The Horrible History series, by Terry Deary, is a fun way to read about history.   The series looks at history from an unusual perspective.  Most gross, disgusting things are covered with a strong dose of humor.  Our fourth grader read this book, The Measly Middle Ages, this past fall and loved it.  Our first grader decided to read it as well.  Here’s what she said about it.

The whole book is funny.  In the Middle Ages there was the Black Death, kings and queens, knights and soldiers, and much, much more.  You must read this book, you’ll love it!

She gives The Measly Middle Ages four stars.

This mural is 56 x 36 inches and is made of 32 letter sized pages.  Not all of the pages have something to color on them.  The recommended tool for coloring is oil pastels, but I don’t know how to seal oil pastels so we used markers.  It took us several weeks to color all of the pages but it wouldn’t have to take so long.  If you had 20 or so people, everyone could color one page.  We love how our butterfly turned out and it is destined for the bedroom of our first grader.

You can buy the .pdf for this mural for $5 at Art Projects For Kids.  They have many wonderful murals, check out the selection on the right side of the page at the link above!

We had some technical difficulties with this project.  We smoothed spackle compound on cardboard and let it dry to start.  The cardboard was not thick enough and curled up.  We tried to flatten the pieces out before we painted but were worried about cracking the now dry spackle.  We painted with water colors after sketching a scene lightly on the plaster. The paint made the pieces curl even more.  If we did this type of fresco again, we would improve it by using thicker cardboard and taping the cardboard down both when the plaster is drying and then again when the paint is drying.

Our fourth grader says that he really liked this project and the best part was working with spackle and a spackle knife.  Our first grader says she loved the project except for one thing, she forgot to paint Jesus.  She recommends that other children try this project.

This project is from the wonderful art and art appreciation curriculum by Artistic Pursuits.

We watched this movie after reading the classic story written by Edith Nesbit.  Our fourth grader liked the movie and feels the special effects were nice.  Our first grader thought it was very funny but it wasn’t really like the book.  Actually it was NOTHING like the book!

We give this movie four stars

Asclepius was not the first creature that needed their assistance, however. Our gerbil Louie is a bit over one year of age and has always been a ‘poor doer’ compared to his giant brother. We took him in to get checked out and he has crooked teeth! The teeth have probably always been crooked which made it uncomfortable to eat and chew on hard things. As a result he is much smaller than his brother and his teeth were overgrown. Not terribly overgrown, but enough that it wasn’t good. Lou Lou has to go to the vet once a month to have his crooked teeth trimmed and to make sure he is putting on weight. We also will be giving him special food soaked in water or fruit juice to help him gain weight and to just to be able to eat easily. Poor guy needs little gerbil braces.

So we spent a good part of the day running around upgrading the snake’s habitat to be large enough for him. It was important to do it today because you are supposed to leave the snake completely alone for a while and not handle him much for the first three weeks.

The children declared today ‘A-Day’ because we named the snake Asclepius after the Greek god of medicine and healing.

I got the uglydoll ox today. yay!

mom says:

We’re having an ugly celebration of son’s graduating from level C of his math curriculum. YAY! Maybe we’ll take a photo of this green guy.