September 6, 2011

8th grade started with our annual tradition of visiting the Science Museum of Minnesota.

A Controlled Burn

AH taking a video of the burn

I got a call during AH's swim lesson yesterday.  A family friend wanted us to know that his company was going to be doing a controlled burn in our area and we were welcome to come watch.  Well, who can pass up a fire? We took a lunch and some books along with us to the burn site.  When we got there our friend, Eric, came over to explain exactly what they were planning to do and why.  Then we sat back and watched the crews go to work.

Burning the dead plant material clears the way for new growth while adding nutrients to the soil.

There are 2 crews: each crew consists of one person starting the fire with a torch and another with water gun.  The crews work opposite one another.

The trees were sprayed down with water to protect them.

Our friend Eric.

It was amazing how fast the ground turned black!

FOCI - Minnesota Center for Glass Arts

 A couple of weeks ago, AH and I were lucky enough to make a visit to a local glass blowing studio and watch a demonstration of this ancient art.  We learned a little physics along the way, too!

AH and a friend holding a small glass thread.

We watched while our host made a glass horse in 2 minutes.  After it had cooled, the kids got to handle it.

We watched a wine glass being made.

AH holding colored glass.

We also watched them make a vase.

Here they are adding polka dots to the vase.

The vase is removed from the rod.

Watt Munisota

Tucked away in a small farming community about 45 minutes south of Minneapolis-St. Paul is a beautiful Buddhist temple, Watt Munisota.  I was told it is the third largest Buddhist temple in the U.S.  Last Saturday they were celebrating the Cambodian New Year so Doug, AH and I had planned on attending the festival.  We woke up Saturday morning to a cold, biting wind and quite a bit of snow on the ground!  We debated whether we wanted to spend the morning outside, but decided that we are tough Minnesotans and up for the challenge!  After a few wrong turns along the way, we finally found the temple sitting at the top of a large hill.  It is breath-taking and unexpected in the middle of all that farmland.  We parked our car and made our way on foot up the long driveway.  The grounds were filled with smiling, welcoming people.  After finding our friend, he immediately took us over to a food vendor, a friend of his, and bought us what looked like beef satays.  There were quite a few food vendors selling traditional foods.  We tried the beef and it was seasoned and cooked deliciously! In addition to the beef, Doug and I tried stuffed chicken wings.  Those were also delicious!  AH was happy to find a bubble tea vendor since it is one of his favorite beverages.  If you have never tried one, think smoothie with large black "bubbles" floating in it.  The bubbles are large tapioca pearls.  Despite the cold conditions, there was quite a line for the cold drink!  After eating and drinking we made our way up the hill to the temple.  When we got inside we were asked to remove hats and shoes.  Families were sitting together on the floor speaking quietly, others were in front of the statue of the Buddha, and still others were in the middle of the room giving rice as an offering.  All along the walls, above the windows, are painted panels depicting stories about the Buddha.

Doug and AH are at the top of the steps of the temple.

AH and I inside the temple with Buddha behind us.  Notice the beautiful paintings?

A close up of the Buddha statues.

We spent the rest of the time taking in the sights and sounds: music, languages and traditionally costumed women.  It was a wonderful morning spent together!

I loved this basketball backstop. This was one of the festival games!

A close up of the detail of one of the pillars

Out and About

Wow.  What a whirlwind month January was!  February is beginning to look like it'll be a busy month, too.  Generally, AH and I love our time at home together, but there have been so many opportunities lately, that we couldn't say no.  Here are just a few pictures of our exploits this January:

Science Museum of Minnesota: Geometry Playground

We visited the U of M Chemistry Dept. for a Chemistry Demo and Hands on experiments!

We love watching things go up in flames!

Hard to see, but there is a flying pop bottle launched with a chemical reaction

My scientist

An afternoon of free rides at Nick Universe at the Mall of America

Nickelodeon Universe

 

 

Homeschool Gym

Tour of KSTP TV station

Celebrated our friend Michael's birthday!

Add to this swimming lessons, art club, a comedy show for homeschoolers, and a trip to the Omni Theater and that adds up to a busy month!

Vacation

We don't often go on vacation or travel, so when my husband suggested visiting his sister and her family in San Antonio, Texas for Thanksgiving I was ecstatic!  It had been 5 years since we were there and that time was busy with wedding bells and all the activity which surround such events.  AH was pretty excited, too.  He and his cousin, CN, are very close.  Whether it's been a couple of months or a year, they seem to be able to pick up where they leave off.  Visiting San Antonio also gave me inspiration for a unit study we completed before we left: The Alamo, of course!  AH had been there before, but was 2 or 3 years old at the time.  Here was the perfect opportunity to study some history and to reinforce that learning with an exciting field trip that included a plane ride!

I found some wonderful resources to use in our unit study:
Inside the Alamo by Jim Murphy
A phenomenal resource! I checked out 7 or 8 books on the subject, but this became our main guide through the unit study. We simply read one or two chapters each day and discussed the subject matter.  There are anecdotes, sidebars, maps and beautiful photographs and sketches which enhance the story.  The history is so thorough, I didn't feel the need to use any other book beside the one listed below.  As I was looking up the link to the book, I found a short study guide to the book.  I didn't use it but wanted to link to it for your convenience.
The Alamo website
The Daughters of the Republic of Texas have done an amazing job on this website.  There are facts, activity pages and curriculum, so I encourage you to explore this rich website.  Unfortunately there are several broken links but there are many other resources on the site.   Here are the resources we enjoyed:
Lesson plan for 4th grade
Lesson plan for 7th grade
Each of these extensive lesson plans has worksheets, coloring pages, a time-line, a map, diagrams of the Alamo and puzzles.
If you find that you can visit the Alamo, they have a history hunt list, a patch program and a young courier program for kids to complete.  AH wasn't interested in completing these, so I have no idea whether they are worth it or not.
Susanna of the Alamo by John Jakes
My 12 year old boy didn't enjoy this as much since it is written for a younger audience, but it did have a woman's perspective that I wanted to bring to the study.  We often hear that no one survived the Alamo, but women, children and slaves did survive and this book explores why Santa Anna released these few.

This had to be one of the simplest unit studies we've done.  AH didn't want to put together a poster or a power point presentation as we usually do, so we simply read, discussed and did the activity sheets. I did put together some "trading cards" with pictures of key men and women of this time period.  On the back, AH then wrote 3 interesting facts about each person.  I will upload the templates in the future since am finding it difficult to do right now. Of course, the big event was visiting the site of the battle.  Since photography isn't allowed within the Alamo, we don't have too many pictures to show you.  But here is what we have:

Our whole family in front of the Alamo.

We stopped by the Alamo on a Segway tour of downtown San Antonio.

San Fernando Cathedral where Santa Anna would climb to the top (of the old section, not visible) and survey his troops and the Alamo.

CN (left), Doug (AH's dad) and AH (right) enjoy a game of Balderdash with the family

Changes

My son, AH,  and I entered our 4th year of homeschooling on November 1st.  I cannot believe my youngest is a 7th grader!  He is also our only child living in the house.  Lots of changes this year.  Our 19 year old, AD,  is off to college this fall and I know AH misses him.  Little brother had a hard time when his big sis, AN, moved to college and I'm seeing some of the same things this time around even though AH is 6 years older.  Dinner time is when he seemed to feel the loss of his sister the most and I'm finding this to be true this time around.  Dinner is a very different affair without AD.  I guess I never realized how AD would lead the conversation each night because we have much quieter dinners these days.  He was home a couple of weekends ago and it was wonderful to hear these words again: "So, Dad, how was your day today?" and "Mom, guess what?"
 There is a big hole in our lives.  We will figure it out, but change is tough.
 We make our way through this change by forming new traditions and looking forward to the times when big sister and big brother are here.   One such change is to watch a movie or documentary together each night.  We started out watching each of the Harry Potter movies in anticipation of the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1, but it has been so much fun that we save the documentaries we watch for school until dad gets home.  Last week it was Luther (happy belated Reformation Day!)
Another way to cope is to keep busy and we have had one of the busiest falls of our lives! It seems we are averaging 2 to 3 field trips, clubs or park days per week! Here is a sampling of our adventures so far this fall:

Got the new Lego Minotaur Game and played it A LOT

Took a class at Como Zoo: Life Through Time

A Millipede, one of the many examples of life shown to us during the 8 week Life Through Time class

Art Club

Searched for fossils at a fossil class

Found one!

Found some of Dad's childhood toys while helping Grandpa clean out storage...

AH and Dad try out the boxing gloves found.

Harvest Fest.  And that is the worlds heaviest pumpkin and it did weigh 1,820.5 lbs!

Another monster pumpkin at Harvest Fest

A Harry Potter Halloween party

Carving a pumpkin

Draco Malfoy

Celebrated Big Brother's birthday