Reptiles, Prohibition (finally), women's suffrage, and depression starts

Science was interesting.  I couldn't find any ideas anywhere for educating about reptiles, so I had to come up with it myself.  These activities worked better in my mind then in reality.  We talked about cold blooded animals and took three thermometers and put one in snow, one at room temp. and one near my stove---which got so hot it burst---ummm, yah.

We smelled things (lavender, fish oil, peppermint etc) and tried to identify them with our "tongues."

We played a game where we tried taking off everyone else's lizard tail but keep our own:

And painted alligators on our hands and talked about how alligators have the strongest jaws of all animals, but any man can hold an alligator's jaws shut, much like your thumb and forefinger.  You can pinch hard but someone can easily hold your fingers closed.  I thought I was being very clever with this activity, but it didn't happen as planned.

For history, we learned about women's suffrage, and a couple good picture books about it are "The Ballot Box Battle" by McCully, and "Mama went to Jail for the Vote." by Karr.  We made picket signs to celebrate. Maxwell incorporated the suffrage colours by himself.  I thought that quite observant.

Hyrum's

Maxwell's

They both say "Votes for women" if you can't tell.

We also finally learned about the prohibition. Maxwell got the facts, but when I started in on the politics of things like whether or not it's okay for a federal government to try to force an entire people vs a little town's majority trying to enforce something, or how laws can guide the general bell curve of morality of the people, Maxwell's eyes glazed over.  Maybe later eh?---We made rootbeer from yeast.  It tasted like yeast. Hummm.

And we also started learning about the depression.  We read cute books like "The Dust Bowl" by Booth and "Potato" by Lied, but what I really loved was "The History of US" chapters about the depression.

We've been reading selections from this encyclopedia more and more lately, and I LOVE IT!!!  It explains things so that any child can understand it, but in such a way that it's fascinating to any adult.  I don't always agree with their view of history, but history is so relative anyway.  I do like that they include religion as a part of what made people who they are and why they did things in a good way.  Get the books.  You will love them too.

ANYWAY-We pretended to be hobos and went around the neighbourhood reading hobo signs that I had left earlier.  You know how you can plan activity after activity and they never quite turn out how you envisioned them turning out?  Well, this activity worked out just like I had hoped!!!

But---um---writing chalk symbols in front of people's houses is a bit embarrassing.  One neighbour was outside and she's all "Hey Lindy ummm what are you doing there?"  "oh nothing hehe umm just writing about your house in hobo symbols hehe."

Here's my hobos:

Here's some hobo signs we learned

Inspiration for this activity came from "Kit Kittredge" AWESOME kid movie about the depression.

And even though this post is getting way to long, I thought I would add my love for Granny Wendy.  She was among the first moms to homeschool here in Cardston. Now that her children have grown, she has been the voice and advocate for all who want to homeschool.  She works with the homeschool organization, but is retiring at the end of this year so she and her husband can go on a mission.  We will be so sad to see her go.

She takes Maxwell once a week for a short tutorial on whatever Maxwell is in need of.  I haven't taken advantage of this like I should have.  Last year I didn't have a car, this year I went to Idaho for awhile. But I sure love this woman and learn from her every time I am in contact with her.