Academy Raiders Blog

Meet the Mancini's

HI!  We are the Mancini's.  My name is Martine and my husband is Mark.  We have five children ages 18, 16, 13, 10 and 5.  Two girls (the oldest two) and three boys.  We've been homeschooling for 12 years off and on (but mostly on).

I was so overjoyed to find the courageous beings web site last winter.  It always seemed like there had to be a better way than textbooks and "unschooling".  My kids "HATED" school and I was at my wits end.    This year even my 18 year old wants to participate!  They keep seeing bits and peices of stuff I am trying to prepare and are very curious.  The girls are helping with some costumes.

We have no pictures to post of our family at the moment as we lost our harddrive last month with 3 years of pictures on it that of course were not backed up anywhere!! 

We are scheduled to start our adventure near the end of October.  I know that that is very late but we generally work our schedule around the Biblical Holy Days.  I sure hope to glean some good stuff from all of you who have already started.  Any pinchpenny ideas would be terrific since we are on a VERY tight budget.

We are soooo anxious to get started!!  See you all on the blog!

Da Vinci Experience

I wanted to share pictures of the museum exhibit we went to as our Being There for Brain Week.  We bought t-shirts there and will use them as our field trip t-shirts for the year!  This exhibit has recreated models (some working) of DaVinci's inventions and sketches.  My kids loved it!

This is a war machine with rotating scythes, pulled by horses.

They had a series of pulleys set up for the kids to try out and see how easier it was as you add more and more pulleys to lift the same weight.

My son, t, attempting to assemble a portable bridge that DaVinci designed.

t very proud of assembling the portable bridge!

DaVinci's tank

My oldest, T, assembling a paper parachute in DaVinci style.

Here is my youngest, S, turning wooden gears designed by DaVinci.

There was also a room of mirrors which was really fun, the kids got in, we shut the door and they tried to "get lost" in the room, not knowing where the exit door was.  Does it always take soooooo loooong to load photos through Typepad?

New Raiders Family

Hello! My name is Dionne and I have three children, 12 y/o boy (T), 8 y/o boy (t) and 5 y/o girl (S).  We started the Raiders adventure the first week of Sept, so we are just finishing up Three Bags Full.  I will post pics of what we have done so far.  I first heard Karen speak over two years ago while we lived in southern CA and I knew it was something I had to make a part of our lives.  It resonated so strongly with me.  I really want to inspire greatness in my children, not require the minimum and recreate school at home.  I attempted a short EPIC right after I first heard Karen.  It combined Rwanda, service, and gorillas.  It went well...until we had to move to Utah halfway through the summer!  Then I tried creating an EPIC last year called Fight for the Right which involved wars throughout history that my boys were interested in and how they are soldiers in the great fight against evil.  That went about a month, before I became overwhelmed with creating inquiries that my kids weren't very excited about.  Then this summer, we did a short EPIC to prepare for our vacation to Yellowstone.  Again, it lasted about two weeks.  So, I am here to learn at the Master's feet (Master Karen!) and get some momentum to keep my own adventures going!  :)  We are having a great time, and I am especially happy to see my boys learn to weave, sew, and do other things they would normally have not undertaken, but in this context, they are very excited about their projects!

Here we are at the DaVinci Experience, our first Being There!