Math Fun and Christmas Fun

Robin over at martinzoo has a page about their current Christmas unit. We were thankful for many of the links she provided and used some for our own fun. Check out her site as she has many more links!

MATH:

• Santa's Secret Village Time Trainer - telling time - includes word problems in higher levels
• Santa's Secret Village Money Counting Trainer - counting money and making change - also includes word problems
• Cash Out - making change
• Drawing a Christmas tree on a grid - both math and art

CHRISTMAS FUN:

• Decorate your own gingerbread house online
• Concentration games Christmas-style
• Trim a Tree online
• Snowflakes - this is a game we've enjoyed in the past -now is a great time to revisit this site!
• More Christmas Games at a site called northpole.com

Snow!!!

Here are some photos from when Alexandra played with her Nana and Papa in the Kansas snow on Sunday.
Just getting started... smiling for dear old mom and her camera...

Papa is helping Alexandra to get that beautiful "snow look"

Covered in snow... and red cheeks, too...



A little snow fight with Papa...

Kleb Woods Nature Preserve

Well, we're already in Kansas for the start of our Christmas time with our family. We got her last night and Alexandra got to play in a few inches of snow, which is a rare treat. We will continue to do school this week since we missed a week and a half while on our trip to Hawaii and then "recovering" - unpacking, laundry, jet lag, etc. I'll continue to post from here, but I'm unsure as to whether or not I'll be able to post any photos.


On Friday, our group went on its monthly Nature Day to a place called Kleb Nature Preserve. This was a home of a German farmer, Elmer Kleb, who died in 1996 at the age of 92. We had to wonderful leaders, and I thought I'd just copy and paste the "article" I posted to our group about the trip:

We really had a wonderful time at the Kleb Nature Day Friday. In fact, it was one of the best Nature Days I've attended!


Fred Collins was a great nature guide. We went on a short (in distance) 1 hour walk with him. He was surprised at how little ground we were covering, but we were making so many finds! And, he was so good at letting us take the lead.


He started the afternoon by having the kids fill out a paper listing the current conditions - time, temperature, cloud cover, etc. Then, we went on our walk looking for biodiversity. We were recording each species we saw - whether plant or animal (mainly insects and spiders) - and then we were to count them and compare that count to another count. (We were planning on doing a second walk that day, but the day became long. So, those who went can either do their backyard or some other place to make comparisons. )


We started out mainly noticing plants - trees, weeds, mushrooms. Besides the mushrooms, he knew all of them and could even tell us stories about a lot of them! For example, he told us about Yaupon holly, alix vomitoria. This plant was "discovered" by Ponce de Leon when he went to an Indian ritual. They were brewing this plant into a tea and drinking many cups of it until they were vomiting. According to Wikipedia, it wasn't the tea itself causing the vomiting, but either the large quantities they were drinking or it was a learned behavior. Anyway, that's how the plant got its name. He also identified Yankee Weed for us, which he says got its name because it was "good for nothing." (And, yes, I'm a Yankee.)


Then, we started noticing spiders and insects. Again, he could identify most of them. We had some great finds - daddy longlegs, a sulfur butterfly, a long legged spider who had a fly he was preparing to eat, baby millipedes, a "baby" walking stick (that kept curling its tail like it was a scorpion!), a "baby" praying mantis... Anyway, there were just LOTS of great finds!!! I think it really helped that we were walking very slowly and really searching for insects and plants that we hadn't seen yet.


After the walk, we went inside where one of the moms had printed off coloring sheets of cardinals and roadrunners. We passed around bird books so the kids could see what they looked like. And, the nature center fed us a snack of apple juice, cookies, and muffins!


Then, it was back outside to go on the tour of the homestead. Ms. Linda was another great leader and was full of fun and interesting stories and laughter! She even demonstrated some German to the kids. We got to look at a lot of the old horse-drawn farm equipment that Mr. Kleb used, and hear fascinating stories about this man.


It was a great day and I believe I'll start taking our nature walks slower and carrying a clipboard, as we did, to list all of the species we see. I think this will help us to notice more or God's fascinating creation!

"new" bird sightings!

Since we only started birding last spring, this is our first "winter" to identify birds! And, we've had 3 new types of birds this week! Today, we identified two of them, but still haven't figured out what the third type is yet.

We have a yellow rumped warbler - see photo, which is too far away, but the best I could do. I'm looking at a new camera with a zoom lens for Christmas. My husband can use my not-so-old camera sometimes, and I'll probably continue to carry it around in my purse a lot. I'll save the "bigger"and "better" camera for birding in my backyard, nature trips, and other such things.

The second bird I haven't gotten a photo of yet. It's a titmouse! He is SO cute! And, I believe it is a black-crested titmouse, not a tufted titmouse. I'll have to check better next time I see him/her.

Anyway, Alexandra and I are really enjoying the birds. We installed a new bird-feeding pole with 4 bird feeding stations 2 nights ago. And, today, we put peanut butter and a bagel and covered it with bird seeds.

So far, the squirrels can't get to our feeders. Hopefully, it stays like that! (And, the neighbor's cat can't get to them, either!!!) We saw a little squirrel standing on her tip-toes under the feeder smelling the food. We felt sorry for her and set her out a plate of nuts and bird seed. She ate all of it except the peanut butter. :-)

Gingerbread House

I know I'm way behind on all of the Christmas things I should be doing... buying presents, wrapping gifts, sending out Christmas cards... but I want to make Christmas memories with Alexandra. I want this to be a fun season. So, we turned on some Christmas music and spent the evening decorating a gingerbread house. It fell apart several times before we got it to stay together. It was lots of hard work! But, worth it. :-) (And, of course, we had a few samples along the way.)

I also tried some Horizons organic low fat egg nog - and it was great!!!

Winter Math Fun

We've been having some fun with math this week using some things I've printed off from Mathwire. We printed off some little gingerbread men markers to play multiplication bingo. (These little men were actually for a different math game we played, too.)

And, today, we colored this gingerbread house using coordinate graphing.

Mathwire has LOTS of fun math games for elementary kids, so check it out!

Maui: Day 3

On Day 3, we drove up the volcano, Haleakala. It was actually windy and rainy at our resort, but it was sunny... and cold... on the volcano. The crater is at a little over 10,000 meters and we passed through the clouds to get to the top.

Above is a photo of a silversword plant. This plant was near extinction in the 1920's and is now protected. It is found only in Maui in the Haleakala National Park. The plant only blooms once in its life, usually in June or July, and then it dies.

Above is a silversword that has already bloomed.

This is a photo of our family at the rim of the crater of Haleakala. The crater is huge at about 7 miles across.

The crater is dotted with numerous cinder cones. You can actually hike down into this area, but we didn't. And, many people get up at about 4 in the morning to drive up the volcano and watch the sunrise. But, we preferred to sleeep in.

Alexandra took part in earning her first Junior Ranger badge, which you can earn after you turn 7. When she handed in her workbook with her answers, which we all learned from, the Park Ranger spent about 10 minutes going over her answers with her and discussing things with her. It was a great learning experience. She even took a pledge to protect wildlife, etc, when she was done. Then, the Park Ranger announced that they had their newest Junior Ranger and the 20+ customers applauded.

Here's Alexandra with her Junior Park Ranger badge.

That evening, we watched a wind surfer. It was amazing. He would travel so fast and go so far out! The first time, I was worried that he couldn't make it back. But, next thing I knew he was zipping back in towards shore. Then, back again out into the ocean. What a fun ride!

Maui: Day 2

On Day 2 in Maui, I went SCUBA diving for the first time ever! My time started with a lesson in the pool where we learned about all the equipment. We also learned what to do if our mask filled with water, if we lost our mouth piece, if our tank ran out of oxygen... all those scary things. Then, we tried it out in the pool. This was the same pool Alexandra was swimming in - well, she was around the corner. (That's me on the left in profile.)

We then put on all our gear and our tanks and walked the short walk to the beach. We got in the water, inflated our suits, got on our back and put on our flippers. Then, we swam out deeper. The deepest our dive went was 25 feet.

I was kind of disappointed that I hadn't thought to bring our underwater camera, but I was also grateful I didn't have one more thing to worry about. I was actually quite nervous and wasn't sure I could do this! But, it all worked out fine and I will do it again any time I get the chance! I wish my guide/photographer would have taken more photos (he only used 12 of 24) and especially taken more of the coral, fish, etc. But, I'm grateful for what I have! (And, I'll just have to go diving again!!!) Above is some coral. We collected 3 nice size pieces of this white coral on the shore. We didn't see any shells - just coral.

Me with a large anchor. The instructor said a boat had found this deeper and they'd brought it in closer. I'm not sure if it was specifically for the divers or what, but I enjoyed seeing it. It is covered in coral and possibly other things.

Another photo with the anchor.

A photo of just the anchor - you can see the coral growing on it.

I meant to look this up, but I think I'm holding a sea urchin. It was fat and puffy, but hard and bumpy on the surface. The instructor gently picked it up and handed it to me and I was impressed with how he put it back exactly where he found it.

I was amazed at how the only thing you hear while you're diving is your own breathing. (It's actually quite peaceful.) Well, actually twice I heard myself give out a muffled yell. :-) Once when we spotted the sea turtle and once when I thought I saw an eel, but it wasn't. Both times I felt kind of silly as no one could hear me. And, it's a little frustrating when you can't get anyone's attention to show them something, like a neat fish I saw.

Here's me with the sea turtle! That was the coolest thing I saw and it actually happened just minutes into the 45 minute dive. I actually got to pet him! (Wish that would have been in the photo.) He was covered in green algae or something. Just a really neat experience!!! In fact, my souvenir for our trip was a carved sea turtle.

Me again on top of the coral reef. There was lots of coral everywhere we swam. Besides coral and the sea turtle, I saw lots of fish, though none bigger than a foot or so. The colors were beautiful as we weren't very deep. I also saw lots of sea urchins, though very different from the one I'm holding. Most of them had lots of long spikes and they were hidden within the coral. There were beautiful colors - purple, red... I wish I had photos!

My instructor/photographer motioned for me to make this sign. :-) (If you enlarge the photo, you can see a little black fish with a white tail under my belly in this photo.)

Me again. I wasn't sure what to do as you really can't smile. :-) (In this photo, you can see some more colorful coral in the foreground.)

Me in the front with my 2 diving buddies in the background. They were from Seattle, I believe. He'd went diving once before but it was her first time, too.

The rest of the day we spent on the beach. This was only our 2nd day and our last day of nice weather, though we had some nice weather moments. Besides running in the waves, Alexandra and I spent some time making sand art. The sand is just perfect for making sand art. I even taught Alexandra how to make a tunnel in the sand - something she'd never done before. (This is a photo of my starfish.)

Maui: Day 1

I have SO many photos from Maui (about 500!) that I'm not sure where to start. :-) I wanted to go by "themes", but I think going day by day would be easier. So, here's Day 1.

We were staying at a resort and they had a pond with koi, a pair of geese, and some flamingos in it. Before breakfast, we went to the pond to feed the koi. Well, this goose came up wanting some food and Alexandra fed him. He ate right out of her hand!

We ate at the outdoor buffet every morning for breakfast (except for the last day, because of weather) and there were so many birds around! As you can see from this little sparrow, they even landed on our chairs! Anytime people left a table, they flew over to the table and hopped on the plates looking for something to steal. It was pretty funny! I had to go out and buy a Hawaii bird book and I'll share more of our birding experiences later.

That night, we went to a luau. The weather was beautiful and the food was good. And, of course we were entertained! Our favorite was the fire dancer.

Here's a photo of Alexandra and I in our matching Hawaiian dresses. We actually went to Maui just about 3 years ago and we'd bought matching dresses at that time. Of course, Alexandra's is much too small now (but, mine still fit!). So, we went hunting for a dress for her. We were so surprised to find they were still selling this dress!

I guess I have these photos out of order as this was a photo from before the luau as we were waiting in line by the beach. Not too bad of a place to wait in line, huh?

This was our main activity at the beach - running from the waves. As the week went on, the weather got worse & worse and the waves got higher & higher. So, there was more to run from! Alexandra had a blast doing this and I loved watching her... and joining in sometimes.

At the pond at the resort, there was a waterfall you could walk behind. This is a photo from behind the waterfall. And, the sunglasses were on the bed - on a bunny made of towels! Alexandra wore them all week. They also left her 3 rubber duckies in the bathroom - 2 girls with leis and a boy with an innertube. And, they'd spelled "Alexandra" on the tub wall with wicki stix.

Lastly, here's a kind of blurry video of the fire dancer from the luau.

Aloha!!!

Aloha, everyone! Sorry I've been absent. We just spent a week in Hawaii! We had lots of fun. We played on the beach and laid out by the pool, went swimming, went to the top of a volcano, did a little hiking, some bird watching, went in a submarine, and I went SCUBA diving for the first time ever! I have hundreds of photos to work through, so it'll take me awhile to share it all. And, I have PILES of laundry to do. :-) But, it was so nice to just take off for awhile.

So, start checking back and I'll hopefully get some photos of our trip to Hawaii posted soon - hopefully tonight!

Hope everyone is enjoying their December and preparations for Christmas. I haven't even bought 1 Christmas present yet, but I'll get it done. And, of course, no Christmas cards have went out yet. And, I'm so thankful we got our house decorated over Thanksgiving while we had family here to help.

We'll take the rest of today "off" and then get busy for the holidays and try to squeeze in some more school! I think we'll actually be trying to squeeze in some field trips, too!