There's GOLD in them there Hills!

This week was quite the week.  Of course one of the main things we studied was earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and Japan.  I didn't teach about radiation because frankly it was too stressful to talk to my kids about it.  Maxwell was fascinated and kept Japan in his prayers every night.

We continued to talk about the pioneers.  It was suggested in the Four Year Plan to make soap.  You should've used 13 cups of fat from meat drippings.  We don't really eat red meat in our house.  13 CUPS!  I guess I could have bought the fat.  I really should learn such a good and prudent skill, but the smell.....I bought a kit from Michaels....I'm a wimp.  We did make lots of fun soap though. Just not like the pioneers made soap.

We learned about California pioneers this week, namely the Gold Rush.  What a sad story!  Did you know, however, that Levi Strauss got his start by making sturdy pants for the gold miners from tent material?  Cool random fact.  We had a little gold rush of our own, and filled our tub to make a makeshift river to pan gold in.  It ended up to be really fun and the cleanup wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

For science we learned again about electricity.  We talked about open and closed circuits. We played a game were if your metal wand touched the metal loops, a light bulb would go off.  It was sort of like "Operation,"  What kid wouldn't love THAT experiment?

This week was of course St. Patrick's day, so we made Leprechaun traps.  Wow did they go to town with this!  It's fun to let kids loose with a basic idea and watch them as they create.  Maxwell was SOOOO sad that he didn't catch a Leprechaun, even though he did catch his gold chocolate coins.  He said "I need to change my design to make it more effective." and went to work with vigor to make a better Leprechaun trap, even though I told him that they wouldn't come again this year.

We had the most amazing field trip this week!  We went to the Thomas Jefferson Education Forum.  While our boys went off to their own classes, we learned all about how to be the best parents in the world!!! Or at least better then what we have been doing. It was great to discuss the true meaning of liberty, education, and parenting with such amazing people.  If you missed out, you can get a recording of everything at tjed marketplace.  I highly recommend it.

I'm off on vacation for a week or two...time for hands on learning!  :)  bye!

Brigham Young

This week we studied Brigham Young.  He was a pretty awesome person in case you didn't know. My boys loved learning about him and the Mormon pioneers, especially how pioneers used buffalo poop for fire.

We played pioneer games for one of our days. These games included pea shooters, stick pulling, and wagon wheel rolling.  I DID take photos but..well, technical malfunction.  We used hula hoops to represent wagon wheels, but they went a little crazy with them and they were broken within about 10 minutes.  Oops.

We also made wagons.  This was right up Maxwell's alley and he relished making this craft.  I think you can tell this when you look at the finished result.

For science we learned about positive and negative charges and batteries.  It was fun because we played with balloons a lot, but it was also frustrating because most of my experiments DIDN'T work! urg...I have not yet been able to make a homemade battery.  I had everything ready to make several kinds of homemade batteries, and not one worked.....I am buying a kit next time! (I think it is fitting that the photos didn't work for my science day that didn't work!)

This week's field trip was a field trip of epic proportions....You would think a simple tour of Brigham Young's Beehive house and walk around temple square would be low key, but no.  From Dustin being asked by a stranger on our tour who was interested in the church to give him a blessing after Dustin bore his testimony to him, to a guy on the street thinking Dustin was a polygamist because we had my friend and her daughter with us, to Hyrum falling into the fountain and getting DRENCHED, this was a field trip that I think I will NEVER forget!

Westward!

This week we studied about the Oregon trail.  Am I the only one who always thinks of that old Atari computer game when ever the Oregon trail is mentioned? We talked about how Oregon had a lot of trees and good land that made people think they could have a better life there.  We made log cabins as our activity.  We made them out of huge pretzels and glue.  I saw Hyrum and Daniel eating them later….I hope the glue tasted good!

We also made faux beaver pelt hats.  I wasn't planning on it, but in every book, there was something about how the pioneers made money off of trapping beavers for top hats.  I couldn't pass up this opportunity for a cute project. The boys are still wearing them and are very proud of them.

We also made butter and jam (since that was what I DID plan.) We shook and shook whipping cream and blended and mushed strawberries, and we ended up with some delicious butter and jam sandwiches!

For science we began learning about electricity…I have to say, I personally had fun with these experiments.  We played with the static electricity of combs, and learned about insulators and conductors. We made a conductor tester with some wire, a battery, and a light bulb, and we tested different objects to see if electricity could go through them. Scissors, spoons, coins, and hole punchers work great…pens, jump ropes, and most toys…not so much.

For field trip, we went to the pioneer memorial museum of Utah.  Can we say nick-nacks!  Some museums need to realize that less is more.  It was not very kid friendly, but we did see a real beaver pelt top hat that belonged to non other then Brigham Young!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow is the king of the wild frontier

This week we learned about Johnny Appleseed.  What an inspirational man!  Good wholesome fun.  We juiced apples to make home-made cider and made apple stamps, but I forgot to get them to put pots on their heads!  For shame.

We also studied Davy Crockett.  I hadn't realized how political he was.  I liked what the end of one our books said "Davy made sure that he knew what was right, and then went forward with all his might."  We made tin lanterns…Davy Crockett might have had tin lanterns…right?  4 hammers + 0 crying = success.  We used the homemade candles to light them, but they tipped over inside the can.  I should have gotten tea candles……We are now done with the frontier and now it's pioneer time!

For science, we had our final light lesson.  We talked about color/colour (sometimes I don't know if I should spell the US way or the Canadian way) We learned all about Rainbows (ROY G. BIV) and we used prisms and bubbles to see rainbows, we painted rainbows and we had fun under a black light.  Did you know that laundry detergent glows in black light?  My club now knows :)

For our field trip, we went to the planetarium.  Maxwell asked "What does tarium mean?" does it mean study? or learning?  Now I wonder… We saw a movie in the dome theater/theatre where the whole ceiling is a dome that projects.  Maxwell kept saying "are we moving?" It felt like it.  At one point, the movie said "even the iron in your blood is the same as the iron in the meteorites" and Maxwell turns and says excitedly, "Thats how Jesus made us! From things in the Universe!"  Oh he is wise, what can I say more.

Tall Tales

This week we learned Tall Tales of the American Frontier.  I even learned a new one…Mike Fink.  This subject was a winner with my kids (of course.) Paul Bunyan is definitely a new favorite hero.  We made yarn dolls and I explained how children on the frontier would make dolls just like this and then pretend stories about the Tall Tale characters with them.  They loved it.

We also weaved placemats out of poster board.  I explained how a story is weaved by many people to make a whole Tall Tale…I'm not sure if they got that symbolism, but they were sure proud of their mats.

For science the light saga continued.  This time we talked about how light bends when it goes through things like water and curved glass (lenses.)  We did a really fun experiment where you put a penny in a bowl and get far enough away that you can't see the penny and then add water to the bowl, and you can see the penny again.  It was like magic.  We also did a lot with magnifying glasses including making a fire….well, it was more like burn holes through dry leaves and make smoke.  We couldn't quite get flames going…it wasn't quite sunny enough.

For field trip, DADDY took the boys to a fire engine museum.  The boys had a BLAST.  They even got free fireman hats.  (Mommy liked the break too :)

For the last two weeks, Maxwell has been taking swimming lessons every morning.  He has loved it and has learned a lot, but I have to say that I'm so glad it's over.  It was getting me out of sync with my morning routine.  Some days we weren't even doing devotionals until after lunch...

Scriptures and Shadows

This week we got ready for Valentine's Day by decorating and making valentines.  At the end of our main day of Valentine crafts, I asked Maxwell what he learned that day so he could write in his journal.  He said "I didn't learn anything today."  Oops…I swear we did math and reading that day!

We also studied Daniel Boon.  I have to admit, although I knew he was a famous frontiersman, I didn't remember anything about him.  It was good to refresh.  We made candles to solidify the lesson.

For science we continued to learn about light, and I was back in my groove, and we had fun.  We learned about shadows and reflections. We made shadow puppets, acted out a lunar and solar eclipse,  reflected light off a few mirrors, and made a periscope.

My husband and I went on the field trip (we celebrated our anniversary) but an adventure of Grandma and Grandpa baby-sitting/spoiling was better then a field trip for the boys anyway.

Maxwell is getting better and better at memorizing scripture during devotionals.  Here's two cute examples of recent scriptures:

Trail of tears, trail of beads, and trail of light

So this week we studied the Trail of tears and native suffering.  Holy cow that was a really depressing episode in US history.  I could hardly finish reading a children's book about Chief Joseph to my kids.  But to help embed the history into my children's brains we made beaded necklaces and the next day we made dreamcatchers.

I found this big container of beads at Walmart that had the coolest beads ever (for little kids.)  It had bear beads, star beads, heart, shell, and even elephant beads.  A bit of a mess, but really fun.

I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find any hoops to make dreamcatchers from…so I just bought dreamcatchers, cut out the middle, untied the feathers, and then my boys reweaved the middle, and retied the feathers.  They actually loved it and did the weaving without too much help, but Maxwell was really disappointed when he found out that they don't actually catch your dreams.

This science day I was a little out of sync with my groove.  I was a bit stressed.  We talked about light and cameras.  I think most of it was too complex for my crowd.  In fact, at one point one little boy said "this is getting complicated" ya….but we did actually prove that light travels straight  and we also ended up making zoetropes that WORKED!

We went to the discovery zone for field trip….Maxwell was so excited to show the museum off to his cousins since he had already been there.

For math we've been doing this sort of poke-a-dot adding thing that I made up with magnets and metal washers on numbers.  It kind of goes against the theories of abacus math, but hey now they'll know more then one technique.