TEASE THE TREES

No, I don't take these things for granted.
Each day is a gift -- live it to the fullest!
My boys on the snowy Utah slopes are
Wondering where their pink and purple
skier is. She was done in her adventure to
TEASE THE TREES ;-)

School Time in Utah

Promontory, Utah is not just somewhere you happen upon. Papa combined history and habitat in one trip. It was BRILLIANT! At this spot in May 1869, two ends of the United States of America came together. Eras ended and began. In the middle of nowhere in the high desert we did not find the golden spike (that's in the Smithsonian), but a lesson about people, goals and national ideals. So much of our study on deserts has been with pictures of plants or animals on the computer or in books, but we were north of the Great Salt Lake on Monday and there was plenty of real life desert out there! And it was cold! One of the Gs mentioned that many of the deserts in the world are dry and cold. We were there. But better to be there in February than in July- YIKES! that'd be plenty HOT!!! Our history journey has brought us to 1600s so far, but with this trip we are undaunted to travel further along and reach the mid1800s soon enough having learned so much about why this moment in history occurred.

2010 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony Sketches

       G2, Mommy's, G3                    

G1

The Final G Skip Counts by Three

We continue to practice multiplication tables while sitting before a meal or riding in the van. They don't breathe out the answer yet, but soon.

Semi-sequitor, we listened to the a tape recording of The Courage of Sarah Noble on the long drive to CBS, Community Bible Study, this week and my kids were rivoted to how Sarah Noble clung to her courage during the trip with her dad into the colonial wilderness.

BTW, did you know that there is enough iron in Mini Wheats cereal to move around with a magnet?

More Time in the Library's Juvenile Fiction Isle

I found and read Poppy last week just by chance. It was probably the reading level for my oldest child, but he is so busy with his regular reading for school, his multiplication of multiples is kicking his butt AND Bible quizzing for the AWANA competition. So, I had a quick read about the struggles of a field mouse and bad owl character.  I'm now reading a book that would be wonderful for my logic aged kids someday called Shakespeare Stealer.  I don't usually take time to read these days because there seems to be SO much more to do, but it is important to let them, them being the 3Gs, see me read.

I also drew some sketches from the opening ceremonies to demonstrate that there was some imagery that stuck in my brain. I will still ask them to sketch something. What do you remember from the ceremony?

Geography Fair Presentation Test

Today, we visited a teacher-friend's classroom of 5th graders to present about our trip last summer to Turkey. G2 wore her traditional dress and the boys wore their soccer kits. We spoke for close to 30 minutes and shared what was on the 18 notecards that I had prepared. We took questions and the twins did a very good job of sharing eagerly. The older brother was reserved and spoke well and directly to the questions also. I believe they will be ready for the home school geography/science fairs that occur in April and May. I also hope that they will prepare their own presentation from this example some time in the future. We'll see...

We look forward to the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies this evening at 8PM CT. Where will you be? Is Miga or Quatchi or Sumi your favorite Vancouver mascot?

Polar Habitat + Canada Geography Study + 2010 Winter Olympics =

A NOTEBOOK TO COVER THREE (3) curriculum goals at the same time!  (YES, I do have goals this year and printed them into the kids' planners to prove it!)  I used the Hands of a Child materials, inserted some Enchanted Learning graphics/ Venn diagrams AND a lapbook from GraceBoundBooks compiled along with Crayola geography pages about each Canadian Province to cover a country, the olympics and a habitat all in February.  All this Canadian culture came at the same time as SOTW3 chapter 4 about Champlain and Hudson in search of the Northwest Passage.  Otherwise, we'll move onto oceans habitat and oceanography in March with dreams of beaches, sand, sailing and swimming animal life (an odd dream for an Iowa farmgirl to have).

Elemental Science: Transition Metals Copper

Pennies into lemon water make Cu ions.
                
Resulting cleaner pennies with browner nail under examination from the new coating of Cu. I love the notebook format! We are building a notebook for our Chemistry knowledge that we will use later (we're doing an extra special effort to write legibly). I also appreciate the Fizz, Bubble and Flash book we're using for CHEMISTRY!

Another Skip Counts by Three