Isaac: "Sausages!"
Me: "Okaaaay. Would you like anything else with your sausages?"
Isaac: "Hmmm, maybe some ketchup. Yeah, sausages and ketchup sounds good."
Thursday, November 13, 2008
A Birthday Feast
Me: "So Isaac, what would you like for your birthday dinner? Hotdogs, burgers, pizza?"
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Fall... and winter too
Ack, the seasons have gotten ahead of me! This is what happens when winter decides to arrive mid-fall (and I go a month between updates!).
Jim and Bev from church took us out to some sand dunes hidden in amongst the rolling hills of South Dakota. Who know there were sand dunes in the mid-west?!? It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day -- particularly nice for the beginning of November!
Wade had sand EVERYWHERE after this little stunt! I think there was a miniature beach in the shower when we got home!
For the first time ever, we took the boys trick-or-treating. They were delighted to dress up (and are still enjoying it)...
and were even more delighted by the huge stash of candy they came home with (and are not still enjoying that... it is long gone).
We also enjoyed the lovely fall weather and a big pile of leaves at the park.
Ready... set...
JUMP!
And then a blizzard struck! Only a few days after being out in short sleeves, we were unable to get out the front or side doors of our house (thank goodness for a back door out the master bathroom!).
The snow was a good two feet deep on the deck, and drifted much higher in many places...
... like this one where the drift dwarfs Wade.
We attempted to take a family picture out in the lovely snow for Christmas cards, but alas the boys just weren't into smiling (except Luke -- good job buddy!). Maybe we'll use it anyway?
Jim and Bev from church took us out to some sand dunes hidden in amongst the rolling hills of South Dakota. Who know there were sand dunes in the mid-west?!? It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day -- particularly nice for the beginning of November!
Wade had sand EVERYWHERE after this little stunt! I think there was a miniature beach in the shower when we got home!
For the first time ever, we took the boys trick-or-treating. They were delighted to dress up (and are still enjoying it)...
and were even more delighted by the huge stash of candy they came home with (and are not still enjoying that... it is long gone).
We also enjoyed the lovely fall weather and a big pile of leaves at the park.
Ready... set...
JUMP!
And then a blizzard struck! Only a few days after being out in short sleeves, we were unable to get out the front or side doors of our house (thank goodness for a back door out the master bathroom!).
The snow was a good two feet deep on the deck, and drifted much higher in many places...
... like this one where the drift dwarfs Wade.
We attempted to take a family picture out in the lovely snow for Christmas cards, but alas the boys just weren't into smiling (except Luke -- good job buddy!). Maybe we'll use it anyway?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
More School
The highlight of every Tuesday and Thursday for Isaac is doing science. Well, actually I'm not sure he even knows what "science" means, but our science topic for the year is astronomy (yes, astronomy for an entire school year), which he is CRAZY about.
A homeschooling friend recommended "Exploring Creation Through Astronomy." I bought the book and have been blown away! It's geared for students in first through fifth grades (just read/adapt activities to your particular student's level), boasts lots of beautiful pictures and has projects and activities galore (including a list of what materials you'll need for those projects each week -- yea!).
This week we're learning about Venus. Very few photographs have been taken of the planet's surface, because it has a thick, cloudy atmosphere blocking the view, and the surface isn't entirely suitable for spacecraft landings. So scientists have used radar to create a topographical map of the planet (because radar can go through clouds). But how does one explain the concept of radar to a 6 year old? Never fear, activity to the rescue!
This one actually had a bit of parent prep. Yesterday I created a landscape inside a shoe box using newspaper and a flour and water mixture (note to self: would have been easier to use play dough), covered the box with foil, poked 25 evenly spaced holes in the box, created a grid on paper with 25 corresponding squares, found crayons in a variety of shades of brown and marked a popsicle stick with numbers indicating depth (this was by far the most parent preparation intensive one we've come to yet, most are much simpler).
Today Isaac poked the popsicle stick into each of the holes in the foil, and marked on the paper grid the number on the popsicle stick -- a 15 indicated it didn't go very deep, a 2 went down quite far. Then he colored the grid using lighter browns for the lower areas (lower numbers) and darker colors for the raised areas (higher numbers). We studied the "map" and then removed the foil. Voila! Without ever seeing the surface beneath the foil, we had a pretty accurate map of what the surface looked like with it's mountains and valleys. It was too cool not to share, so here's a picture.
I'm thrilled that there are four more books in the Young Explorer series, "Exploring Creation Through Botany" and "Exploring Creation with Zoology" I, II and III (aka "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day," "Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day" and "Land Animals of the Sixth Day").
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/catalog/science-curriculum/apologia-curriculum/cat_apologia-elementary-science-courses.html
A homeschooling friend recommended "Exploring Creation Through Astronomy." I bought the book and have been blown away! It's geared for students in first through fifth grades (just read/adapt activities to your particular student's level), boasts lots of beautiful pictures and has projects and activities galore (including a list of what materials you'll need for those projects each week -- yea!).
This week we're learning about Venus. Very few photographs have been taken of the planet's surface, because it has a thick, cloudy atmosphere blocking the view, and the surface isn't entirely suitable for spacecraft landings. So scientists have used radar to create a topographical map of the planet (because radar can go through clouds). But how does one explain the concept of radar to a 6 year old? Never fear, activity to the rescue!
This one actually had a bit of parent prep. Yesterday I created a landscape inside a shoe box using newspaper and a flour and water mixture (note to self: would have been easier to use play dough), covered the box with foil, poked 25 evenly spaced holes in the box, created a grid on paper with 25 corresponding squares, found crayons in a variety of shades of brown and marked a popsicle stick with numbers indicating depth (this was by far the most parent preparation intensive one we've come to yet, most are much simpler).
Today Isaac poked the popsicle stick into each of the holes in the foil, and marked on the paper grid the number on the popsicle stick -- a 15 indicated it didn't go very deep, a 2 went down quite far. Then he colored the grid using lighter browns for the lower areas (lower numbers) and darker colors for the raised areas (higher numbers). We studied the "map" and then removed the foil. Voila! Without ever seeing the surface beneath the foil, we had a pretty accurate map of what the surface looked like with it's mountains and valleys. It was too cool not to share, so here's a picture.
I'm thrilled that there are four more books in the Young Explorer series, "Exploring Creation Through Botany" and "Exploring Creation with Zoology" I, II and III (aka "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day," "Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day" and "Land Animals of the Sixth Day").
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/catalog/science-curriculum/apologia-curriculum/cat_apologia-elementary-science-courses.html
Levi's Alphabet
Rather than writing a boring old alphabet, Levi jazzed up his letters a bit this morning (someday we'll make it all the way to "z", but for now "o" is as far as we go!).
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Picture time
New grandson photos are now available! Let me know which one(s) you'd like Mom and Mom!
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