Memorial Day Garland

This afternoon found us practicing our measuring and cutting and folding skills. We were making pretty stars (Saara called them flowers) from construction paper to decorate our house a bit for Memorial Day. If the garland holds up, I might keep it up until all the red-white-blue holidays are over, that is until Veteran's Day.
I found the project on marthastewart.com (http://www.marthastewart.com/275496/fourth-of-july-crafts-and-memorial-day-c/@center/276964/60-days-summer#/271212). 
For a six-year-old, it was quite a challenge to make the star on his own, so I did the trickiest parts myself. However, it is a good project to practice measuring and marking (it takes a lot to line up the ruler with the dots, hold the ruler still while drawing a line pushing the pencil against the ruler), cutting in a straight line, and folding. I would like to keep doing little crafts like this one, because Andrew really enjoyed the whole process.

Week 35 Day 3

Well, the weather is wonderful outside, but Andrew and I are much under the weather. Yesterday it was so bad, I had to declare it a sick day. Andrew spent most of the morning in bed. Thankfully, he is feeling much better today, his voice is hoarse, and so is mine. In fact, I have no voice. 

Nevertheless, we did all the lessons I had planned for yesterday and on top of that watched a very good show on NatGeoWild about a team of conservationists who took a trip to the Himalayas to find tigers on high altitudes (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2010/09/lost-land-of-the-tiger-filming.shtml). We just covered a long study on the mountains and the kind of animals that live there, the kind of lifestyle people lead. It was fascinating to watch the houses, the people, and, especially, the wildlife. And, yes, they found the tigers living high in the mountains. 

Over the week end, we will get better, celebrate the Memorial Day, and be back on Monday.

Week 35 Day 2

I did not expect our school day to be this quiet. It was loud with learning about Mercury and Venus, about solving math problems and telling time, about reading and describing a new word and it's antonym, about practicing handwriting and rhyming words, about discovering our God given talents, and about so much more. It was all well done. Quietly, without a rush.

Week 35 Day 1

We love our geography lessons! Andrew can not get enough of the rainforests. Today, we looked at how chocolate is made out of coco beans and had a cup of hot chocolate while watching a YouTube video. Also, one-by-one we are finding video clips about different jungle animals. I am learning a lot alongside Andrew, like I was always under the assumption that piranhas will chew your toes off as soon as you poke them into the water. Come to find out, locals swim in the piranha infested waters. Oh, they do occasionally bite and sometimes injure bathers and swimmers, but a piranha bite is considered more an act of carelessness than that of misfortune. 

As we have run out of books to read, we took a trip to the library this afternoon. Andrew liked Robinson Crusoe very much and is looking froward to our next vocabulary learning book about Robin Hood. I also got him some easy readers for our reading practice. Andrew, well, he borrowed a huge number of books about snakes and frogs. No, he is not going to have a pet of that sort. NO! :o)

While we were at the library, I also registered both kids for the summer reading program. That should be fun.

Over the week end I captured on camera a couple of interesting things. First, our grill which has been rusting away quietly, has become a home for a bird family. I have not been able to identify the mommy bird yet, but she definitely has a baby in there. We opened the cover once to take a peek at the baby bird, and have not disturbed the feathered family since. Well, at least somebody is getting some use out of the grill.

Second, on our way to church on Sunday morning we saw a hot air balloon. Because the air is so hot already in Texas one does not see those things around here much. It was fun. Brought us back to our studies about hot air rising, etc.

Memorial Day Poppies

My search for a suitable Memorial Day craft on the Web yielded nothing. Oh, there is a galore of fantastic ideas, but somehow none of them looked appealing enough to try to make with a bunch of 4-to-9-year-olds. That is the age range in my Sunday School class at the moment. So, I rolled up my sleeves and came up with this simple picture that involves just coloring and pasting, and following instructions. For my class, I will prepare all the poppy pieces, so all that is left for the little hands to do is to assemble the flower and glue it together. 

This is what Andrew and Saara will be making on Wednesday evening during their Children's Hour.

Materials needed for the poppy: cupcake liner, red tissue paper, pencil, scissors, black construction paper, glue stick, and one brown craft pom-pom.

Flatten the cupcake liner and use it to trace three circles out of the tissue paper.

Fold each circle in half and cut wavy edges. I cut each circle a bit smaller than the previous one.

The tree layers of the flower are ready to be twisted.

Holding the circle from the center, twist it around.

Untwist the circles.

Add just a dab of glue to the center of the circles and glue them on top of each other.

It is beginning to look like a poppy.

From the construction paper cut out two rectangles 1 1/4" x 3/4" in size. Fold them in half and cut off the folded corners. Cut the open edge into a fringe, open the paper and curl the fringed edges around a pencil.

Glue one fringed paper piece in the center of the layered circles with the curls facing up.

Glue the other piece crossways on top of the first one, again with the fringed edges curling up.

From the pom-pom assortment, find the right size pom-pom.

Glue the pom-pom in the center of the flower.

For my class, I printed out a card I will have the children color and then glue the poppy on the circle in the middle of the card.

Should be easy and fun to make.

Fifth Game. May 19, 2012

 It was a good game. I am amazed at the 'teamwork' the Rattlers have. Their defense is awesome. Because of the shortage of players we had only one sit out a period and the rest endured the heat and the intensity of the game wonderfully. Good job. Andrew had a splendid attitude, quite a little sportsman, wanting and willing to play without stopping. He received a star for going over to a hurt opponent and asking if he was doing all right. Good job.

"Coach, I scored! Did you see that?"

Attack the coach!

Week 34 Day 5

Andrew could not wait for me to read some more about the rainforests and show him some more videos online. We managed to watch only parts of one video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrY1HDHi2-0), but the photography of this one was extraordinary - the colors and the clarity of photos was phenomenal (oh, a blessing to own a camera like this!). The video showed a number of animals and insects that live in the Amazon rainforest. I would not mind watching it again. Over the week end I intend to search for more videos about the wild life in the jungles. Andrew wants to watch again the National Geographic video about gliding animals we found yesterday. It was really good to be able to point out the different equipment and gadgets the biologists used, including a observation platform in the jungle. Cool!

The other thing that both kids were looking forward to was reading the story of Robinson Crusoe for our vocabulary development and the Grain of Rice story that we devoured in two days instead of four. Good stories.

Among other things today, Andrew and Saara enjoyed their language task of sorting words by their vowels as well. It was a good school day. And now - outside! The weather is gorgeous.