Atlatl Day

Atlatls were first invented at least 400,000 years ago to hunt mammoths, mastodons, and other animals. An atlatl spear uses another sticks momentum to throw itself. Doing this makes the spear go a further distance than simply grabbing the stick and throwing it like a javelin. Below is Sean hurling his atlatl after much form coaching from Deb.
Asher puts forth effort on his throw. These early version atlatls are not made for comfort or amazing throws. They were used for testing whether throwing a stick, or the use of an atlatl, makes the stick sail further.
Mattias sends his atlatl into the fray. It triumphantly soars through the air and buries itself one centimeter into the ground, then falls down. It's almost impossible to get an atlatl without feathers to go straight.
Sylvia is new at atlatl throwing ( as if we're experts) and tries her best to throw an arrow. She does very well, killing an imaginary opponent.

Early Dwelling Dioramas

This year in McMullin Homeschool history class, we are back at the start of our 4 yr. chronological cycle of study. We started school last week by trying to make a fire using a bow-drill and tinder. It didn't work so well... that is an ongoing project.


Sean's attention was caught by a build-an-ancient-dwelling page in a library book we were looking at. He went out and got all the materials we would need to make ancient dwelling dioramas.It became a fun family project. We hope to display them at the public library.



First we built up the bases with clay or sticks. Sylvia and I worked on an African style stick house.

Then Sean sprayed fixative on the boards, so people could add moss, or sand.



Mattias very intently measured out pinches of moss for his cave dwelling...


Noel also made a lovely moss covered cave dwelling.

Sylvia poses with our completed work.



Giggly Asher finished the final touches on his 6,000 BC northern China dwelling.

A few local rocks make realistic boulders...

Sean displays his very detailed model of a dwelling from Catal Huyuk in Turkey, circa 7,000 BC.









It was an enjoyable project. I would've liked to add more people doing things (slaying mammoths, cooking sabertooth tigers, etc.) but time ran out. Maybe we'll be able to add onto our little dwellings. If so, we'll keep you posted.

Lego League starts up

Sean and I are not coaching a Lego League team this year. We have passed the robots on to another couple of families. Mattias is still excited about doing it though. He is on a team with other boys his age. They had their first meeting, and built the Lego League table! I was amazed. I didn't think 10 year olds could accomplish so much with some drills and hammers. But, they worked together and did a great job. It will be fun to follow their progress this fall.



While the boys worked on the table, and building the Lego Competion models, Sylvia chased chickens with her friend, Laura. Chickens make life exciting.

Sylvia at the Children's Museum

Last week, Sylvia and I had a girls afternoon out together. We attended the grand opening of the newly remodeled Madison Children's museum. We had a good time.

There was a water area, where you could scoop and dump from a fountain, and all the water was recycled to rain onto the clear plastic roof overhead.

One of things the really caught Sylvia attention was a wheel that was hooked up to some pulleys on the ceiling. If you spun the wheel, you could move a giant cow up and down throught a large atrium area. She felt very powerful!



I thought the painting-on-plexi-glass exhibit was brilliant. The kids could paint, while looking out windows over Madison. When they were finished they could squirt water bottles on their painting, and use squeegees to clean it off. It was a fun, but relaxing area.

Sylvia also loved the new slide they put in. It is carved from a tree trunk. You have to climb up a pile of logs to get to the top. She is the perfect size for it.

She also loved the imaginitive play area, that was set up like a native village. She could play with the stuffed chickens, and load them into this cart to drive to market. We had fun playing in the little huts, and pretending to cook dinner for the baby chics over the open fires.

We have always called Sylvia our "Dessert Baby" because after all the chaos of having the older three so close together, we are finally able to take a slower pace, and enjoy the experience of parenting. I'll definitely have to take "Desset Baby" back to the Children's Museum. It was a great time.

Mellow Maya

Next week, it will be a year since we chose Maya from the Green Co. Humane Society. We chose her because she was more motivated by human interaction than treats, and she was more cautious with our then 3yr old Sylvia than any of the other dogs.




I think it was a good choice. When we are gone from home for very long, Sylvia will say "I miss Maya." Maya is like her best friend. She puts up with a lot from Sylvia. She allows scarfs to be tucked into her collar for dress up games, and crowns to be placed on her head.



Recently though, Sylvia devised a new game, which I was very impressed at Maya's tolerance for.

The new game was to put pencil top earasers on Maya's individual claws, so it looked like she had long nails. Then Sylvia would put rings on her. Maya just flopped over on her side, and put up with it all. It sure did look funny.

Asher's scouting summer

Asher has had a fun scouting summer. I went along for the bike-camp in June, and loved it. We road 50 miles on a rails-to-trails track. The trail went through some amazing old train tunnels, cut into dripping cold limestone rock. It was a really tough, but fun ride.
Asher also went to a week long summer camp in July and completed several merit badges. This month he went with his troop on a 3 day kayaking trip, where he had more adventure than he bargained for. - This is why mothers say lots of prayers. We are glad he came back safely.




Earlier this month, Asher and Noel both helped out with a friend's Eagle project. An old building is being turned into a Youth Center. The scouts helped build benches, flower boxes, and landscaped the front of the building.



It turned out beautifully. The old building is located on Main Street, and every time we drive by, I think what a great job those kids did.

Adventure Week 2010

Since Asher was going to be away at scout camp for a week, I decided to plan out an adventure everyday for the kids staying home. Thus, Adventure Week was born. Some outings panned out well... some didn't... but we sure did exhaust ourselves in the quest for local fun.

Another mom (Joyce) who helps with Mattias's cub scout den organized a camp-out in her backyard. One of her sons was also out of town at BSA camp, so the younger brothers had their own mini-version.

They had fun for hours in her pool, enjoyed good food, games, a craft, and of course... s'mores.



Sylvia and I loved sleeping outside in a tent... it was much cooler than our bedroom at home!


Sylvia just made herself at home with the boys. She made a puppet with them, and roasted marshmallows. The boys were very good about watching out for her.

On another day, we took a day hike in Kegonsa State Park. I had heard about a grove of ceder trees where the deer bed down. We went off to find some deer. What we found instead was a cool stump to climb up on, and take silly pictures with. See how strong Mattias is!


We also found some very good climbing trees.

As we were driving away, we finally did see a deer. We stopped on the road and watched it. It stood close by our car, and everyone was amazed. We had succeeded!



There were less thrilling outings as well. Geo-caching in the humidity, through swamps and swarms of mosquitoes was not a good idea. We also tried out a swimming beach on the lake in Madison, only to be grossed out by all the trash. Well... we tried, and did go where no McMullin had gone before. I'm glad we have another year before Adventure Week 2011 comes around.