We got to visit Baby Ruby and help out by giving her a bath. The kids wrote about the process and were excited to have an opportunity to see their littlest cousin.
We took the kids to the art gallery at Art Start in Rhinelander. They were doing an awesome gallery of Mexican folk art, including tapestries, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and more. They provided a kids' guide worksheet and they each won a prize for completing it. Art Start is a treasure in our small town!
I love going to the cabin in the fall. The golden forest is simply magical and I treasure the walks there. I decided to take the kids out there for a homeschool day. We have loved doing our schoolwork out there. It is so peaceful and beautiful. We talked about the artist, Kandinsky, and did abstract drawings. The kids loved doing these. It was a wonderful day spent together.
Our first group of rocks from our rock tumbler are finished. They turned out beautiful - so shiny and smooth, though I do think they broke up into smaller bits than I envisioned. The kids enjoyed this process and I'm sure there will be more tumbling in our future.
The kids painted leaf picture frames and I put a fall photo of them inside from our day at the cabin.
One of our big projects this month was a personal timeline. The kids collected stories and pictures and arranged them chronologically, ultimately putting them in a photo album. They highlighted their biggest accomplishments and notable moments. It was fun to reminisce and work on this together.
Simon's first picture of a person with a head, face, and body!
McDonald's used a brilliant marketing tactic to get 90s kids in for Happy Meals - they brought back their Halloween buckets, so we had to get some, for nostalgia's sake!
The kids made these beautiful Yayoi Kusama inspired pumpkin art projects in co-op this month. They experimented with texture and design while working on this project. They were so proud and I think they turned out beautifully!
The pileated woodpecker who has been making himself at home in our front yard
We celebrated Indigenous Peoples' Day by doing beautiful art projects inspired by Lakota artist, Oscar Howe. Evan (Wallermann Dad) is a professional chef, and whipped us up some venison fry bread tacos with wild rice on the side. They were absolutely delicious. I've never had fry bread before, but it was a special treat and so tasty. We also read stories from different tribes. It was a super fun day!
Grandma took Simon for the morning, so I could have some uninterrupted time with Nolan and Livi. We finished up our morning of hard work with lunch at Bucketheads and some rummaging for treasures at Good Will.
We picked the story of "Hansel and Gretel" to study closely this month. We read several different versions of the story, and culminated the unit with a German meal, making candy houses, and putting on a play! Daddy attempted the Weisenbeck family's poppyseed roll recipe. All did not go according to plan on that and it ended up way too big so it exploded and was still raw in the middle. Fortunately we still had lots of other yummy food to eat. We had sausages, sauerkraut, German Potato salad, and homemade pretzels with beer cheese sauce. The candy houses were really fun and turned out super cute. The kids enjoyed gobbling them down after dinner. The play was also fun and since I happened to find a Gretel costume while thrifting with Mom, and Eric had a German hat from his trip to Germany, we were all set to have great costumes too! It was fun to act out the story and talk about the similarities and differences amongst the many versions of the stories we studied!
We were excited to get dressed up and go to our co-op Trunk or Treat event!
The kids did their own beautiful versions of "Ladder to the Moon" by Georgia O'Keeffe, one of the famous artists whose paintings we saw at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
It was Friday before Nolan's birthday celebrations and I woke up at 7:15 or so. When I came out, I had the most wonderful surprise. The kids had cleaned the bathroom, picked up the living room and dining, made breakfast for themselves, and for me. I was so blown away. I am so unbelievably proud of the wonderful, amazing, compassionate, sweet human beings they are.
