Caves and swords and pretzels, Oh My!

I've been a little behind on posting about our school stuff, but that's only because it's going very well, and my time is spent planning and doing stuff with the kids, so I have very little computer time these days.

And I spent all day hiking for a big field trip (I love school days on Sunday!) for our caves and caverns study which we finished up over a week ago, so I'm heading to bed in a minute and can't post much now!

But we are currently doing a little study on the history of weapons. My Punky has loved weapons since long before he could talk. I wondered what I had done wrong as I watched my precious 7 month old son banging and beating on everything in the house with any object he could lift in his hands. He loves sticks, swords, bows & arrows, axes, spears... and guns (though I personally have a very strong dislike of guns and we do not allow toy guns in the house, nor do we let the boys play with them elsewhere, much to Punky's dismay).

So just for fun I thought we'd study something I KNEW he'd not only love but be completely and utterly enamoured with. And so we are. And he is indeed smitten.

We're doing it on a very basic level, just hitting the main weapons with a mild overview of the historical timeline from the stone age to now and only stopping to focus on those that grab out interest... Vikings, castles, likely a few more modern wars... We're also doing a little overview of simple machines and I look forward to seeing what my Little Engineer That Could will come up with in his spare time for creations. The boy has already made a stunning array of weapons over Week 1. I can only imagine the fun to come...

We also ordered a little wooden trebuchet kit, so the boys will be surprised and delighted when that comes in the mail and we tackle that puppy! I know they'll be inventing their own trebuchets and catapults to go with the real kit, but it was still a fun treat! And my hope is to whip up a batch of pretzel dough one day this week and let them make little pretzel swords and daggers (and guns, I'm sure) for snack. I'm pretty sure that will be almost as big of a hit as the trebuchet kit!

So that's where we are. The other non-unit study basics are still going well for Punky. The little boys are having fun learning together. Finny is doing really well with his current OT activities. Girly Pie is changing her nap time on me which is making me jump around a bit on my happy little schedule, but we'll get in a new groove soon enough. And I'm enjoying my time with them all more then ever!

Who could ask for anything more?

Oh, and the boys will start reading a slightly modified (shorter and cleaner) version of The Three Musketeers this week with their Daddy.

It's going to be a busy house around here... I wonder what they'll think of next to use as swords. ;o)