St. Francis Academy

First Day of School (ever!)

OK, so he didn't attend a full day, but John did survive his first day at Jr. High without any worries!

He mentioned that he was expecting the classes to be looooong like the classes he has taken for CCD at church, so he was pleasantly surprised at how short his time at school seemed. 

Now the challenge is to build some sort of home schedule around his school schedule.  His first class (life science) starts at 12:25 and his second class (math) ends at 2:05.  As a part-time student, he isn't eligible for taking the bus, which is fine with me...less stuff to be exposed to.  My goal is to try to get our schooling started earlier this year so most of our work is done by the time I need to drive John to school.  That will be a challenge since we are used to keeping a very relaxed flow around here.

The rest of the crew isn't starting back up until Monday.  My printer has been working overtime spewing out pages for Julia and John's quarter notebooks, to the point that I have needed to get ink a couple of times (sigh).  I'm waiting on a cartridge so I can finish up Lizzy and Connor's books and print out some reminders for myself as well. 

Cate, who is 5, asked for a new folder (Princesses, what else?) and some math sheets to put inside.  I printed out some number sheets I had in my files and she got busy tracing the number 1 and the word "one."  She did a great job, earning herself two stickers.  I think she just wants to have proof for her little friends (one is in K, the other grade 2) that she's "in school" also, just here at home.

In the meantime, I'm perusing ideas at Morning Time Moms, delving into The Original Homeschool Series by Charlotte Mason (in modern English), and considering a purchase of the Laying Down the Rails e-book from Simply Charlotte Mason.  We've all slipped into some rotten habits over our busy summer and I think "Morning Time" would be a great way to start replacing them with good ones!

Back to the grind...

Nothing like a child puking to get you up early in the morning!

OK, so for most of the civilized world, 7AM wouldn't exactly be early...but we're an uncivilized bunch here, and after nearly a month of nobody rising before 8AM on the weekdays, getting up at 6:15--when it's still dark--seems downright barbaric.  The only redeeming quality of rising at such a barbaric hour is it was done out of Christian charity...it is charitable to care for one's sick child, right? 

Perhaps this will break the vicious cycle of staying up late and waking once the sun has risen.  And maybe, just maybe, we'll get things in gear before it's time to eat lunch!  We don't regularly start "schooling" until 10AM on a good day (I know, gasp, gasp...you don't start school at 8???), but it has been a struggle for us to even get back to that time!  Sheesh!

We've been breaking back into the swing of things gently this week, focusing mainly on math, science, and history.  For science, we're studying human anatomy again.  We did a brief study last year before the birth of Aidan, since it seemed a natural thing to do.  This year, it will be more in-depth.  This week's study is light and (hopefully) fun, kicking things off with the five senses and a bunch of hands-on "experiments."  I made up smell bottles for our Montessori shelf, but even the older kids enjoy working with them.  Yesterday we did a taste experiment, noting where on the tongue sweet, salty, sout and bitter tastes are most pronounced.  I have no idea what we'll be doing today...maybe watching a Bill Nye video on smell.

History is really laid back this week, as we're only watching a video.  We cruised through the Crusades and the "unit" on Marco Polo (which consisted solely of a video, no follow up reading) before Christmas break.  Now we're heading into the Hundred Years' War.  This week's video is The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.  It is rated 'R', but since I've seen it before, I was able to fast forward through a couple of scenes that were objectionable (we haven't gotten to the war scenes yet).  We're watching about 30 minutes a day, which, for some of us, means we stop the DVD just as things are getting interesting.  Oh well.  Next week we will follow through with some text readings and possibly plunge into watching Henry V.  I realize that will be going backwards chronologically, but I thought Joan of Arc would capture the kids' interest more than Shakespeare's Henry V.

Well, it's still really dark right now, and I'm hoping that nobody else wakes up sick.

Something for the little ones

I don't remember how I came across this blog, but the mom has some nice inspiring ideas for working with your little ones at home.  She describes Tot School as "nothing more than intentionally providing your tot with age appropriate activities that are fun and engaging." 

There's a part of me that wishes I could go back and do things over with our first few kids, who didn't have the benefit of this lifestyle of learning that we are now immersed in since first beginning homeschooling when Connor was a baby.  Many folks call homeschooling "enhanced parenting," but I ashamedly admit that those things that 'good' parents do with their kids, fun and engaging activities, didn't really come naturally to me when our oldest three were little.  And while I sometimes feel like the younger group here--the ones who have been exposed to homeschooling since birth--miss out on more structured time with me, they are still light-years ahead of where the oldest three were when they were little as far as having engaging things to do.

What really appeals to me about the Tot School idea is the intentional part.  It's simple, yet the learning, the fun learning, isn't completely accidental.  I'm inspired to be more engaged, more intentional with my two littles ones.

Another website for more intentional, engaged activities with the littlest ones is Brightly Beaming Resources.  The author has a variety of levels with free 'curriculum' ideas, even ones for intentionally interacting with your babies and toddlers!  Now, before you fall out of your seat with loud guffaws about how ridiculous it is to 'schedule' time to interact with your little ones, please consider that some of us just don't come to these things naturally with the first few kids.  Thus, these suggestions are handy and valuable.

Medieval Architecture Field Trips

 This post is about two weeks in the making, since we went to two separate field trips to enhance our study of medieval architecture.  Our first stop was Chateau LeRoche in Loveland, OH.  The castle is usually closed to the public during the month of October, but they opened up just for our local homeschool group.  Sadly, I forgot to bring the digital camera with me, so I had to resort to snapping pics on my cell phone.  That explains the poor quality of this photo that I took into the sun.

Anyway, our tour guide was dressed in a pirate costume since it was Halloween day and did a good job of informing us about the castle.  We had been to tour the castle once before, during the early years of our homeschooling journey, so we knew that it had been built by one man, Harry Andrews.  What we didn't know was that this castle is a fairly authentic model of a Norman castle that a baron would've lived in.

We also learned that many features of the castle which seemed odd to us were constructed for the purpose of protection.  For instance, the heavy front door was built in pieces, in a sort of patchwork design, and had hundreds of nails driven into it.  This was apparently to keep the door from being split down the middle by a battle axe when the castle was under attack (this is in theory, of couse).  It also opened in several different ways, as it was constructed as a dutch door, and had a smaller door through which one could enter and exit once the larger door had been bolted shut.

 The narrow spiral staircases built out of stone had steps of varying heights to make it more difficult for an attacker to quickly access the higher floors (should said attacker use a battering ram to knock down the front door).  Our pirate guide made it all very exciting and interesting.  We skipped out about ten minutes into the "ghost" stories as the little kids were getting fussy and we were all kind of hungry.

 

Our second stop was today, when we went to visit  St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, KY.  The exterior facade in the front of the cathedral is based on Notre Dame de Paris.  I wasn't able to get my own photo, as I would've had to cross the street, something I didn't think was worth doing with seven kids in tow.  If you check out both websites, you will see the similarities.  Features of the exterior that I pointed out to the kids that they learned about were flying buttresses and gargoyles. 

Julia was responsible for taking photos, since I'm not able to be very still while holding the baby.  She also tends to have a better eye for interesting photos, so below is some of her work.

    

Flying buttresses as seen from the north parking lot. 

 

Gargoyles flank the two towers to the west, which are at the front of the cathedral.

The interior of the cathedral was modeled after the Abbey Church of St. Denis.  Both St. Denis and Notre Dame were constructed during the time period of Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine (who later married Henry II of England and was the mother of Richard the Lionheart).  It all fit in nicely with the unit we're studying in history right now: Henry II, Eleanor and sons.  Here are some more photos from the interior:

 

The Rose Window

 

One of the largest stained glass windows in the world.

Medieval Music, part 2

Click here for part 1 of this series on the music of the middle ages and renaissance.

Here are some bits and pieces that fall somewhere in the mid-to-late middle ages that I forgot to post in part 1.  These sundry pieces are examples of the "ars nova" sound and early polyphony:

Alleluia pascha nostrum (2 part mp3) by Leonin (c.1150)

Sederunt (2 part mp3) by Perotin (c. 1200)

Robins m'aime by Adam de la Halle (~1237-1288)

~~~Late Middle Ages~~~

Francesco Landini (1325-1397)

Francesco Landini

Harmonia:Trecento (Italian "ars nova", playlist)

CD download: Music for a Medieval Banquet (Newberry Consort)

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377)

Guillaume de Machaut (there is an ogg file sample at the end of the article of "Riches d'amour et mendians d'amie")

Harmonia: Guillaume de Machaut (playlist)

Agnus Dei from Messe de Notre Dame (two mp3s)

Gloria mp3 

Guillaume Dufay (c.1397-1474)

Guillaume Dufay, with the song Se la face ay pale at the end of the article

Gloria from Misse Se la face ay pale (2 mp3s)

Ne Je Ne Dors mp3 from Asteria, with lyrics and translation (check out the videos on their website!)

Harmonia: Guillaume Dufay (playlist)

This, That, and The Other

L'homme arme mp3, a french secular song of the times

Harmonia: A Tribute to St. Joan, since the Hundred Years' War was in this time frame (playlist)

Harmonia: Dukes of Burgundy, since Dufay was of the Burgundian school (playlist)

Medieval Music, part 1

The first homeschooling book I ever read, once I began to get serious about actually homeschooling, was The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise.  Something with the classical (or neo-classical) approach to home education really resonated with me.  Maybe it's because I could see what my own education had been lacking and how I had tried to make up for that in my last couple of years of college.  When my brother, who is nearly 8 years my senior, had been in high school, he took part in what I considered a brilliant experiment: something called the humanities curriculum.  Essentially, history, geography, art/architecture, music, and literature were taught collectively with history at the core.  Sadly, the curriculum never took hold or was phased out by the time I reached high school, so I was left with a collection of bits and pieces of the "great conversation", with very little sense of continuity or the flow of chronological history.  Perhaps it is this reason that I keep striving to help my children see how all these wonderful fields are related.

It makes sense, when using a history-centered approach to home education that the study of the history of music, or music appreciation, follow the same chronological stream as history, art, literature, etc.  Naturally, this makes an in-depth study difficult when studying ancient times, since there is not much out there to read about, let alone listen to.  One remedy is to embark upon the study of orchestral instruments for that year, and then pick up with listening to examples of the various time periods in the following years. 

One thing I have found lacking in various homeschooling curricula is a serious enquiry into the development of western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.  Here and there some suggestions are made, perhaps a tip of the hat to Gregorian Chant or Palestrina, but nothing deeper.  What a wealth of music history people are missing out on!!!  What about the non-liturgical chants of Hildegard von Bingen?  How about the development of secular music in the High Middle Ages?  The rise of polyphony, anyone?  Fortunately, a couple of years ago I came across an excellent radio show of "early music" that's available online called Harmonia, which you're able to listen to with Real Player. 

Below is a framework to assist you with music appreciation in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.  Please note that the links for the Harmonia shows open Real Player directly and start streaming the shows.  I also tried to link to the playlists for the Harmonia programs when I could.  That way, you can actually see what pieces you are listening to and get a lead on recordings you might be interested in purchasing.  Harmonia is in the process of updating their website and archives, so if you come across a broken link for a show, you can search through their archives.

~~~Early Middle Ages~~~

Gregorian Chant

Read more:

Learning About Gregorian Chant by the Monks of Solesmes

 Gregorian Chant For Church and School (pdf): See the section titled “The Story of Gregorian Chant”

 St. Gregory the Great

 Minimum Repertoire of Plain Chant or Jubilate Deo (pdf) from St. Cecilia Schola  (Short form ordinary in modern notation)

 Ut Queant Laxis, basis for solfege

 Music: An Appreciation by Roger Kamien: pp. 65-67 (part 2, section 2), multiple choice quiz 

 A Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Instruments

Listening:

The Soul of Chant: Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos 

Kyriale MP3s

 Ut Queant Laxis (8^th c.) mp3

Harmonia: Revisiting Chant and Women’s Voices, Medieval Chant

Music History Listening Test 1  (first four links are gregorian chant examples.  You can right click/Save Target As to download MP3 files to computer!

 

Hymns:

Veni Creator Spiritus from Wikipedia

Veni Creator Spiritus (choose the audio format you wish, or have it streaming)

 

Other:

Harmonia: 1000: A Mass for the End of Time (Anonymous 4)

1000: A Mass for the End of Time (the album promoted in the show above, available for download purchase, with audio samples)

 

~~~High Middle Ages~~~

 

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Read More:

St. Hildegard

Translations of some of Hildegard's chants (Norma Gentile's site, a "sound shaman"...not sure about the content of the rest of the site...may be borderline "new age", but she has sound clips and has a lovely voice)

Hildegard of Bingen and the Re/Visionary Feminine (a paper written by my friend, Krista)

St. Hildegard von Bingen: The Genius of Woman pdf (from Catholics United for the Faith)

 

Listening:

Harmonia: Discovering Hildegard (playlist of music from the show) and Hildegard: Sybil of the Rhine (playlist)

Nunc Aperuit Nobis mp3

Ordo virtutum (excerpt) mp3

 

Other:

Harmonia: Music of the Crusades (1071-1291) (playlist)

Harmonia: Music for St. Francis (1181-1226)

Sumer is Icumen In (a round, written c. 1260)

Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Pange Lingua, Tantum Ergo, Panis Angelicus, Adoro Te Devote 

Harmonia: Marco Polo (1254-1324)

 

Phillippe de Vitry (1291-1361)

Harmonia: The De Vitry Code (playlist)

Classical.Net: Philippe de Vitry

Ars Nova

What's Working...

Goodness, it has been over a month since my last post.  How time flies!

I was going to continue my series on "multi-level learning", but I thought it important to say a word about some of what is working for us right now since we are starting our sixth week of structured schoolwork. 

This year I purchased the Good News planners for the three oldest kids, plus a teacher planner for myself.  The oldest two have decided they don't like working with the planners, so they have elected to go back to the daily checklist method that we adopted last year.  I like the teacher planner because it has lots of extras to help celebrate the liturgical year all in one place.  The third oldest, for whatever reason, has elected to stay with the planner.  I think it might be because it is dated, has monthly calendars in the front, and has lots of reference in the back.

My main reason for getting the planners was to have some assistance or motivation to do some sort of religious education here at home, especially since Julia and John are not in our parish CCD program this year.  However, since they're not using their planners, I needed to come up with something different!  Fortunately, I came across the Dominion Family blog, which has an excellent series of posts discussing the use of what the blogger calls "Morning Time." 

I mention this because I'm using our morning time to cover several areas in a timely manner since our other approaches weren't working that well.  We start off reviewing the Baltimore Catechism and prayers for religion.  On Fridays I read the coming Sunday's Gospel.  IT helps us all pay better attention at Mass when we've gone over the Gospel beforehand.  Then, we review in several other areas.  For instance, I've been reading to the kids those Ruth Heller books on the different parts of speech for our grammar study, but we didn't do the pretty notebook (or main lesson book) pages that were suggested in the Serendipity plans online.  So, instead of making the grammar books a main block that takes a lot of time, we're just reading and reviewing as a part of our morning time.

I also had elaborate, multi-level plans for history and science that are sort of going by the wayside.  Well, I'm not totally ignoring them.  They are serving as frameworks for our studies, but I'm not letting myself be tied to how they were written!  For our history morning time, I'm reviewing basic dates for the time period we're studying, using the 8th grade history dates list from Laura Berquist's book Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum.  We're also covering a geography topic on the globe at the beginning of the week, review throughout the week, then follow up with a map at the end of the week.  Lastly, I'm reading aloud from a few books: The Story of Europe, The Story of Mankind, and Famous Men of the Middle Ages.  Usually the kids have their own related historical fiction they're working on, or they may be assigned some readings from other books (I'm hoping this helps with retention for ds 12).  Our art and music are history-related.  One day I'll get a post up with some fabulous links that provide you with a school year's worth of FREE art and music history.

For science, we're taking a more living books and hands-on approach, which seems to be appealing to all ages.  I came across wonderful digital editions of some classic natural history books: Jean-Henri Fabre's Story Book of Science and Fabre's Book of Insects, Arrabella Buckley's Life and Her Children, and Anna Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study. I just print out the sections I want to read, then we follow-up with a project or a lab.  Right now we have an ongoing earthworm project on our kitchen counter, although we're "technically" moving onto insects and looking at the parts of various insects under the microscope.  We haven't done any kind of morning time review for science, but I think it might be an excellent time to start with the classification system of the "Tree of Life", working our way from Kingdoms all the way down to Species.

I'm also sneakily working into a study of Shakespeare as part of our morning time read aloud.  Right now I'm reading the kids "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" from Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare.  Lest you think that reading a child's prose adaptation to a Shakespeare play may not be a proper study of good literature, I suggest you take a look at the links I've provided here.  The language in this "child's" version is quite complex, so much so that even I occasionally stumble through some of the sentences!  My plan is to then move onto the actual play, reading our way slowly through it for the rest of the term.  I'll also rely on these great teacher notes for our study.  Lastly, we will most likely watch a DVD of the play.  It has been a while since I've watched Mel Gibson's version of Hamlet, so I'll need to pre-screen it before the kids see it.

 

Multi-Level Learning, part 2

In which we sail through history, from the Barbarian Invasions to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England...

After flip-flopping back and forth over deciding about using Tapestry of Grace for Medieval/Renaissance History this year, I finally went back to the plan I began working on last year.  To refresh your memory, we are studying History chronologically as a family.  Last year we studied Ancient History using Connecting With History, Volume 1 and Units 1-5 of Volume 2, ending around the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Although Unit 6 (500-800 AD) is now available and Unit 7 (800-1054 AD) is likely in the works, that is currently where this great Catholic multi-level curriculum ends.  Fortunately, though, Sonya has provided an excellent framework from which to work in her Middle Ages Literature-Based Unit.  With some extra help from the History Odyssey eBooks and some other curricula I already owned, I finally developed a course of study:

• Unit One: "Light In the Darkness" (500-800 AD)--this is CWH 2's Unit 6, studies the Fall of Rome, the Byzantine Empire and the rise of Monasticism
• Unit Two: " Great Kings" (500-1066 AD)--studies Charlemagne, the Vikings, and the Norman Invasion of England
• Unit Three: "Feudalism"--studies feudalism, knights, and castles
• Unit Four: "High Middle Ages"--studies Henry II of England and his sons, rise of towns/guilds, Robin Hood
• Unit Five: "Islam and the Crusades" (1071-1291 AD)--studies the rise of Islam, the Turks, and the Crusades
• Unit Six: "Missionaries and Travelers: Trade in the Middle Ages"--studies Marco Polo, medieval explorers, China and the Mongols
• Unit Seven: "The Hundred Years’ War" (1337-1453 AD)--studies the Black Death, Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc, Henry V
• Unit Eight: "New Interest in Old Ideas: The Renaissance"--studies Gutenberg, Italian Renaissance, Wars of the Roses, the Hapsburgs
• Unit Nine: "Spain, Portugal, and the New World"--studies the Incas/Aztecs, conquistadors, Isabella and Ferdinand, Columbus
• Unit Ten: Reformation and Counter-Reformation--studies Luther, Henry VIII of England, Ignatius of Loyola, Thomas More
• Unit 11: Elizabethan England (1558-1603 AD)--studies Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake, the Spanish Armada
• Unit 12: Age of Exploration--studies Diaz, da Gama, Vespucci, Magellan, Cartier, Drake

If you're interested in how I aligned the lessons for levels 1 and 2 of History Odyssey, the document below will help.  It's not the sequence I eventually settled on for the above units, but it's pretty close.  Also, I'm really only using HO for lesson ideas, so I don't feel tied to the curriculum very much at all.

Download revised_lesson_sequence.doc

For background information, I went to this great free resource:

Student's Friend: Unit 5 Early Middle Ages

Student's Friend: Unit 6 Late Middle Ages

Student's Friend: Unit 7 Early Modern World

I need to get going on our day, so I will try to post more on this later, especially in regards to how to go about doing a multi-level study.  I will also have a post that details art and music study as it relates to the time periods in the above units.  Stay tuned!

Multi-Level Learning, part 1

In which we embark on a study of grammar and writing...

Oh. my. goodness.

Thanks to the ladies at Serendipity, I have come across the most fantastic resources for the study of grammar, or, as they call it, "Lively Language Lessons."   

The lessons are based on a series of books by Ruth Heller which cover the various parts of speech in an entertaining way.  The Introduction to the lessons sums it up nicely: "In designing a language main lesson for our children, we wanted to preserve the beauty of the whole as we processed through the parts."  

Ruth Heller's books are colorful with fascinating artwork, accompanied by witty and memorable verses to help explain the various parts of speech.  These books keep the attention of the various levels of children in our family, making them ideal for family-centered, multi-level learning.

The oldest children surprised me this morning by being excited about the read-aloud, Merry-Go-Round, as I explained we would be taking a new approach to learning English grammar.  They oohed and aaahed over the incredible artwork as I read to them.

We will spend the next eight weeks studying grammar with the books that are in the series.  We won't be following the Serendipity lessons to the letter, though.  I will occasionally supplement with free worksheets found online, as well as with exercises from Simply Grammar, CHC's Language of God E, and the Handbook For Writers (so my oldest can be awarded credit for high school).  We'll also reinforce concepts by playing Mad Libs and watching Grammar Rock on You Tube (just be sure you don't display the comments below the video; they can sometimes be foul):

• Nouns
• Pronouns (Rufus Xavier Sasparilla)
• Adjectives (Unpack Your Adjectives)
• Verb
• Adverbs (Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here)
• Interjections
• Conjunction (...Junction, What's Your Function?)
• Preposition
• Sentences: Subjects and Predicates (Mr. Morton)

The unit following parts of speech will be learning about sentences.  We will again spend eight weeks on this unit, learning how to write from the ground up.  I remember learning in this fashion as a sophomore in high school, so I figure I'll be able to instruct the kids on the fly.  Here's the list of sentence topics we'll cover:

• Complete/Fragment
• Declarative/Interrogative
• Exclamatory/Imperative
• Subjects
• Predicates
• Run-ons
• Descriptive
• Revising

We will then spend four weeks discussing the steps in the writing process.  Along the way, we will learn to use different graphic organizers (scroll down to "Steps..." and see the list in the far right column) as well as how to outline.  Each child will do work that is appropriate for his or her learning level.  Thus, the younger kids (grades 2-4) would probably only use simple graphic organizers, while the older kids (grade 6-9) would learn to outline in greater detail.

The following sixteen weeks will be spent working on writing different types of paragraphs, ultimately working into the five-paragraph essay for the older kids.  The subject matter for these writing exercises will be related to science, history, art, or music.  Kathryn Stout's Comprehensive Composition will be my guide for these units of study.

Tournament Season

It's July, and while we have been to several baseball tournaments since March, I can certainly say that we are "neck-deep" into tournament season right now.  Over the fourth of July weekend we held our incredibly awesome Cincy Flames Summer Classic, which was covered by Travelball Select (TBS): July 4th, July 5th, July 6th Bracket Play, July 6th Championship.  DH, Matt, was the tournament director and he did an awesome job of recruiting 46 teams from 10 different states and coordinating the games for two different facilities, all the while dealing with one heck of a rainout on the 4th!  I think we only got to see dear ol' dad about 4 hours total that weekend.  Sadly, our boys dropped into the consolation bracket, despite going 2-1 in pool play.  Their record tied with a team they lost to in the pool, so the tie-breaker went to that team (head-to-head).  They shouldn't feel bad, since several other TBS honorable mention teams as well as the #14 ranked team (Sluggers, our local rivals) were also nudged out of the championship bracket.  Besides, it was a great fund-raiser for the team!

This past weekend, after a roller-coaster week which included firing the head coach (over how he dealt w/the boys losing), we headed up to Greenfield, IN, home of the Indiana Bandits, for the Mid-America Wood Bat Association 11U World Series.  Once again, the weather wasn't favorable.  Our drive up to Greenfield faced heavy rains, and our games wound up being delayed about three hours.  They lost their first game to another Cincy area team, which may have been due to their getting used to using the wooden bats, but went on to win the second game, ending minutes before it started to thunder and let loose even more rain!  The games on Sunday were delayed, as the hosts could only get one of the smaller fields in playable condition.  That didn't stop the Flames from winning and advancing to the championship game.  The boys played the best baseball game I've seen all year, with awesome defense, smart offense and a sense of relaxation and fun that hasn't been seen in some time.  They went on to win the tournament, which was played against yet another local Cincy team, with the game ending sometime after 9pm.  We didn't get home until close to midnight.

The boys have another 1.5 weeks before their next tournament.  In that time, though, the Flames organization will be hosting the 12U CABA World Series, an event which not only draws teams from the US, but also from Puerto Rico, Mexico, and sometimes Japan and other countries.  Our team's parents will be volunteering for this fund-raiser by working the gates and concession stand.  Then we will be off to Chicagoland for our end-of-the-year tournament, the 11U CABA World Series.  If the same Flames team plays at CABA that played this past weekend, they are sure to have a very high place in the championship!  A highlight of the week-long tournament will be pin trading.  If I can locate an article on that phenomenon, I'll link it later.