Our Visit to Nashville's "Frist Art Museum" (Aidan)

     Recently, our family visited Frist Art Museum in Nashville Tennessee for a special exhibit featuring 

some of Piccasso's most famous pieces, which had been shipped from Europe. The exhibit, Piccasso 

Figures, featured pieces from his early years of training to some of the last he ever painted.

    Piccasso was trained at a school in Barcelona, Spain, from the age of thirteen. He also took lessons in 

Madrid, and made several trips to paris. He finally settled in Paris, and there he was soon became one of 

the most influential artists of the 20th Centuries. Famous for his use of simple shapes to represent a 

complex image, called cubism. This display focused mainly on his portraits and sculptures. Piccasso saw it 

as the artists right to transform a figure from one state of being, to another, often creating chaotic images. 

For those who could not read what the statue is supposed to picture, it became very confusing. When 

walking by an especially cryptic statue, Baxter exclaimed "Look, it's a dead octopus!"

    Near the end of his carreer, Picasso focused primarily on painters themselves, hoping to encourage the 

next generation to pursue art as well. And it worked. Despite his unique style, Picasso still manages to 

captivate many young artists today.

    Along with Picasso's works, Frist Art Museum was also exhibiting paintings from the Westward 

expansion of the United States. Many of the artists were hired by the government to capture the 

picturesque beauty of the West, hoping to encourage people to move West. The stunning landscapes, 

and portraits of the natives, were influential in Americans' ideas of the West at the time. The exhibit 

spans over a century of artwork, from the 1820's, to the 1940's.

Falconry at Burritt (Connor)

         ~Falconry Display at Burritt on the Mountain~

        A couple days ago we went to a display where two paragrine falcon owners talked about their birds. 

It was held at a place we go to pretty often called burrit on the mountain. Mr. Burrit decided to give his 

165 acres and mansion to be made into a mueseum when he died. The falcon owners talked 

mostly about their birds hunting and how they do it. They let their birds just fly to their perches, but did 

not let them free fly because their were lots of people their. It was very intresting and I learned some new 

things.After that we went on a walk with some bird watchers. They taught how to use binoculars correctly, and what to get depending on what you want to do. We walked on Mr. Burrit's property which has lots of 

trees and is at the top of a mountain like hill. We did not see to many birds because, they were not very 

active. Then after that we went to a show where a man who owned 11 exotic birds talked about them. It 

was a very cool one hour display! He had one of the biggest, and smallest owls on earth! He also had a 

falcon, and some birds related to crows, and much more!! We had a very fun day at Burrit on the 

Mountain!!

Starting American Heritage Girls! (Shaila)

American Heritage Girls (or just AHG) has been very fun this year! Obviously we have to follow the regulations and social distance, and wear masks, but it is still very fun! It is a Christian Club for girls, so it is a bit like girl scouts, but it is a Christian Club, instead. It is to teach girls to grow up to love God, cherish their family, honor their country, and serve in their community, the Oath says. Also, there are three groups in the AHG program. There are Pathfinders (at least 5 years old), Tenderheart (at least 7 years old), and finally the group I am in, Explorers (at least 9 years old). Now I will tell you a little bit more about the fun things I have done in AHG. 

I got an Adventures in Odyssey badge already for listening in on the newest Adventures in Odyssey that they came out with for AHG! So that was really fun! I enjoyed listening with my Mom, to the story, and eating popcorn😊

I also had my second meeting just last night. I had my first official meeting two weeks ago. During my first meeting we did fun activities, and we learned a little bit more about AHG. We decorated our sit-upons, which where buckets with cushions on top, and you can open the bucket, and you can put all of your AHG things together in the bucket! We just decorated our sit-upons with duck tape. And there were a lot of varieties of duck tapes! Then we made little bracelets to put on our lanyards to help us remember our Oath and Creed. It just had different colored beads, for the different words. So the first night was super fun! 

After our first meeting we had our first day of serving in our community! So we have days where we will serve our community, and this was one of them. So what we did to serve in our community, is we made a rock river with painted rocks, and we wrote encouraging notes on them. The rock river is open to the public, and people can just pick up one of the rocks with no spray paint on them, or some with spray paint on them, and they can take it home, paint something encouraging on it, and then bring it back and donate it to our rock river. 

And then finally, last night we had our second meeting where we learned some outdoor skills, which we will continue on the next meeting. It was also AHG's Birthday, so we got to celebrate that too! So last night we had different stations, and all of the groups got to do the different stations. The first station was on how to tie slip knots. I haven't gotten the knot right yet, but I am going to keep practicing with the string that they sent home for me. Anyway, the next station was on knife safety, and we got to carve soap with skewers. It was so fun! The next station was how to setup a tent, and I got to help a couple of the girls setup the tent! (This was inside in a gym, so the tent was small). But now I know how to setup a small tent😉The station after that taught about how when we go camping, we need to leave the camping ground just how we left it, and we need to clean up after ourselves. After that we had devotions, the closing ceremony, and we celebrated AHG's Birthday, too, so we gave each one of the girls in our group a swap! My Mom helped me out with my quilling swaps! And we had cupcakes too!

So that is what I have done so far in AHG! But we still have camping, hikes, more meetings, etc.!! And my Mom, and sister are helpers in the group, so I get to spend the rest of the years I do AHG with them, too! I am so excited!😆

Scott's Orchard (Brandan)

 

~Scott's Orchard~

        The Apple Orchard was so fun! First we got our stickers. Then we got to pick apples. Then we got to go on a Huge bouncy house and go on 3 wheelers! Then we went on a long tractor ride. And we went between Alabama and Tennessee! And we got to see all of their Fields! Then we had a whole demonstration. And there was an older lady who gave us the demonstration. She put an apple on a scale. And she had gummy bags, M and M s, and Pizza. The M and M s where heavier than  the apple! And the price was 10 dollars a person! There were Granny Smith apples and Red Delicious and all kinds of apples! And some of our friends from CO/OP came;), like my art teacher, and my Bugs Life teacher from CO/OP. Oh, and before we went on the tractor ride we saw how the apples were processed into apple cider. And the bags that they gave us to put our apples in were very little bags. But they were better than nothing. FOR SURE! And then when we were done with the demonstration we went back to the Apple Orchard. Then we went home. .IT WAS SO FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Brandan (Age: 6)

Rock Rivers, Snakes, and Yucca Fries! (Siobhan)

                                             

~Alma Mater Academy~

There is never a lack of activity once the school year starts!! Here are some pictures of some of the fun projects we have been working on...

Baxter and Cade are loving preschool! When studying the letter 'D for Dinosaur' they made these pudding cups with oreos and malt ball rocks.

Letter jumping

Baxter and Cade have been working hard on their catechism questions. They were very proud to share them with you all :)

Shaila had her first meeting for American Heritage Girls last week! The girls have had to adapt to social distancing this year and changes due to COVID, but they have been doing a wonderful job. Shaila loved decorating her "sit upon" paint bucket, which holds all her materials, clipboard, and handbook.

Mom and I are volunteering as leaders this year. It's going to be a lot of fun!

The girls' first group activity was making a beautiful rock river at Big Springs Memorial Park. The girls hauled rocks and painted them with inspirational messages for the community. Their troop got to take pictures with the major, and they even made the front page of a local newspaper!

Click here to read about their project

Everyone was happy to help Shaila paint rocks to add to her project!

For those of you who don't know, Ethan got a ball python a few months ago. Owen absolutely loves her!

Brandan made our second regional meal! South American chicken, fried okra, and yucca fries.

Shaila and Brandan love their science class! For this project they drew pictures of what they thought dogs would look like based on the strands of DNA that they put together!

I hope you all are having a great school year!

Our First Weeks Back to School (Siobhan)

                                                 

~Our First Weeks Back~

The kids have had a great first couple of weeks back to school! Thankfully homeschooling doesn't look too different for us this year. Unfortunately Co-Op has been cancelled for this semester, but so far Aidan and Connor have been able to do basketball, and Shaila starts soccer this week. Ethan and I are still plugging away at our online classes!

The twins love their Letter of the Week curriculum. They are very proud of their coconut tree and were so excited when Mom bought them a real coconut!

Science experiments are always fun! The kids have been studying genetics and made their own DNA model and extracted DNA from some strawberries.

Through Dad's work, everyone was able to visit the Huntsville Botanical Gardens! It was a great Saturday fieldtrip.

We hope you all are doing well as you start this new semester. If you'd like to read my posts about nursing school, click here to read my nursing blog!