Backyard fun!

I bet you wished you lived at my house, don't you!







(and yes, Zeke put a frog on his face!!!)

Fire...or not!

We have learned from our study that you need 5 basic things to survive in the wild.
-fire
-shelter
-signaling
-food and water
- first aid knowledge

One thing we learned... don't call us to start a fire for you! LOL!
We tried the old Cherokee method of rubbing a stick back and forth. I'm sure we didn't try long enough, but we did try. Brie really did well at sticking with it. After all her effort it still didn't work. Zeke wasn't as willing to be patient with it! (To our credit it had just rained) I have several other methods we are going to try. I want to try the magnifying glass method, the chocolate soda can method, and the flint/knife method.

This was our notched board. The kids took a rock and dug these sections out to create the notches.

Brie collecting some dried grass to use for tinder.

Trying the old fashioned Indian way!

Still trying! (and yes the chairs need painted! It's on my to do list!)

Ezekiel

Happy Birthday Zeke! I can't believe that you are 7!!! You are a sweet sensitive little boy. You are a mischievous little stinker too, You are a very bright boy and you will be able to achieve anything you set your mind to! We pray that you're blessed with many more birthdays. We love you!

More ocean

After a 5 week study we finished oceans, and we learned a lot. Here are a few more pictures from some of our experiments/projects.

This experiment came from Bill Nye's ocean book. Did you know that a squid can squirt it's ink in the shape of it's body. That helps it to escape from prey. So we colored a picture of a squid and then the kids tried to get the "ink" to take the shape of the squids body. They couldn't do it, but it was a great reminder that God makes everything...and he created everything to work the way it does!

The following experiments are from our Awesome Ocean book...

Fill a tall glass almost to the top with water. Insert a drinking straw about 1" into the water and slowly blow a bubble. Both kids declared it's pretty easy. Now push the straw farther into the glass so that the end is just 1" from the bottom and slowly blow a bubble. The kids said it was much harder to do, because of the pressure.

We learned that every minute in the day (in most places) air presses against our bodies with nearly 15 pounds of force. It's equally distributed throughout our bodies so we don't notice it, unless the air pressure changes. (think about being in a plane and how your ears get blocked) In the ocean, changes in pressure are more noticeable, because water is much denser than air. As you can see in our experiment we filled a bowl with water, put a plastic bag up over our hand and wrists. (secure with a rubber band) Dunk your hand into the bowl of water and there is enough pressure to make you feel like your hand has been shrink-wrapped.

(and if you're noticing that the water looks white, I had a little accident! I was pouring coffee creamer into my coffee, and poured it into the wrong thing! Please tell me other people do things like this.) =)

Another pressure experiment...using a pushpin poke 4 holes in a water bottle. (vertically, and about 1" apart) Fill it up and set it down in the sink. Then observe how the water is coming out of the holes. The hole closest to the bottom makes the straightest stream...why? Because it's under the greatest amount of pressure.

One of our last days of our ocean unit was beautiful, so we went outside and painted some ocean scenery. We briefly talked about horizon lines thanks to this post! (if you are looking for art ideas, visit her blog, she has some great ideas)

The finished project..Brie's is on the top, Zeke's is on the bottom.

I think we all enjoyed our ocean studies. We could have easily made it a longer study! Imagine the fun we could have had if we actually lived near an ocean!

Lego Quest

I found about this through this blog. I thought it looked like a lot of fun! This weeks theme is natural disaster. If you're homeschooled/unschooled you have until Monday 28th to enter. (click the Lego quest picture for more information)


Brie and her volcano!



Zeke and his tornado!

Ocean....

We have been studying oceans for a few weeks, and we've done a lot of experiments. More than we've ever done! I enjoy experimenting, and I think the kids do too! If you like experiments and are going to study the ocean I would highly recommend the book "Awesome Ocean Science!" by Cindy A. Littlefield.
Here are some of the experiments we did. The first one here was seeing what happens to salt water when it's dropped into fresh water. Because of the density it sinks!



We also put a piece of a carrot in the fresh water, and added salt til the carrot started to rise!


This one was about estuaries.

Brie is preparing the "fresh" water.




Zeke is adding food coloring! (He added a lot!)





As you can see Zeke's river "flooded" the ocean! *He was supposed to gently squeeze it in*


We did it again, so we could see how the river water floated on top of the ocean!


I think my favorite experiment so far has been about the Coriolis Effect. If you want to try it fill a bowl almost to the top with water and sprinkle on a pinch of cornmeal. Now blow easily and steadily across the water surface and watch the way the cornmeal is carried by the currents. The same thing happens when wind blows across the surface of our spinning planet. (and yes I'm easily entertained!)
Zeke made a Lego 3D shark, and Brie made a crab. Not something we normally do, but fun!

Brie and Zeke both wrote poems about the ocean. They are also memorizing "At the seaside" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I went to the ocean

and it had lots of motion.

I dipped my feet in and it was cold,

but I felt so very bold.

by: Gabriela

I went to the beach and saw cool seashells.

I got wet from the waves, and it was really cold.

We went back to the house and I saw a ship sailing,

and then we all had some hot cocoa.

By: Ezekiel

This is the first poems either one has written. I thought they did good! Zeke was very adamant about his not rhyming!! After they typed them up, they made these creations! We sprayed adhesive onto the paper and sprinkled some sand on it for the beach!

I'm glad they both remember going to the Pacific Ocean last year. When I read their poems I could tell they were both recounting their experience last year! I wish we could repeat it! We still have 2 weeks of our ocean study left, so we may share more experiments along the way!

Zeke

Well my first born son turned 6 yesterday. (5/22) We traveled home on his birthday, but I think he still had a good day!

Zeke you're a fun,wild, and goofy boy. I'm so glad that you love "boy" stuff! I'm anxious to see what God has planned for you. You have the ability to do anything you desire! We love you buddy.

Christmas

I'm a little behind, but here are some pictures of our Christmas celebrations.

This was our first celebration, a picture of all of us (hubby's side!) I was a bad "photographer" and totally forgot the camera! (and yes I know I look like I'm 7+ months pregnant,I'm working on it!)



Next was our Christmas on Christmas day.


Zeke is hugging his gift here: Star Wars Legos! I guess he likes it!

Titus opening up his John Deere truck/tractor/wagon. We got it from EBAY, and it's almost as old as I am, but he loves it!

Reuben eating the paper! His first Christmas! (sorry for the bad pic, I was messing w/ the settings on the camera!)

Brie opening some of the books she got!

I loved this picture of all of them reading their books. (I'm so thankful that they like books!)

Here the older 2 are opening one of the last presents. Wii games! You can see the excitement in their eyes. Brie's saying did we get a Wii? This is where it gets fun!!!

Me: Sorry we couldn't afford the Wii this year, maybe next year. We got you some games that you can take and play @ your cousins houses. Them: OK! Maybe next year!

In the above picture where they are all reading......Mark is in the living room setting up the Wii! We brought them into the living room, Mark turned on the TV, they heard the music and said: What, we did get the Wii! They were so excited!

I know some of you think that was mean, but we thought it was great!!! I think they enjoyed it! Who doesn't love a great surprise????

Our last Christmas, with my side. For some reason I didn't get a picture of Zeke opening his presents. Here are the other 3 opening up some of their presents!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland....

Are you enjoying the Winter Wonderland????? We sure are!



These are bottles filled with colored water! Don't worry I'm not making him clean the snow!!


Brie writing Jesus, cause he is the WHOLE reason for the season!


Zeke waiting patiently for the green!!