By amy on March 15, 2025
Hello everyone! Our current study has moved into WW2 so we decided to visit a local POW camp in Hearn. We started at the mock guards tower,
Then we moved into a mock barracks which they had set up to look like the original
A map of what the camp originally looked like
The soldier is wearing the coat of one of the men who actually worked there, and Iris is wearing a real helmet.
Then we got to the the excting part, the escape room, our operative was to stop a German escape before it happened.
We were the first group of kids to succeed, and the second to ever finish.
Then we found the old cars, ones that had been used for work on the camp, the tour lady said we could climb on them, and the boys had a blast!
Garrison “repairs the engines.”
Ace finds a “bomb” (an old car part)
Lance and Alexa recreated the camp in rocks while the boys played.
Until next time!
-Ivy
Posted in Family News
By amy on March 1, 2025
Hello agin everyone! This is Ivy. Our most recent school study has been on the roaring 20’s and the great depression. First we tried “pole sitting”
Baseball with Babe Ruth
And conssecions! popcorn, peanuts!
Then the stockmarket crashed and we moved on into bread lines
and soup kitchens
Followed by Hobo life. We went and visited the local train trestle and had a lot of fun in the creek
Then we had a Hobo cookout with cans of beans over the fire
Finally we got to visit an abandoned boxcar and “ride the rails”
Until next time!
-Ivy
Posted in Family News
By amy on January 20, 2025
Hi everyone! This is Ivy. Mom was short on time but I have lots of time so I may be doing more posts soon. We have been studying ww1 so mom asked one of the neighbors if we could dig some trenches on their dirt mound. They said yes and we set to work. The older kids (cousins included) did most of the digging while the younger ones anticipated the completion and ran around. While we weren’t digging we made props, I made gas masks for the little boys while Flora and Mom made some grenades. The others made some smoke bombs. The three boys got army uniforms for christmas so they wore those. The other kid scraped together costumes from our dress-up cloths boxes. We had black cats left over from New Years and used those as well as the smoke bombs.The cousins and some friends joined us and we all marched out to the dirt mound to make war.
Trench foot
Skye was in charge of the messenger dogs.
The rat hunters, Kalmar……
And Betsy!
The Yankees!
With gas masks
Man the machine guns!!
A French soldier
The Germans
With gas masks
Germans are cheaters!
A Christmas truce
Victory!
The casualties
Gas victim
Cutest sniper!
Posted in Family News
By amy on November 30, 2024
Hello subscribers – if I have any left! I have not posted much in the last few years because the platform I used had some issues that made it extrememly time consuming to post. At our Thanksgiving family gathering a brother-in-law put some time in troubleshooting and we may have a fix, so I’m testing it out.
A brief summary of our month:
History unit on Inventors – Wright Flyers
Digging sweet potatoes from the garden.
Getting boxes ready for Operation Christmas Child (OCC).
Church packing party!
Lance lands a temp job with Samaritan’s Purse at the OCC processing center in Dallas. He’ll be gone for a month, working alongside his Grandfather.
Enjoying a build and grow workship with cousins!
‘Twin’ cousins celebrate their 14th birthday with a day of crafting and games.
Visiting the Museum of the American G.I. as a preview for our Winter semester on the World Wars.
Presenting Inventor reports at the “World’s Fair” – Wright brothers.
Demonstrating the Tesla Coil
Eden’s Fall concert.
Jones Thanksgiving gathering!!
Posted in Family News
By amy on January 5, 2023
Thursday morning a week ago, I was just finishing chore check when a child comes in the house crying in a way I don’t often hear. I rush to meet the child, expecting to see blood or something but it’s Iris holding her wrist, crying how it hurts! One look and I know it’s broken. I call out to Brian, and I guess the others hear something new in my voice as well – everyone comes crowding in to see what is going on. She tells us she fell off the monkey bars and hurt her arm. The next bit is a bit of a blur of stabilizing, grabbing pain meds, her body responding with a little bit of shock, each kid grabbing supplies as I give direction, Brian calling to figure out where to take her and gathering items for a trip to the ER!
Flora rode along with us to keep Iris company and help her while I drove. The meds had kicked in enough by this time so while she was still hurting, it was bearable.
Once at the ER we were shown a room fairly quickly. A Dr. examined the wrist and ordered x-rays. Here the technician explains what she is about to do to a somewhat worried patient. Fortunately, x-rays don’t hurt – except for the part where you have to hold your hand a certain way.
Sure enough, a broken radius.
A good local deadening and the Dr. set the bone with minimal pain for the brave patient. Nurse helped with wrapping and splinting.
Then I read aloud to Iris while she was in traction for about 30 minutes. The local pain block helped so much that she was fairly chipper as we left so we picked up some more tylenol, some lunch and a movie from the library before heading home. She was welcomed by her siblings as a hero and played happily the rest of the afternoon.
After waiting a week for the swelling to go down, we went to the bone Dr. and got her hard cast. Bless those cast companies that make dressings in different colors – what fun! Iris chose her favorite color. The nurse was super kind and encouraging, but also lay down the law – no trampoline for the next month!
We had to make a special stop on the way home to pick up a paint marker so siblings, cousins and friends could sign her cast. This had been highly anticipated all week.
Say hello to the new arm for the next month!
Posted in Family News
