Change

After serving in the primary for 9 years, in various capacities, I have been released. Last week was Anna's last Sunday in Primary and this week was mine. I will now be serving as the Young Women's president. Poor Anna, she just can't get rid of me.  I was in primary pretty much the entire time she was. Now my youngest is a Sunbeam and  it is likely that I won't be in primary for most of his years there. It's just kind-of strange when I think about it.

12 years old!

Seeing this many candles on one of my babies cakes makes me feel a little bit old!

One minute she was this little peanut in my arms and then I blink and she is 12! I feel like with her birthday we are beginning a new stage of our lives. Goodbye primary and hello YW and boys....all of a sudden she is talking about them. What is up with that???? Over the last year her interests have started to change. She is no longer interested in the little girl games and is talking on the phone more and wants to wear make-up and cares about her clothes. I just don't know that I am really ready for this, but now that I think about it I wasn't really ready for her when she was that little peanut either.

Her big present was getting a little make-over for her room. We kicked her out of it for a few days while we got it ready then on her birthday we surprised her with the changes. Without spending very much money we were able to give her room a whole new look. (I forgot before pictures....again.)

Lady Gwendalyn

Being a homeshool mom means being willing to make a fool of yourself on any given day.

Last week a portrait magically appeared in our school. It was of Gwendalyn the Good from the House of Dragon. She was a descendant of St. George and told us all about how he slew a dragon. She taught us a little bit about what life was like in the early middle ages, when she was alive. She was even able to travel to one of her portraits in a far away castle and bring us leftovers from a great feast!

Over the next few weeks we will be learning more about the middle ages and how we can be modern day dragonslayers.

Lady Gwendalyn

(and just in case you are wondering....Lady Gwendalyn is a completely fictitious character.)

Ravenclaw Wins House Cup!

At the end of term feast presentations were made, points were counted, awards given! All Quercus Alba students ended the year with honors (they accomplished all their goals for the component) and Anna was awarded the Ivory Acorn Award for achievement in Mathematics. (Any student can be nominated by a teacher to earn the The Ivory Acorn Award each component. Anna was the only one to receive it this time.)

Anna adding her points. Ravenclaw was first to add there points. You can't tell from this picture, but it was really a tight race for the house cup.

Ravenclaw wins by a just a narrow margin! Gryffindor almost had it!

 

All of the food represented something that we learned about. Here are Olympic rings representing the first Olympics.

Apple slices for the fall of Adam, a rice Krispie pyramid for Ancient Egypt, ABC cooked for the Phoenician civilization, lettuce boats for Jaredites sailing to America

Tower of Babel onion rings, Caesar salad, Lahna's ginger snaps and ginger-ale

End of term projects

I was so proud of the kids projects for this component. They all worked really hard and did an amazing job. This component we did a dash through history from the creation to the fall of the Western Roman Empire so all of there projects were tied into that somehow.

Alahna did her's on ginger. She researched it's origins and it's medicinal properties. She also made ginger snaps, candied ginger, and a video about Noah.

Robert's project was on King Solomon. He made a poster, built a replica of the temple with Lego's and read a story about Solomon.

William learned about the Tower of Babel and drew a picture.

Anna's project was all about Imhotep. She did a ton of research and made some startling discoveries. She also learned about the mummification process.

Polyjiuce Potion

The girls made polyjuice potion for a school activity. Don't ask what was in it.... you really don't wanna know.

And just to show that we do in fact do some actual work in this school of ours, here is a picture of Alahna doing her math.

I thought we were past this stage....

Conference Weekend Fun

About a week before conference a good friend called and said she had tickets to the Saturday morning session and asked if me and the kids would want to go with them. Because I am not very good at spur of the moment kind-of decisions, my gut reaction was, um......no way. But then I thought about it and realized that I would be absolutely crazy to pass up the chance to go to conference and see my family.



Conference, of course, was the highlight of the weekend for the girls and me, but we also had a great time full of laughter and yummy food with family.

Robert with his new patch buddy!

 

The boys thought it would be fun to climb through the doggy door.