The Waterstraut Waterspout: When in Rome!

This week, we've been celebrating all things Rome, in addition to our usual work. This is part of our 'Lessons by Dad' series, so Asa's been doing most of the leg work. Admittedly, I am a treasure trove of information when it comes to American history, but world history I've got about zero. So, I've been helping with the craftyness part of it all, but that's about it.

Anyway, we've got our 'when in Rome' SPQR signs all over the house. So the plebeians know to stay in their place.

You might remember we did Greek week awhile back, so we did a comparison chart, complete with the Roman counterparts to the Greek gods.

We also studied the 12 tables- their rule of law and voted on if we thought the laws were fair or not. Honestly, pretty much all of them are wildly unfair.

Asa demonstrated why they came up with the shields they did, because the cutting boards were too flat, and the basketballs were too round. Or something like that.

We made paper plate shields by drawing a design, going over the designs with hot glue, and then putting foil over top so it looks like you have indents.

Then you shoe polish it to make it look old. I realized now I didn't take a final picture. Oops.

We also used some air dry clay to make a Roman lamp.

It's pretty dry now, but we're wrapping it all up on Saturday and we'll use our lamp at our Roman feast dinner, complete with tunies!

We had a Roman numeral quiz with gummy worms...

..and made serpent bracelets out of toilet paper rolls we sprayed gold.

The boys also used the airdry clay to make their own money.

Our major project, and what we've been adding to all week is their Roman pizza boxes. They all have a little pocket in them for their handouts and worksheets.

Then we drew a map of ancient Rome and the surrounding areas (free hand, so we did the best we could). The boys then used salt dough to make a map.

Though not really to scale we also added a 3-D Colosseum and Constantine's Arch.

They turned out pretty cool, but we had to wait for them to dry.

The next day we painted in the area of ancient Rome. Our bottom section of our pizza box we used to show the layers of Roman roads.

First you have rubble (the black beans), then you have a concrete slab (white air dry clay), followed by concrete with stones in it (playdough with beans pressed in), then you have big rocks places together (kidney beans), and the top layer is lava (we used red air dry clay).

As far as food goes, we've had a couple of Roman foods. Asa made elephant ears (out of pre made cinnamon rolls- think Pillsbury) as a nod to the elephants from the second Punic War with Hannibal.

We had a Roman French Toast too, it was pretty standard. But they served it with honey.

We had this weird Rome type succotash, which was really good. But then Asa made this chicken with this awful vinegar based sauce he ended up throwing away. He improvised with this new honey/soy sauce, and it was amazing!

While we were doing all of that, it was also Pi day, and Einsteins birthday!

So in a crossover event we made mini catapults! All you need is some rubber bands, craft sticks, and plastic spoons. First, stack 5 craft sticks together, and keep them together by rubber bands on each end.

Then rubber band the spoon to a single craft stick.

Insert the stack of sticks between the spoon and the one craft stick...

and secure with a rubber band. Ta da! You might have to mess around with rubber band placing to get maximum catapult awesomeness, but that just adds to the physics of it all.

We shot little pieces of paper, but I know mini marshmallows will also work!

And of course we had pie for Pi day. Peach, Apple, and Shepherds.

And you know, Ellie's a big fan of Pi Day.

In other birthdays we had James Madison and Andrew Jackson.

And speaking of presidents...

The day Nancy Reagan passed away the boys decided we had to have her Mac and Cheese for dinner even though we had just had it a few nights before. (Sadly a couple of days earlier were talking about writing letters to let Nancy Reagan know how much we loved her recipe)

Peyton Manning also announced his retirement this week. Four years ago, Peyton wore his Colt's jersey to school because he wanted to "wear it the last day Peyton Manning was ever a Colt." Four years later he wore his Bronco's jersey the last day Peyton Manning was ever a Bronco.

I also told him for dinner that night we would give Manning a nod. We could have gone with something easy like a chicken parm, or papa johns. Instead, I made a Colt's inspired pizza, and a Bronco's inspired pizza. (Like the ones we have for the draft/championship Sunday).

The Colts have a pork tenderloin one, and Denver goes with a pesto flank steak one. They are both really, really good. So I didn't mind making them. Themeing meals is like our thing. I mean, you have to eat.

We also got a paper from Seattle from when Denver won the Super Bowl. So shout out to Aunt Patti for thinking of us. We really appreciate it!

We're also trying a new thing this month with a box subscription. I had a coupon code making our first few boxes half off, so I decided to give it a go. It's called Kitchen Table Passport, and it comes with all kinds of information about a specific country (they change every month), some trinkets, and a spice packet for a recipe. This month we got Ireland in honor of Saint Patricks Day. Asa was supposed to be in the office today, so we celebrated yesterday.

Dinner was tastey, even though I don't usually do stew. And we got to learn about Ireland when we ate. As part of home school I also gave the boys the option of skipping some workbook in honor of doing a little more research and writing something on Ireland. Peyton took me up on the offer.

Asa also put together a limerick hunt for the boys to find their pot of gold (which is actually all green).

The first one led them to the forks...

The second one led them to our room and some festive cupcakes...

...and the third one led them to the living room for their basket of green gold.

In other news, this week Florida got to vote in the presidential primary! Our precinct changed and is now just a few blocks away, so we rode our bikes over so Asa could vote. (It's a closed primary, so no voting for us Independent plebeians!) Hayden even got an 'I voted' sticker. I was jealous.

And we watched the returns with a taco bar. The only thing as exciting as a football Sunday is a Super Tuesday!

Last week we went to Red Robin for lunch to collect Asa's birthday burger, and to see Zootopia at the matinee. We even got the new, awesome, comfy, reclining seats!

We've all filled out our March Madness brackets, Hayden picked Stoneybrook (probably because he thought it was Storybrook and he loves Once Upon a Time), and Asa picked Kansas. (He does every year, so if you notice on his first bracket go around he ONLY filled out Kansas.)

For the official record: Calib picked Michigan State, Peyton picked Xavier, and I picked Oregon (because they have sweet football uniforms and I like Ducks.)

Oh, and the big news of the week goes to Calib who got his official learners permit. Note, he got over a week ago, and has driven a total of 3 minutes around the block. He's not as excited about this as we are. (I sure could use another driver when I have to head north without Asa!)