2013 Field Trips: George Bush Presidential Library and Museum

We have visited the museum before a couple of times. It is one of our favorite places. Children love the Barbara Bush's children's literacy room with all the books and a mini White House. Dad, being a veteran, revisits the Desert Storm room. I look at a lot of stuff, but the section about the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War comes pretty close. 
This time, we had our sights set mainly on the things related to the White House as it was one of the US symbols we covered in our civics lessons. I believe, Andrew and Saara understood the things they were looking at a bit better as well. And, of course, there was so much more to look at and try out.

Entering the White House.

Through the windows we could peek into (and move around) the different rooms in the White House.

Andrew standing on his tiptoes barely visible.

In the Oval Office.

In the White House.

A future educator? She surely was checking something out on the screen.

2013 Field Trips: College Station: A Community History.

The town next door is turning 75 years old. To celebrate its history, an exhibition was opened at the presidential museum. It was a nicely organized room where information about the city was presented in an inviting, interesting, and friendly way. Andrew and Saara had plenty to look at and take in.

We got to the museum a little early, so Saara and I took a nice walk on the grounds before going in.

All stickered up for the admission.

There was a lot to see. The organizers had clearly thought of children and had included some exhibit-activities for them as well. Here Andrew and Saara are looking for hidden objects.

In the beginning there was the station for the college.

Andrew found this old-time school desk to be really cool.

I learned to type on one of these. For Andrew and Saara it is just an artifact. The early days of the city's newspaper.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 4

This morning, we finished reading "The Family Under the Bridge" by Natalie Savage Carlson. The last words were "The End" and I closed the book. Saara looked at me and asked: "Mom, why did you say 'the end'?" "Because the story ended." "But I do not want the story to end!" This sounded better than the prettiest music to my ears. I smiled and asked them both, what they thought happened next in the lives of the characters. This way the farewell to Armand and the Calcet family gave my kids a little comfort. It is a cute story, although the French names got my tongue in knots. :)

Saara's science. Saara moved from cells on to different categories of animals. After reading, we came outside to take a survey of the animals around our house. The reptiles were the first ones we spotted.

Andrew on the lookout for some animals.

"Mom, how do you spell 'dragonfly'?"

Just one of many insects we met during the survey.

We had to use breadcrumbs to attract the fish and bring them closer to where we were standing.

This was the most perfect ending to our survey: after spotting just a few distant crows, Andrew pointed up and yelled: "Mom, look!" Absolutely gorgeous. At first, I thought they were some sort of cranes, but afterwards Andrew brought out the bird book he had borrowed from the library and we identified them as the Snow Geese.

Back inside, we categorized all the animals we had seen.

Andrew's science. Andrew's science video was about the uniqueness of our skin. The stretchiness of it made a 'caterpillar' move.

The kids also learned how one-of-a-kind they are by comparing their fingerprints.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 3

A frosty sunrise lured us out of doors to check out the magical world of frozen grass. It does not happen every day around here.

This is as close as we get to making tracks in the snow.

 Good grief! :) The minutes dragged on like cold molasses. This is one of those days when the teacher has prepared an awesome day of studying and watching and experimenting and what not. The students, however, are acting like they partied all night and can not get their eyes nor ears focused on much. 

Well, you roll with the punches. Yes, it was a slow paced school day, but we still gnawed our way through the subjects, and not with unhappy faces. I have to review a lot tomorrow, though. Just to make sure what we covered today stuck with them.

Science. Saara started a new theme in her science class: living things. Today, we looked at the cells on video.

... and under the microscope. Our whole house smelled like onions after this experiment.

 

LA. Working through our phonics. Today: soft and hard 'g' sound. Andrew and Saara are more or less on the same level when it comes to reading. So, they do part of their LA class together.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 2

The sure signs of holidays approaching are here: dates are set for concerts and performances. There are only a few practices left of Saara's ballet and both kids' choir and hand bells. 

At home, things are going not as festive yet. It is all rather hard work. The 'painful' subtraction and addition drills are paying off in a major way - Andrew hardly ever uses his fingers now to figure out the differences or sums. It all happens in the head.

I have started to see some progress in his writing as well. All the spelling practices, phonics lessons, grammar rules, etc. we have been through, are starting to yield better writing results. Thank God.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 1

Today was Veterans Day. Dad's holiday. Him being a veteran and all. It was good to have him home while we were doing school. The civics class was extra special as Dad got to hear the kids say the Pledge and sing the national anthem. 
We have had a good time learning about some US symbols. Now, we are ready to move on. As a cherry on the cake, we concluded our symbols studies today by putting together a 3D puzzle of the White House. It was not as easy as it looked.

'13/14 Week 10 Day 4

Andrew's Language Arts class took much longer than I had expected. We took a deeper dive into spelling practice and the rules for capitalizing sentences, names, and titles. Because all of that, we postponed our Science class till Saturday. The rest of the day went as usual. 

Talking about Science. We finally got some flower bulbs for examining a bit closer and for some science experiments. We reviewed the lesson about getting new plants from old ones and started an experiment with carrots. It is going to be interesting to see it it really works.

Bible. Story about how Joshua got tricked by some Canaanites.

Science. Saara's experiment with bulbs. All they need for growing is water and sun light.

Growing plants from kitchen scraps. The new experiment with plants is sitting on top of an earlier one (the garden that does not need watering. Surprisingly, the plants we stuck in the container more than a month ago are still doing well.)