Recording, Recording, Recording

The twins are both preparing for some stiff competition. Marshall will be sending audio versions of three classical pieces next week (one each from the Baroque, Romantic & 20th Century periods) for the first round of his competition. Shaylen is in the process of recording three video selections to submit to the first round of the Young Artists' Competition (harp).

We're so thankful to be able to record at Christ Church in Exeter on the lovely Lively-Fulcher pipe organ there (it sounds amazing!).

The priest at St. George's in Durham has been gracious to allow us to go in and record the harp in their lovely sanctuary. There are wonderful acoustics. You can listen to one of his selections here.

 You can watch one of her pieces here.

I love that I can add my microphone to the iPad! It does a great job & is pretty portable.

Evaluating. Should we do another try?

When At Auntie's

Steve & Stephanie, Jared & Caleb are visiting a college in WI this week which means we get David, Ethan & Lydia. We've continued on with scheduled school, but I've also enjoyed spoiling them a bit.

Cookies & decaf coffee make school go by more quickly!

"Normal" School Room

We've moved down to the main part of the house in an effort to save a little on our heating (the guest room is on its own heating zone) and so we don't have to have school come to a grinding halt when we have guests (plus move all of the school stuff down to the main part of the house). We'll be at the kitchen table until we can finish our basement. Check out our digs!

Lil' Miss Smarty Pants!

Pretty soon, we're going to have to fight for our lives to beat her. She's so good and so smart! She loves playing people at checkers.

Robin Hood

I love reading classic literature with Marshall & Shaylen. We are starting to work through Robin Hood so I picked up some cheap fabric at the craft store, along with some feathers, in order to make some Robin Hood hats for them to wear while we work through this awesome book! I love these Wanted posters that the kids made. Aren't they adorable?

Literary Analysis

The kids wrapped up reading Mary Poppins this past week. Before we launch into our next book, they did a Literary Analysis of Mary Poppins, then got to watch the Disney version of the book. They were to take notes on differences and similarities. It was a pretty cool project for them.

Get Outside!

The kids are really awesome about buckling down and doing their schoolwork. However, after we're all done, it's time to play!

Christmas Sweets

Every year, our HBC homeschool group gets together to bake and decorate cookies for the wiser folks in our congregation. The kids love the time together and their creations always look so fun! I know for a fact that our "seasoned saints" enjoy the goodies too.

Fourth Grade Photos

HBC Homeschool Science Fair

The finished product! We had Milky Way bars for fun and "visitors" had to compute their weight to see how much they would weigh on different planets. 

Our Science Fair Participants

Shaylen deliberates over someone else's project.

Will Matthew be shocked at his weight on the moon?

 

Little Emmy trying out her weight.

Paul gets in on the weight action!

Science Fair Prep - Post II

Today's science fair project continued. They finished painting their planets and then started to arrange how things were going to look on the board. It was a team effort, with very little help from me. I cut the Styrofoam balls, typed up what they wanted me to say on the paper labels, and gave some general advice on placement. Otherwise, this was all their doing!