18th straight win on our home turf!

1968 yellow Corvette what a nice ride!

Homecoming week has come and gone but we have lots of memories!  The 3 youngest Elliott boys came to see the oldest 3 Elliott boys.  Dalton threw for 2 td's and ran one in and had one fumble recovery. Tanner ran in 2 td's and had one pick in win over Randolph 38-14.  Next week we head down the road to JWP.  Always a battle with the Bulldogs.

Homecoming 2012

This week the boyz have homecoming and Tanner was a senior candidate with classmate Megan .  What a great honor and as you can tell everyone is having a great time.  Dalton and his teammate Matt had a great Raider Day skit.  We are all ready to take on Randoff and the boyz are ready to try some new plays.  Rankings are out and the Radiers have a QRF rating is #1 baby.

Nicollet gets defensive in 9-Man football win over Cleveland

By Chad CourrierFree Press Staff Writer

CLEVELAND — Cleveland was controlling the football and playing physically, which was the worst-case scenario for Nicollet.

But an early goal-line stand showed that the smaller Raiders could play defense.

“That was huge,” Nicollet coach Tom Murphy said. “Cleveland is big and physical, and they really took control up front on that first drive. But to come out of that first half without giving up any points, that was big.”

Nicollet used big plays to offset Cleveland’s time of possession advantage to win 28-14 in a Southern Confederacy nine-man game Friday night at Cleveland.

Cleveland had 78 plays, including 54 rushes, while Nicollet had only 49 plays. However, Nicollet had two more yards in total offense.

“Their time of possession advantage was huge,” Murphy said. “But we made some big plays. This team isn’t as fast as last year’s team, but we still run pretty well.”

In the first quarter, Cleveland had a 14-play drive that covered 61 yards and took more than five minutes, but the Raiders held on a fourth down at the 6, setting the tone for most of the game.

“Our defense is like a family,” senior linebacker Tanner Elliott said. “We all run to the ball, and we trust each other. We don’t get that stop if we don’t trust each other.”

In the second quarter, Nicollet scored first on a 30-yard pass from receiver Evan Guffey to tight end Jay Hendrycks, and Matt Fischer’s PAT kick made it 7-0 with 4:53 left before halftime.

Before the end of the half, Nicollet added another touchdown on Tanner Elliott’s 1-yard run. The score was set up by a 49-yard pass from Dalton Elliott to Guffey.

Nicollet made it 22-0 in the third quarter on a 3-yard run  by Tanner Elliott, one play after Dalton Elliott passed 20 yards to Guffey.

“The offensive line did a great job tonight,” Tanner Elliott said. “They really set the tempo.”

Cleveland’s first score came on the last play of the third quarter on a 4-yard run by Joe Green.

Nicollet answered with a 3-yard pass from Dalton Elliott to Guffey, and Cleveland ended the scoring on a 2-yard pass from Josh Plonsky to Spencer Davies.

Dalton Elliott completed 7 of 17 passes for 190 yards, and Guffey had five receptions for 174 yards.

“Dalton did a good job of keeping plays alive and making things happen,” Murphy said.

Cleveland had 176 yards on 54 rushing attempts. Plonsky rushed for 55 yards and passed for 97 yards.

Cleveland (3-1) plays Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman on Friday, while Nicollet (4-0) hosts Randolph.

“Our goal at every practice is to get better at something,” Tanner Elliott said. “Conditioning, blocking, tackling. After tonight, we have to work on pursuing and wrapping up.”

God’s Eyes and Apple Eating

This morning’s handwork was making Eye of God and/or a woven spider web.  The kids enjoyed it so much they continued to make them for most of the afternoon, especially Cyan.  She has made 4 so far.  All more beautiful than the last!

This is Alex’s:

Isn’t it lovely!?! I just love how he used the blue in the midst of all these drab colors.

This afternoon was dedicated to using up the last of two laundry baskets of apples we had gotten from a dear friend.  I made batch after batch of applesauce.  And after I was done and tired of it, Cyan took over and made yet another batch.  We now have 18 quarts in the garage and more in the kitchen and still had enough left over for some for dinner tonight!

In Logan’s last workbox today was ‘make fresh apple pie with mommy’ and he just loved helping me prepare a pie for the family.  We made the whole thing from scratch and fresh apples.  No store bought dough or pie filling in this baby… Logan really honed his rolling pin skills!

With the left over dough he got to make his own little ‘pielette’. He just LOVED that!

As I put the kids to bed this evening I realized that even my ‘treat’ to myself tonight was apple:

Tis the season!

Happy FALL!!!

Week 4 - Raiders start the year 4 - 0
It was the hardest hitting game of the season and the Raiders were ready to play.  Tanner had 21 tackles and Dalton had 3 interceptions on defense.  On offense Tanner had 2 rushing TD's and Dalton throw for a TD.  The RV made it's maiden Raider tailgate run and it appears a good time was had before the game.  Over the past 3 years as the AD Tamara has made some friends from the area schools and Cleveland in particular.  So the rivalry week started with trash texting last Saturday and ended with Nicollet winning it's 7th varsity game versus Cleveland in a row.  For Tanner it was 10 - 0 versus Cleveland going all the way back to 7th grade.  This coming Friday will be Nicollet's Homecoming and festivities start Sunday with the coronation of the king and queen.  Tanner is one of the king candidates and Tamara has lined up a yellow 68 Corvette convertible for the half parade.  Weather is suppose to be 75 and sunny, so should be a great night for a football game.

Autumn copywork, pressing leaves, and preserving spiderwebs

We have been very focused on the changes going on in nature right now. The nights are getting colder and the days are getting shorter quickly. It is very clearly almost fall.

Logan got his first taste of copywork today.  We copied a Waldorf poem onto watercolor paper and he wanted to be included… so I had him write the last lines on his watercolor sheet.  I think he did a fantastic job!

Here was Cyan’s copy work.  Her painting and her handwriting were just lovely.  They both are on the nature table now.  I knew it wouldn’t stay empty for long!

Today for Kindergarten science we pressed leaves! As we went on our nature walk he found fallen leaves and brought them in to press.

He loved the ones that still had green on them because they were ‘pretty’.

Then, along with the siblings, we preserved spiderwebs!  First, we went on a spiderweb hunt around the yard.  The best ones were found on the rhododendron bushes in the back of the yard.  They were still complete, even though there was no spider in them. 

Most garden spiders build a new web every night, so I didn’t feel bad about taking the three that we had found as it won’t take the spider long to build a new one.  I was careful, however, not to spray paint a web with a spider in it. 

The two we found with spiders sitting in the center of their webs we left alone, but we spent some time observing the spiders that lived there, and noting their brown and yellow markings (making them a type of ‘garden spider’).

I preserved the web by holding up some cardboard behind the empty spiderweb and spray painting (very gently and from over a foot away) the web.  I took about 20 minutes to let that dry.  Then I sprayed a sheet of cardstock with Elmer’s spray glue and waited until it was good and ‘tacky’.  Then I slid the cardstock behind the painted web, and gently pulled it forward until the web was stuck to the sheet of paper and this is what I ended up with:

We did two, and although you can see the color on the black sheet better in photos, I like the detail you can see clearly on the white sheet… which doesn’t show up in pictures as well, but is quite amazing in person!  We added these to sleeves in the kids nature notebooks after some fun up close observation and now they will have a spiders web to study at will!

It was a neat project to do after yesterday’s school project of reading about spiders and trying to make our own webs!

 

What a fun and awesome school day!

Week 3 Nicollet 28 - WWG 12 - Tabor came home from school to help do the defensive stats for the game, after being the fill-in videographer for last weeks game.
Best team Nicollet has faced so far this season.  The Chargers can to hit and it was a hard fought contest.  The Elliott boyz combined for 198 yards rushing (Tanner - 102 & Dalton 96) and both had a rushing TD.  Dalton also threw for 126 yards with a TD.  WWG scored both their TD's on special teams mistakes, one on a bad snap over punters head and one on a blocked punt.  Offensively they could get nothing going against a very swarming Nic defense.  At one point the coach in the both was overheard telling the head coach if we can't block that #40 (Tanner) we are not going to be able to run outside.  Bottom picture is Tanner after a hard 4 yard run and he broke 2 snaps on his chinstrap on the hit.  New HS rules, if a player loses his helmet he needs to come off for 1 play and with it being 4th a goal from the 3 yard line and no RB, coach took a knee with 1:07 on the clock and a 16 point lead.  Def. finished the game out and the celebration was on.  This is the 1st time Nic has beaten WWG 3 years in a row, with 2 of 3 coming on their field.
Next week is the Hwy 99 battle as the Raiders travel 16 miles to Cleveland for the annual battle with the Clippers.  Nic is currently on a 6 game win streak versus the Clippers and looking to make it 7.  Tanner has never lost to the Clippers at any level of Football and he is going to make sure the rest of the Raiders are ready to go out with a perfect record.  Cleveland is much improved this year and it will be two 3-0 teams going at it.  Only one will be 4-0.

Week 2 Nicollet 35 - Madelia 8
Very nice game for the Raiders as they took it to the conference rival Blackhawks.  Dalton had a nice night throwing the ball, with 4 TD's and zero int's.  Tanner with limited carriers had 70 yards and a TD.  Nice defensive night as the Raiders shutdown the Blackhawk passing game and forced them to run the ball with very limited success.  Big win with no injuries, what more can you ask for.

I'm so taking credit for the latest fb art project!  and yes if my kids had a tatoo it would read I luv MOM

First day of school learning

The first day of school went well.  We were a little bit off schedule as we had an unexpected (but welcome) visitor.  Our first order of the day was to change out the nature table from ‘summer’ to ‘fall’!  The kids handed me stuff as I arranged it on the nature table.  I am sure we will have many more things to add as we take nature walks and get more into the fall season but for now, it’s just lovely and clean.

Box #1: Nature Study!  Today we got to compare bird nests that we have found over the summer.

This was a all kid activity.  They each got one and they described it as the others wrote down what they said on a comparison and contrast worksheet.

Box #2 - Animal Farm Game - was just for Logan.  He read all these and placed them so fast that I think I may have to make some harder cards for him!  The farm is expanding!

 

Box #3 was our interview box.  He wrote his name (with no help, I really wanted to see his progress between now and the end of the year), and then drew a picture of himself.

The interview was here.

Box #4 was a jar and some craft sticks.  Each day we put one craft stick in the jar.  Each tenth day we bundle the craft sticks together showing counting by tens.  However, today we only had one craft stick in our jar.  Hardly picture worthy. 

Box #5 - Cyan and Logan played number dominos!  They were both really good at it.  I am going to have to get a set of real dominos and look up the rules for another day.

Box #6 was wet on wet watercolor.

This was a Cyan and Logan activity.

Box #7 was the Dolch Word Kit.  We just worked on review for today.

Box #8 was Digraph Sorting from Pinterest.

 

Box #9 was a “September Me” from A Year of Kindergarten Writing.

No box #10 today…  just lunch!

All in all it was a great day!