This year we are using Diana Waring's Ancient Civilizations and the Bible. So far I'm spending quite a bit of time worrying that I stepped way outta our league. We've always done the formula of read, do vocabulary and worksheets kind of history. And because of this we've always hated our history curriculum. So, I stepped out on a limb and got a curriculum that requires more from us. One of my biggest challenges is finding the additional sources and materials for him to use. I've always used curriculum that had all we needed to avoid this problem. We have a very very small local library. They don't have a single thing we need and when I asked about them borrowing from other libraries she said, "Well that is usually so slow you'd be better off going to the other library and getting it yourself." Hmmmm.... alright.

For Brandon the hardest challenge has been no worksheets. This curriculum is all free thinking, logic, researching, and writing reports. These are not Brandon's strong points. So either he will fail history this year or he will develope these valuable skills by the end of the year. He has plenty of imagination. This is more about learning to harness it into something useful and workable.

Four weeks into the school year and we are still in Unit One which covers Creation and the Flood. It basically starts out with an article, then we listen to a couple of CDs (What in the World's Going on Here? and True Tales) with interesting information, then we have a discussion, Research and report (He wrote a paper about the Behemoth and his belief that it is a dinosaur), then more researching and reporting (Writing is not his favorite past time so instead of a hand written report this time we got the information off the internet and he attached it to a large poster board for a presentation. It was over metallurgy.), then there was indeed some vocabulary, then a time line and a map, then it goes on to add Art, Science, Music, and Cooking into the picture, ending off with Phase 4 which has the children express themselves in any way they chose in order to get across what they learned in this Unit.

We've only gotten as far as Art. To go along the same path that he was already on with his Metallurgy presentation we chose to work with copper. The point to this project was that with actually working with the material he would think about early man and how clever he would had to of been to be able to make things with copper, bronze, and iron. Much less consider that they first had to mine these metals. Again, I am not so sure how much thinking about early man Brandon did while working on this project but he did learn that working with metal wasn't as easy as he thought it was be. He started very enthusiastic, thinking this was going to be all fun and games. He was going to make all kinds of things. Being Mom I quickly crushed his dreams and pointed out all the problems he would encounter with each project he proposed. As I said great imagination very little logic going on. He'll do great things one day when he gets those two skills to line up. I finally got him talked in to a project I thought doable. He didn't seemed too thrilled starting out to abandon all his wild dreams that he had for the copper. However in the end he seemed very proud of the work he accomplished.


I wish I had remembered to take some before shots. I always forget that! Any way for the basic idea Picture a really old mail box hanging off (nearly falling off) a old rotting post with the numbers clumsily painted on so that the UPS guy can find us. So first he went out and took a few swats at the mail box to knock it off the pole. Then I painted the post dark green to match our trim.


He hauled the mail box up to the house painted what we couldn't cover. Then covered the box with copper sheeting using screws, nails and prayers. The trickiest part was removing the old flag set up and building and adding the new flag. The stage shown in the pictures was Bran's favorite part. He torched the copper to make it different colors.

After we finished the mail box we started to paint new numbers on the post but then decided that it would look better if we made them from copper wire. Let me tell you the copper wire was pretty thick and not all that easy to bend! If you attempt this let me advise you that the number 4 is hard to make! LOL Believe it or not reattaching the mail box to the post was the hardest and our least favorite part! But we got it done.

However, before I show you pictures to that... I want to give a heartfelt plea not to look at the un-kept yards shown in the pictures. One is the neighbors so I can hardly be blamed for it's condition and our's well....I worked on a mail box all weekend with my son instead of the yard. I'll mow, weed eat and such some time this week I promise!



Yes, I know the post leans a little. (OK ALOT) First off on the other hand it is firmly in the ground. Second off I didn't want to dig it up to straighten it. Third I have no post hole diggers with which to dig another hole to replant it. And Fourth in Brandon's own words, "I kinda like it leaning, Mom. It matches our house. It wouldn't look right if it was perfect and I don't really like perfect anyways."

So we have a new mail box... kinda. And it is now firmly attached to the pole... that is leaning a little (a lot).... And we love it!