound kind of yummy, though, doesn't it?

~4~

I have abandoned my much-loved MFW curriculum and switched over to Oak Meadow.  This is related to #2 above.  I wrote in an earlier post how much better following a simple spine-text works for me and realized I needed to live this truth and simplify things.  *Using spine-texts for homeschooling

We are now using Oak Meadow 5 History/English and Science texts with Demi & Amie, and Oak Meadow High school World History for Josie, and Oak Meadow High school U.S. Government for Meg.

~5~

So, I started Demi and Amie with the second half of week 5 in OM...not exactly where we were in MFW, but I didn't want to skip reading about Jamestown, so this is where I decided to pick up at.  Sooo, I look through the text and see that it centers mostly on indentured servants and relates that to slavery, but I really want to delve more deeply into Jamestown, so I look through my MFW books still on the shelves, then rifle through the student worksheets I have for MFW, looking for something on Jamestown.  I don't find anything, so I pick up Hakim's Story of US vol. 2 -(I love this series) and find a chapter on Jamestown.  Perfect!  Not quite satisfied, I also search online and find a neat animated journey through Jamestown history on National Geographic for kids.

The next day, after all this searching, I realized I just failed the whole A.D.D. thing, didn't I?

~6~

Meg just started a class for Economics at Biola Star.  I am really, really glad I don't have to teach this one!

~7~

Amie started a Hogwarts for Muggles class.  It is a wonderful/creative class and so fun! Down-side? It is a one-hour drive from here.  She was jumping-up and down excited about it.  I figured, she is almost 11 years old and this is probably the last time a totally magical world can excite her and fuel her imagination, so I decided to go for it.  It's a 12 week class!  She is having a blast, and doing some really creative things, so it is worth it.

*7 Quick Takes happens on Fridays at Conversion Diary blog, hop over and link up!