Dewberry Picking

Once again, I see how blessed we are living in the country. Instead of having to organize a special trip to a berry farm and pay for picking your own, I took Andrew and Saara out and about our property looking for good dewberry patches. We found some and picked some and ate some. We will do it again as the season has just begun and there are many more berries ripening. It was also a good time to review snake safety and poison ivy safety. Yummy end to a busy day.

Week 32 Day 1

And our crazy week has begun! This is the week that will see our church building up and running in 24 hours. Amazing. Because our family (Dad, really) has been heavily involved for months preparing for this big event, I have planned only a 3-day school week this time. On Thursday, we will still go to the library for story time, but after that it will be all hands on deck for the building project.

As for today, we started off with the science video and learned about the power of air or rather wind. We have to, Mills as we are, we need to be worthy of our name. The more that my Great-grandfather designed and built mills (the waterpower kind, but still).

We built a boat and made it go faster by blowing into the paper sail. Our second project was the most fun with a string drawn from one end of the kitchen to the other and a balloon rocket attached to it. Released air made the balloon zoom across the kitchen so fast, we could barely follow it. And last, but not least, we built a wind winch to lift a button onto the table. Very industrious fun and very hands on projects to see how the power of air can be put into a good use. I asked Andrew about it and his answer was quick: "We can build windmills for electricity." Cool green thinking, just like a cucumber ...

Week 31 Day 6

Say "Cheese!"
Because Andrew's soccer game took the better part of our school morning today, we accomplished just a couple of things. One of them was learning about cameras. My Dad was a serious photographer with a photo lab and all. I remember helping him in his lab where everything was flushed in red light and the excitement of seeing a image appear on a piece of paper or the photos drying like laundry on the line. My camera is my constant companion as well, and I have noticed Andrew taking a big interest in photography. For this reason, both children got cameras for Christmas and Andrew has been using his a lot, taking pictures of people, his favorite things around his room, flowers and butterflies outside, etc. I am trying to teach him a few basics about photography. It would be so wonderful, if this interest develops into a serious hobby.

Today, we took a look at digital cameras and the kind of pictures they take. Andrew and Saara really liked to look at the zoomed in photos and pixels. Here are some of the pics Andrew has been taking with his camera.

'11/12 Week 31 Day 5

A VERY GOOD SCHOOL DAY. The children listened, Andrew was focused, he remembered things, read things, tried things, found that all of it was a lot of fun. It did not feel like school work at all, and yet, we did more than the program called for.

I wondered, if Andrew would remember anything we learned about boats and ships. He did. The 'stern' seems to be the hardest part to remember, though. As we were on the subject of ships, we reviewed floating. The example experiment in the book was a messy one to follow, but the kids learned a good lesson. We made a ball out of clay and watched it sink to the bottom of a bowl. Next, we used the same ball and molded it into a boat, and it floated beautifully. The clay, however, has a bad tendency to turn into a major mess when getting wet. Playdoh proved to be a better choice, although it also became sticky when wet.

One of our math assignments was a lot of fun. We started learning about centimeters. Fist, I had the kids measure some toys in inches and then in centimeters. Having family overseas, it was not hard to explain to Andrew that we measure things in inches, but Grandma measures things in centimeters. They do a lot of stuff differently over there, so why not measure differently as well.

Our last lesson today was about the wild places in the world. We started reading about mountains and how people live in the mountains. I showed Andrew how mountains look on the physical map of the world and we tried to memorize a few mountain rangers in the world. Andy's favorite was the Andes, of course.

Also, today, I had a 'caught reading' moment in my house. While I was getting lunch ready, the children were very quiet in the living room. As I peeked round the corner, I saw both of them sitting down with their noses in books. Wonderful!

Second Practice. April 19, 2012

Andrew is making friends and working on his temper and sportsmanship. He received a star for remembering his memory verse and a star for scoring at the game on Saturday. Keep it up, Andy!

Week 31 Day 4

There's only one more library story time left before Ms Bobbie takes a well deserved break. Today, we had a special guest reading a story about a very hungry caterpillar and teaching the basics of healthy eating. Saara loved it!

At home, we did as much school work as we could squeeze in before we drove to the soccer practice. In science, we took a closer look at boats and ships. ("When I keel over in Walmart, drag me to Macy's" makes so much more sense now :o) The weather was perfect for Andrew to steer his own little remote control boat on the pond. I had him point out all the different parts of the boat we learned in the book. Let's see, if he remembers them tomorrow.

Week 31 Day 3

Have you ever held a class in the bathroom? Our Science reading of how things in our homes work, brought us to the plumbing section. As we live in the country our waist water management is a bit different than in the houses in the city, but everything else is as the book explained. We took the top off of one of the cisterns to see what happens when we flush the toilet. Children loved it (!) and Dad laughed when I told him what the kids did in their science class today.

In the morning, we had our schooling interrupted by some road maintenance machines. They were loud! If you can not beat them, join them. I told the children to get their shoes on and run to the gate to check out what was going on. By the time we reached the fence, the workers had moved on, but Andrew and Saara were still able to watch some of the work they did.

In the afternoon, Andrew was chasing butterflies all over the field. I pulled him aside before dinner and showed him a video clip on the YouTube how properly catch a butterfly without hurting it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrGYmxB2qGc). Andrew took notice and for the rest of the evening he was running around in the fields again with his butterfly net. He did catch some and after showing them to me in a jar, he let them loose again. An entomologist in the making?