Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pi Day on 3/14

I've been browsing through blogs on the Learning in the Great Outdoors blog carnival and came across a great blog called Open Wide, Look Inside. It's a blog about "using poetry and children’s literature across the curriculum." The blogger, Tricia, announced that it's Pi Day tomorrow! (Get it? Pi is 3.14 and tomorrow is 3/14)

So, I thought Alexandra and I would "celebrate" Pi Day and learn about Pi, which I don't think we've ever discussed. As Tricia suggested, we will start by measuring some different sized cylinders (oatmeal box, canned fruit, etc) and then divide the circumference by the diameter. We will also read some of the books by Cindy Neuschwander, like Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi. I'm still reseraching, so I don't know what else we'll do for Pi Day, but I'll keep you posted.

Will you celebrate Pi Day with us? A "traditional" celebration includes eating pizza pie or a fruit pie. That might be our dinner and dessert. Yum!

By the way, March 14th is also Einstein's birthday!

Pioneers & The Boston Tea Party

We've been having fun making our Boston Tea Party lapbook that we got free at Homeschool Helper. We also watched Schoolhouse Rocks' No More Kings. Now we're trying to decide which lapbook to do next week. We will probably do either Rechenka's Eggs or Legend of the Easter Egg from Homeschool Share next week for Easter. I have both books on request and they're both "in transit." I like that these lapbooks (including the Boston Tea Party book) are based on great books! But, I wish they were more colorful.

The Boston Tea Party Historical Society's website is also good. To finish up our study tomorrow, I plan on looking at their picture gallery, using their reinactment script using dolls or Littlest Pet Shops or something, and printing out the poster to add to the lapbook - maybe as its cover.

And, after "school" yesterday, we went to our library for a Pioneer Day. I'm so glad we invited some friends to join us at the park first - it was a beautiful day! And, at the library, the kids had great fun making a corn husk doll, making butter, and eating beef jerky and Johnny Cakes. We didn't quite get the doll finished, so we plan on finishing it here at home. And, Alexandra had never tried beef jerky before and really liked it! I'd never tried it before either, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. :-)

(Great book we read: Joining the Boston Tea Party by Diane Stanley (The Time-Traveling Twins)

We also enjoyed two activities from the Boston Tea Party Ship Museum's website. We built the above model of the Beaver, one of the boats that was part of the Boston Tea Party. And, we printed out and read an entertaining and informative "newspaper" account of the Boston Tea Party.

Math Splat (Fractions) & Boston Tea Party lapbook

We had a really nice day. The sun was out and we started school very late - about 11 am - but we got to take our time and got finished around 5 pm. We did eat lunch and run some errands during that time. Then, I cooked dinner before Alexandra headed to gymnastics. And, we did some of our school time in the garage with the door open! We're going to have to do that again!

Yesterday, Alexandra finished her first book in a new series, "Key to...", that we're trying out. She finished level 1 of Key to Fractions, so we played some online fraction games today. Her favorite by far was Math Splat.

I know I haven't been posting much about our (very SLOW) studies in American History. We recently finished our studies of Colonial America and started studying the American Revolution times yesterday with a book, George vs. George: The Revolutionary War as Seen by Both Sides by Schanzer.

Well, today we were going to concentrate on the Boston Tea Party and Rhonda at Alston Academy sent me a link for free lapbooks. Well, I haven't really enjoyed lapbooks very much in the past, but Alexandra has loved them. And, they happened to have a lapbook about The Boston Tea Party! And, I love 2 things about it: they don't give you all the answers BUT they give you a few books (in the case, 2) where you CAN find the answers! Oh, we're really enjoying this! We own one of the books, so we've started with that and I hope I can get the other one from the library in the next few days. And, I think I see a lot of lapbooks in our future...


While we were in the garage doing school, Alexandra saw a big heron fly by. A few minutes later, he came back and perched on the roof across the street from us! We usually see these birds in the water, not perched on a roof! It was an amazing site to see and I'm glad he stuck around long enough for me to take some photos. And, I identified him as a great blue heron (they stand almost 4 foot tall!)- he even had the ornate plumes on his/her head, but they're hard to see in this photo. You might try enlarging!

Green Hour Challenge #3 and My Nature Journal

We really completed Barb's Challenge at The Heart of Harmony last SATURDAY, but I'm just getting around to posting it. (Correction: We did the nature walk, but not the drawing last Saturday!) Besides a reading assignment from Handbook of Nature Study, we were to take a 15 minute nature walk (ours was over 5 hours last weekend!), and then create an entry in your nature journal. Alexandra drew in her Nature Journal, too.



I've decided to post my entire nature journal, since it is so small! I find I really enjoy drawing in my journal, but don't take the time to do it very often. And, I really never drew much as a child or adult and am surprised at how much I like my drawings. Except for the spider weaving its web and the tree, all of my drawings have been from photos. So, above is the photo I used to draw, and below is my drawing.




The rest of these are drawings (and the photos I've used) I've done over the past 6 months. I like Charlotte Mason's idea to use nature journals, and I hope to use it more faithfully with our nature walks. I try to date and title my drawings and say a little about the item. I'd like to add poetry or more of my thoughts in the future. I know I will always treasure my journal and I hope Alexnadra treasures hers, too.



I bought Pocketful of Pinecones 2 weekends ago and have really enjoyed reading it. I love the part where the mom discovers her journal from her childhood. I hope to hang onto ours forever!

This Week's Wrap Up

We've had a busy week. (As usual, right?)


On Monday, we watched the baby of one of our neighbor's. We babysat for 6 hours to a 9 month old boy. Alexandra was SO helpful and I got to brush up on some baby skill as we await our new baby cousin in a few months. Alexandra even fed him his bottle and rocked him to sleep!

On Tuesday, we stated a kit about electricity. We used static electricity to pick up small pieces of paper with a comb and also to bend a stream of water - VERY cool!!!



On Wednesday, we went to our small co-op and the mom & girls taught us how to loom knit! We are working on purses using wool yarn that we will then felt. I'll tell you more when we get to that step! We also had some fun with fractions at Mathwire.

We also played a new math fraction game, Closest to 1, which I found online but can't find right now. Each person is dealt 3 cards (take out J's, Q's, & K's). Then, make as many fractions as you can (you should make 6) and record each of them on a slip of paper. Then, calculate the decimal equivalent to the nearest 100th and write it down on the slip of paper. For example, 4/5 would be 0.80. I like going to the nearest 100th because then you can compare it to money! For difficult numbers, use a calculator. This is a good time to reinforce that the line in a fraction, like 1/2, means "divided by." After each person has their 6 answers, they should put them in order from smallest to largest and then determine which of their cards is closest to 1.00. (Again, use the concept of money, even draw a dollar sign, if this helps.) Then, compare your "closest" card with your opponents and whoever's is closest, wins! We played this several times and Alexandra really enjoyed it. She even wanted to play it at night!

On Thursday, we prepared for our Friday's book club by making a model of the Empire State Building with a "giant" peach on top. Then, Alexandra wrote a newspaper article about the amazing event from the book, James and the Giant Peach.




And, on Friday, we went to the book club and the girls made peach cobbler as their group acitivity. It was really good! They also shared their projects and had a group discussion.

Afterwards, Alexandra and I went clothes shopping and then she went to a Friday night out event at her gym while my husband and I went out to eat and then I went to Barnes & Noble. I got a book for me, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and a book for Alexandra that she really enjoyed from the library last week, The Matchlock Gun.

Ben Franklin, Georgia O'Keeffe & 5 Senses books

Lately, we've read quite a few books about the 5 senses, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Benjamin Franklin. We haven't done any projects, so I thought I'd just list our resources:

5 SENSES:

• books by Patrick Murphy - they have single word titles like Touch and Smell
• books by Vicki Cobb like Open Your Eyes: Discover Your Sense of Sight - these are interesting books which also have demos and activities for you to do

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN:

• How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning by Schaner - if I was to buy one book about Franklin, I would probably buy this one - interesting and great overview
• A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin by David A Adler - we always enjoy his books
• Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin by Barretta - fun book which shows how our lives are different because of Ben
• Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares by Frank Murphy
• The Many Lives of Benjamin Franklin by Aliki

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

• Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists: Georgia O'Keeffe by Mike Venezia - we always enjoy these books which are informative and fun
• My Name is Georgia by Jeannette Winter
• Georgia O'Keeffe by Linda Lowery
• Georgia's Bones by Jen Bryant
• Through Georgia's Eyes by Rodriquez

A Jumpstart on the Charlotte Mason Approach

I recently watched a video by Cindy Rushton, a CM homeschooler. Here's a link to a free e-zine she has temporarily online called A Jumpstart on the Charlotte Mason Approach. I haven't had a chance to read through it, but I started it and it looks helpful! She will also have an online CM virtual seminar this weekend. You might want to check it out!

Stealing Some Breakfast...

This squirrel seems to really be enjoying my new feeder. I'm planning on moving the little dish she's sitting in.

Nature Fest 2008

We went to Nature Fest 2008 this weekend at Jesse H. Jones State Park. We'd been there last year, too, and really enjoyed it.

These animal heads were donated by a man upon his death for the education of children. The kids are allowed to touch, take photos of, even kiss these animals. We learned about horns and antlers - horns continue to grow each year and have a removable sheath while antlers are shed each year. The shed antlers are quickly eaten by other animals.

We were at the nature fest for about hours and Alexandra made friends with this little girl. Here, they are playing a game where you match the paw print to the animal. They played it 3 times!

We went on one organized walk - an insect walk. This is a cricket I found. The guide taught us how to tell a female cricket from a male cricket - the female has a long ovipostor which is easily seen. I was so excited when we found several more crickets and I was able to show the children which were males and which were females!

On the insect walk, the guide took a net and went through a field of tall grass. She came up with LOTS of spiders! Then, the kids (Alexandra and her friend were at first the only kids - then a school group of about 40 kids joined us!) started finding all kinds of things on their own - including this large spider (over 1.5 inches long) and a little frog. The guide (a naturalist) told us it was either a grass spider or a nursery spider - you can't tell without looking at some internal organs.
Here's a very wiggly chrysalis that one of the girls found - she told me she did not pull it off of a tree branch, but I wasn't so sure. One of the guides put it up in a tree and hopefully it will emerge OK.

This is a sad photo of the trash in one of the ponds. I wish I would have got the shot while I was reaching for my camera - the turtle actually tried to bite this tube of Carmex! I wish we could have fished the trash out.

There were several hands-on booths - including this one where you could pet the baby alligator (ain't he cute?), a snake (I decided not to add a photo, but I loved letting the snake crawl around on me!), a turtle, hermit crabs, and blue crabs.

And, I don't think I've ever seen someone holding a scorpion! We learned something from her, too. The bigger the pinchers, the less venemous a scorpion is! She had a little bitty scorpion with small pinchers and she said he was much more venemous. Because they have large pinchers, they don't need as much venom.

This isn't as nice a photo - it is focused on his pinchers, though, and you can see hairs on the pinchers! Anyway, you can see the venom sack (I don't know if this is the correct term) by his stinger!
Here Alexandra is holding a hermit crab.

And, we learned from last year to go fishing FIRST! The fish get full and don't bite well in the afternoon. While we were at the pool for about 10 minutes, 3 kids caught catfish which are then put back in the pool. But, unfortunately, Alexandra didn't catch any.

Lichens

On Saturday, we went to Nature Fest at the Jesse H. Jones State Park. I was so excited to see a display about lichens, since we'd found several last week and had become interested in them.

One of the things I'd read online about lichens was that they can be used to make dye. The park had a craft table with various things made into dyes - onions, black walnuts, some kind of flower, and lichens!!! How cool is that? I asked how they made it, but the girls at the station were just helping with the craft and hadn't helped make the dyes.

I'd also read online that there were 3 main kinds of lichen. The display actually had samples of all three! FRUTICOSE are wiry and bush like.

FOLIOSE are abover the bark and leaf like.

And CRUSTOSE are part of the bark - crusty.

This is the sample Alexandra had found - it is very much like the foliose samples on their displays.

I think this must be foliose, too - it is not hairy or crustlike and looks more like leaves.

And, I think this must be foliose, too, for the same reasons.

They also had a few posters teaching about lichens. Part of the poster above says: LICHENS are symbiotic relationships between members of up to 3 kingdoms: fungi, algae, and blue-green algae. The dominant partner is fungus.

Fungi are incapable of making their own food. And algae produce food and energy through photosynthesis. The fungus surrounds the algae, protecting it from drying out, and lives off the food it provides.

Lichens do not flower, instead the produce spores.

Lichens are the most dominant and often overlooked vegetation.

This poster has the more interesting facts:

LICHENS are eaten by squirrels and deer.

LICHENS are used by flying squirrels as nest material first and then eaten during winter. (Eat your house - cool!)

LICHENS are used by hummingbirds, wood pewees and blue-gray gnatcatchers for nest material.

LICHENS are inhabited by lichen moth larvae and waterbears.

LICHENS are utilized by American indians as dye stuff for leather and textiles.

LICHENS are anazlyzed by biochemists to isolate disease-fighting compounds.

LICHENS are useful as air pollution indicators.

LICHENS make good soup (some).