Tuesday, September 15, 2015

The Weapon Wall

For any moms of little boys out there... nerf guns are probably in your house or in your future. So with that in mind, I present to you our weapon wall!



After looking at various ways to organize nerf guns and the like I decided to try peg board. I like it b/c several of these toys are too big to fit in a drawer or toy bin, not to mention that the boys think having a weapon wall is the coolest thing ever. Since I know more nerf guns are probably in our future, the board has room to spare so we can easily hang these toys closer together, making room for more. 

The cool thing about this project is that it cost me nothing. We already had some peg board and pegs, and I had an array of spare green and yellow paint due to my indecision when choosing wall colors a year ago. 

Since the peg board had been sitting in the garage and had some visible water staining on it, I went ahead and sprayed it thoroughly with mold control spray. Then I painted the peg board with camo. Here it is in progress...




My son helped me paint some of the camo, which was fun. But mostly he just likes hanging his weapons on the finished product! 

Oh and in case you're wondering, the tin lunch box is full of nerf bullets. 

Gear up and get to battling! :)

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Living Books by Level for Mystery of History Volume 4: Wars of Independence to Modern Times

Key: MOH = Mystery of History, SCM = Simply Charlotte Mason, SL = Sonlight, TT = Tracy's Treasury

I'm just going to jump right in to posting this book list. If you're feeling a little lost and want to know what this list is or how to use it... OR if you want to find my similar book lists for other history timeframes, click here! Without further adieu, here we go! 

I made these book lists as a reference for choosing the best living books to enhance our MOH world history course. After completing it, we plan to take a course specifically on American History (Sonlight core D & E for grades 3-7, core 100 for grades 7-11). Due to the incredible amount of books on this list (which combines book suggestions from SCM and SL), I broke the modern timeframe into two book lists: 

  • The first list (this one) is what I’ll choose from during our general world history study (MOH 4 supplemented by SCM and SL world history books)
  • The second list is specifically for American History study, and the books are primarily those used in SL cores D,E, and 100 (SL's American History cores). There are only a very few books that I included on both lists (for the benefit of those who only use one list or the other), and those books are marked on this list with the notation *AMHIST (showing that they're also listed on the American History book list). 
If you’re planning to combine American History and World History rather than taking a separate American History course after MOH 4, then you’d combine this list and the next one and choose from the combination of the two. But that’s an awful lot. Without further adieu here are the living book suggestions for MOH 4...