Math fun

Liesel wants to keep up with Simeon in math. I get
alot of mileage out of that. Today we played "Math
War", an idea that I got off an online group. Each
player has a stack of cards #1-10, and they slap the
card down and see who can add them together the
fastest. Then we played "make 10". I slapped a number
down and we raced to see who could guess which number
we needed to make 10, then 9, then 8. It was lots of
fun. Then we read some stories and were done with
school for today.

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com

Jude's burrito

Yesterday for snack Jude wanted a frozen burrito.
Because I was in the middle of a rushed conversation
with a friend, I agreed and popped to frozen burrito
in the microwave. When it came out I cut it into 3
pieces to cool. You would have thought I killed his
pet by the way he cried and wailed and grieved over
the loss of his "whole" burrito. "Why did you cut my
burrito? I didn't want you to cut my burrito!" I
deferred the situation to Dad when he came home. So at
lunch today, when I set the WHOLE burrito on his
plate, Jude says, "Mommy can you cut my burrito?" Go
figure!

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com

lost lizard

I felt very foolish last night, in my front yard with
me and the kids with flashlights looking into bushes
for our lizard, Elvis. I had left the gas stove on for
over an hour, and there were fumes in the house. While
it was clearing out, we played out front. I "rescued"
the animals too, setting the lizard down in the grass
to hunt for ants or crickets. Well I forgot all about
him until bedtime when one of the kids walked past his
empty cage...So there we were all outside, with
"roaring" lion and tiger flashlights that belonged to
the neighbor kids. Just as we were about to give up,
to my childrens sheer delight, Elvis was FOUND.
Hurray! No more tears being shed!

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com

platelets and white blood cells

Yesterday I found a scab on Jude's head. When I announced what it was, Liesel said, "I guess his platelets are working".

 

Today Jude cut his finger. When I tried to clean it and put a bandaid on it, he said, "It's OK Mom, the white blood cells will clean it for me".

---

Yahoo! for Good
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

stories about the Bible

I was so blessed last night. John made a fire on the back porch, the kids all sat in the porch swing while John and I sat together on the bench. Liesel said, "Daddy would you tell us a story? A true story....from the Bible". It blessed me so much that she would naturally want to know more about the Bible, with no prodding or forcing from us.

---

Yahoo! for Good
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

immune system

This week we learned about the immune system. We took Hope to the dr. to get her one year shots, and thought about what life would have been like in the "old days" before Edward Jenner discovered the small pox vaccine, and Alexander Fleming discovered that the penicillin in mold could be used as an antibiotic. Louis Pasteur helped us understand the relationship between germs and diseases, and Joseph Lister found that using antiseptics in surgery help reduce infections. So we went through the house and used every antiseptic we could find, to make a point. We looked at our neighbor's small pox vaccination site on his arm, and he told us his memory of getting it at about age 5. The kids were the most fascinated with the story of the Black Death that affected millions of people in Europe in the 1400's and how they didn't understand that it was self-inflicted by their own filth. We read the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and sang Ring around the Rosy. We were very thankful this week to be living in the age of vaccinations and antibiotics.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

homeschool first weeks

We are starting a new curriculum called KONOS this year. I like it because it incorporates all ages in the subjects of Bible, Science, Social Studies,History, Art, Music.Our first weeks we have been studying Cooperation (it's a character based unit study), and focusing on the human anatomy and physiology ( how the systems cooperate).

 

For skin we examined our skin cells, made ourselves sweat, examined our hair roots and fingernails, talked about our friend Pablo who was born without epidermis and how that affected his short life (he died at age 9).

 

For bones we drew pictures of people without bones, and made clay people with no bones, made a skeleton out of magnetix using joint magnets. Really fun.

 

For muscles we examined steak and did an experiment involving paper towel rolls, rubber bands and balloons.

 

For digestive system (our favorite) we did eating experiments, observed our saliva and timed our digestive process by eating Captain Crunch dye cereal (too gross to explain but use your imagination). We "digested" mashed potatoes through a balloon esophagus attached to a straw (the small intestines). We took rope and measured 30 feet of intestines and placed them inside our shirt to image how compact our intestines really are.

 

For circlulatory system we made the arteries and veins out of clay and attached them to a clay heart, with aorta, vena cava, lungs and all. We found out that if you attach every blood vessel in your body, it would circle the earth 2 1/2 times!

 

For respiratory we did some balloon experiments and we checked our respiratory and pulse rate at rest and exercise, to understand the relation between our circulatory/respiratory system and the demand for oxygen from our muscles. We (mom) also donated blood and the kids got to be a part of that.

 

We studied Antony Van Leewenkoek, the Dutch sailor who first saw microscopic life. We understand the importance of his discovery. Before the microscope there was no way to diagnose many illnesses. We have been having fun with our microscope, and we examined pus yesterday. The cells we think we saw were red blood cells, white blood cells, skin cells and bacteria. Next week we will collect pond water from Uncle Bob's pond and look for amoebas or paramecia or other types of protozoa. That should be fun!

 

Check back periodically to find out what else we are doing.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com