Mika's Peeps Diorama 2012

When Mika heard about the library's peeps diorama contest, she was instantly interested.  The contest required that you depict a scene from a book using at least one peep.  The diorama should be approximately shoe box size.

After some thought, she decided to do a scene from The Hunger Games (as did three other entrants).  Considering several options, she chose the scene in which Katniss nearly steps on the camouflaged Peeta.  Since she's never done anything like this, I provided some suggestions and guidance, but she did nearly all of the work.

Because this was an outdoor scene, I suggested she use natural materials.  We came up with this idea of using twigs as tree trunks and building trees using bits of fir branches built up with diorama ground cover.  It worked quite well.

Here's Mika adding in more trees.

Once the forest was finished, she added Peeta, painted in a river, and started gluing down sand for the ground cover.  As she went along, she also glued down pebbles, larger rocks, bits of small sticks, fir needles, and bits of an old wasp nest we had.  She gradually built up a nice layer of materials, making it look convincing.

In order to camouflage Peeta, she painted him with the same sand as the ground.  Then she laid some rocks near his head and painted both the rocks and his ears to match.  Then she added ground cover, moss from our yard and pebbles to hide his body.  He was nearly impossible to spot at this point.

After finishing Peeta, she added googly eyes for humor and to help point him out.  She also added a conversation bubble containing the quote from the scene in the book.  She made Katniss and added her to the diorama.

Here is a side view of Katniss.  She used a bit of gold-colored twist tie to make a mockingjay pin.  The bow is a piece of memory wire from her stash for making bracelets.  The string is just thread super-glued on.  Her hair is some braided yarn, and her clothing is cut from some old yoga pants and glued on.

Here's more detail of Katniss.  She has an orange backpack.  I was experimenting with ideas of how to make a tiny backpack, and it worked well enough that we just went with that idea.  It's made with a bit of paper towel, colored with Crayola marker, glued together, and stuffed with another bit of paper towel.  Mika made the quiver with rolled up card stock.  She made the arrows with shortened tooth picks and paper feathers.

Here's the finished diorama.  The sign says, "The Hunger Peeps: May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor".  On the sides of the diorama (didn't get a photo) are pictures of two mockingpeeps that she created on the computer and printed.

She really got into this project and spent a good deal of time and energy on it.  I think she did a great job and has a learned a lot about using resources creatively.

ETA:  Mika won first prize in the teen division of the contest.

March Blues

Have you noticed that my post count goes way down during February and March?  I have.  It's a symptom of the almost spring blues that many homeschoolers get.  This time of year is when many fall into a rut, get burned out, and start questioning their decision to homeschool.  I just start homeschooling less and blogging less.  I have no interest in any of it.  I want spring.  I want summer.  And I want it now.

But instead I get rain, rain, rain.  In fact, today I saw ducks waddling across the rain flooded road.

We are still here and we are still doing things that count as school.  Mikaela is done with poetry.  Samuel, my ever motivated student, is done with grammar, vocabulary, poetry, and history.  I'm having to get creative in finding work for him to do, because although he is done with most of his curricula, he still has to report to our school.

So, what are we doing?  A lot of reading.  Since reading The Hunger Games, we've been very slowly rereading THG while discussing it.  We're being slowed down by my ability to read the chapter and the cliff notes and come up with the questions.  Anything teacher intensive tends to move slowly in our house.  But we also got on a young adult dystopian novel kick and have read quite a few of them.  Maybe I'll write a post listing them and a brief review.  Some have been better than others but they all have something to think about. I'm even considering doing a dystopian lit class for high school using the more difficult classics in the genre.

We've also continued with the curricula that isn't yet finished.  Mikaela has more of that to do.  We've come to a screeching halt with math while I remediate some areas that need work.  It looks like we'll do fractions for a third time because she's still having trouble with them at times.  They are working through their astronomy texts on their own.  We've quit the weather and geology and may or may not come back to them.  Our curricula was just too dry.

We changed our plans for history due to issues with our virtual academy.  Initially, my plan was to go through Story of the Word 4 over a year and a half.  But instead, we sped (are speeding through for Mika) the story book and then will revisit the major events for an indepth look through library books, literature, and some projects.  Because Sam finished the book so quickly, we've started the indepth part now rather than waiting until next year.  We're taking the rest of the school year to go over the Civil War.  We've had a good and interesting start.  I hope to blog what we are doing and using as we go along.  It's pretty cool!

So that's what we've been up to?  How's the near spring months treating you?

The Preamble of the Constitution: Sam's Paragraph

Mika and Sam's most recently writing assignment required them to write a paragraph explaining why, according to the founding fathers, the Constitution was written.  It was also an exercise in using transition words.

First, they had to go through the preamble, bit-by-bit, dissecting its meaning.  I helped Sam by wielding the thesaurus, looking up almost every word in it.  He used that discussion to determine what, exactly, each section of the preamble meant.  Then he wrote the rough draft, edited it, and wrote the final without help.

Here's what he wrote:

The Meaning of the Constitution

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In the Preamble, our founding fathers stated their reasons for writing the Constitution of the United States of America, which stated that they would be able to create a better country. Since they would have to make fair laws for the whole country, everybody would have to be treated fairly. In addition, they also had to make peace within the country to insure that civil war would not break out. Naturally, there would have to be a military to protect the borders while protecting the people. These things help make better lives. Our founding fathers, when they wrote it, wanted to make sure that there was and would be irrevocable freedom for them and future generations. In conclusion, the purpose of the Constitution was to name and set up the central government. The Constitution was necessary.

Considering that he's only 10 and writing isn't his natural strength, I think he did pretty well.

Gold!

We finally finished Story of the World Volume 3.  The last chapter is about the California gold rush.  Growing up in California, I spent way too much time learning about the gold rush.  We only spent a week on it.

I added some library books to supplement SOTW...a few easy non-fiction reads and a novel I found called Hard Gold.

The highlight of the week, though, was panning for gold.  Mika and Sam have both panned for gold in an Oregon river with my dad.  Unfortunately, they didn't find anything.  I decided to take the easy way out, a way that was guaranteed they would get the experience of finding gold.  I ordered a kit.

First we found a "river" and filled it with water.  Then we dumped our gravel into our pan.  Mika demonstrated how to swirl the water.  I read the directions and improved on the technique.  Modern pans have ridges that are very helpful.

Josh even took a turn trying to swirl the water.

When the amount of gravel got low enough we found some of the flecks of gold.  We noticed that when we swirled the water, the gravel lifted and floated away while the gold stayed nicely tucked in corner.  You didn't even have to be all that carefully with your swirling.

Here's a close up of the gold we found.  The picture shows it much bigger than it is in real life.  These flecks look a lot like glitter.   It wasn't much, but it definitely made the panning more exciting than not finding anything in a real river.

Our Current School Room

I've finally gotten my school room organized in a way that works.  Yay!  After struggling with too much stuff in too little space, I moved a bookshelf and pulled another shelf from the garage.  It seems to be working now that stuff isn't crammed onto shelves on top of, under, or stuffed between other things.

This is an overview of our school room.  It's next to the kitchen and is suppose to be a family room, complete with a fireplace.  It's large enough but between the sliding glass doors and fireplace, there is less wall space than I'd like.

On the wall to the left, you'll see a bookshelf (with three papers taped to it).  Beyond that is the fireplace, and beyond the fireplace, I hung our white board that gets very little use these days.  The back wall is our shelves holding all of our stuff.  The doorway goes to the laundry room where I hung our maps.  That lime green thing on the right wall is our calendar I use with the littles.  I haven't put the rest of the pieces up because I'm out of poster tack.  To the right of the sliding glass door, I have another shelf that will be used for Josh's workboxes when I get more baskets.  The table was given to us for free.  The chairs and table are a bit rickety but they work and we are grateful to have it.

This is the bookshelf I mentioned on the left wall.  The top two shelves hold our curricula.  The third has our literature that I've chosen to go along with year 4 of history.  The bottom has our assortment of Bibles and devotionals.   The papers are our 2012 reading logs.

This is the extra shelf I pulled out of the garage.  It isn't as deep as the others.  The fact that it is different bugs me, but I'm trying to not let it bother me too much.  It holds math manipulatives, some craft things for the younger kids, file folder games, older white board markers that the younger kids are allowed to use (I keep the new ones for myself), play doh toys, and homemade activity bags.

The middle two shelves hold our science and art supplies, the older kids' homeschool stuff, and a few other things.  The top shelf has our paper pads for art, my stash of cards and envelopes, a spot for my camera, and a crate for smaller games.  The next three shelves down hold the nicer art supplies (oil pastels, chalks, art pens, watercolors, etc) and our science supplies (beakers, goggles, supplies for specific labs and activities).  Two of the basics hold basic supplies like spiral notebooks and extra glue and pencils we aren't using.  The big blue and green crates hold Mika's and Sam's notebooks.  On the floor are my sewing supplies and a box I haven't unpacked yet.

Because of the way the room is laid out, we ditched our computer table and placed a small computer and screen in the shelving unit.  It's a little cramped, but it works.  Above it is my laminator, some basic supplies, and our games that I don't want the littles getting into.

To the left of the sliding glass door, I have this small shelving unit. It was, and will be again, Josh's workbox station.  I found out earlier this year that Josh does really well with the workbox idea.  I had to confiscate his baskets for other areas of the house.  I need to buy more but my local Dollar Tree only has hot pink baskets in right now, and I just can't handle them not matching to that extent.  LOL  The white bins hold our office supplies.  Our color printer sits on the kitchen counter and is currently out of ink.  : (

So that's where we do school currently.  I think you can tell that I like dollar store baskets.  I have the blue ones you see above, black ones in the same size throughout my kitchen, and smaller ones compartmentalizing many drawers.

Yes, I'm still here

The month of December always gets away from me, and this year was no exception.  In addition to the usual insanity of the month, I lost almost an entire week to vertigo.  Life ceases when the world spins wildly with every move you make!

So, anyway...

We spent the first two weeks of December wrapping up school work: finishing up chapters so we wouldn't end mid-chapter or lesson and finishing up two big projects. 

The big kids finished the volcano they were building.  It looked great.  They added Monopoly houses and Life people.  They even had a guy fishing in a lake on the bottom of the mountain.  We erupted the volcano which, unfortunately, took out the fisherman and slid his car along with the flow.  It was great fun.

Mikaela finished her continent.  I think it looks great!  Sam finished all but the ocean.  He ran out of colored pencil and had to wait until replacements arrived.  He'll be picking it back up to finish now that school is back in session.

I also did some Christmas crafts with the littles, which I already shared in a previous post.

We made some ornaments.  The snowmen were really cute.  The swirled colored balls did not work out well at all.  Over time, the paint inside all slid to the bottom leaving a lot of the bulb uncolored/see-through.  I don't know if it was because we used plastic instead of glass bulbs, but it was really disappointing.  We scattered the cinnamon applesauce ornaments throughout the house and cars hoping they'd make everything smell nice. They only affected the scent in the cars, so that was kind of disappointing.

Then I spent a week dizzy.  I ended up taking myself to the doctor on morning when I was steady enough to drive.  Unfortunately, while I was there, I was so tired from lack of sleep that I tried to lay down and sent myself whirling again.  After a shot to stop my vomiting, I had to call my husband to come get us, stranding his car in another city from where we live.  A friend came and spent the next day with my kids because I wasn't sure if I would be functional.  Meclizine got me through the next few days until I finally recovered completely.

Finally, there was the mad rush to finish Christmas shopping and handmade Christmas gifts.  I got everything done, just barely in time.

I spent a lot of my evenings working on this Ood ski mask for Sam.  He loved it.  An ood is an alien from Doctor Who.

My dad visited for a few days and then there was the mad dash to get ready for Sam's birthday party, which went off well with the exception that I forgot to give out party favors.

And now it is time for school again despite the fact that I never got around to finishing grading for December or planning.  We're kind of winging it for now.

How did your December go?  

Projects

We haven't done a ton of school in the last few weeks.  Mostly, I've been concentrating on unpacking, going on my semiannual retreat, and now preparing for Thanksgiving.  In the meantime, I've had the kids working on three some major projects.

Project 1: Research Biography

We've been working on this research paper since the beginning of the year, taking it one minuscule step at a time because it is their first research paper.  They are working on final edits.  Mika is having a particularly difficult time because she picked a person with fewer sources to work with and topics that are harder to transition between.  She's working on it, and it is improving.

Project 2: Map

Several weeks ago, I gave the kids an assignment to create an imaginary continent complete with a long list of landforms.  They had to first learn about the landforms.  Then they had to brainstorm ideas of how to put it all together.  Then they had to draw it on poster board, color it, and name everything.  They are working on the final coloring before labeling their drawings with the continent's name, the names of major landforms, compass, scale, and legend.

This is Sam's map so far.  He's being quite colorful with it, making up different colors of grass that thrive on certain gases and/or minerals.  He's having to color darkly (which takes significantly more time and effort) because he left his map and the pencils out on the table unguarded.  Maddie decided to assist his coloring efforts, which he is now trying to hide under darker colors.

This is Mikaela's map so far.  It's coming along nicely.  She'll be darkening some of the details to help them show up better.

Project 3: Volcano

As a follow up to our visit to the Ape Caves, a lava tube on Mt. Saint Helens, we are learning more about volcanoes.  They are reading several library books about volcanoes in general.  A couple other books cover Mt. Saint Helens specifically.  In addition to that, we've decided to build our own volcano to erupt at home.  We've done a very simple one before, so they are enjoying making one a bit more detailed.  In the spring, we'll visit Johnston Ridge Observatory.

Mikaela and Sam are working together to lay down the first layer of paper mache.  We started with salt dough, which proved difficult to work with.  They enjoy paper mache more and are getting better results.

Here's the volcano so far.  It is sitting on our school table as I write this being air dried by the ceiling fan.  After they are done with the paper mache, they'll paint it, add Monopoly houses and Life people, and erupt it.

Kennedy Creek Salmon Tour

Yesterday, we went on a docent-led tour of Kennedy Creek.  This trip was planned months ago as it fills up with school tours.  It can be hard to plan ahead as the salmon don't return in the same numbers on the exact same days each year.   We scheduled our trip for the week most likely to have some salmon.   Fortunately, there were some salmon in the river!  They weren't in the high numbers but they were there.

Our docent asked the kids questions to give them an opportunity to show off what they knew.  She explained the importance of the tributaries, riparian forests, good logging practices (the site is funding by a logging company), and taking care of the area.

We walked over a bridge that overlooked this tributary stream.  It was only a couple inches deep, but when it rains the salmon will actually come up this tiny stream too.  It seems impossible!

One of the things she had to show the kids was a set of tubes showing the early salmon life cycle.  It had eggs, newly hatched salmon, and salmon at different stages for the first 120 days.  She also had polarized glasses which make it easier to view the fish in the water.

You could see the salmon a little better than my camera could capture them.  But in some areas, you can see their fins and tails sticking out of the water, splashing around when they defended their territory or dug their redds.

This poor fish was tired and getting dragged downstream by the current.  It wasn't dead yet though.  We did see a couple of dead fish, but it is still early in the season.

We also got to see this replica of the native Indian salmon fishing tool.  There were some interpretive signs for the trail in it as well.

Mount St. Helens: Ape Caves

We had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Ape Caves with a geologist in the lead.  We also stopped by the Trail of Two Forests and the Lahar Viewpoint.  It was a long, but good day.

On the way up to our meeting point, I saw this beautiful viewpoint overlooking Yale Lake and stopped to grab a picture.

We arrived at the Trail of Two Forests and waited for the rest of our party.  We had lunch and explored the area immediately around the picnic benches.  Then our guide said a few words about volcanoes, explaining the types of eruptions we'd be seeing, the kind of volcano St. Helens is, and a few other interesting facts.

We got to see samples of vesicular basalt (aka lava with air bubbles).

The exciting thing about this part of the trip were the tree casts.  A lava flow from long ago wrapped about the trees in the area and hardened.  The trees either burned up or eventually decayed leaving behind hollow areas in the hardened lava rock.  We got to explore one of them.

One tree cast had a ladder heading down into it.  From there, you could crawl long a horizontal cast to an exit approximately 50 feet away.  It's small (hands and knees crawling on not-so-smooth rock), dark (need head lamps), and wet down there.  I know because I went through it.  Some of the kids loved it, and a few brave adults went through as well.

This is what the inside of the tree cast looks like from the exit.

After exploring the area, we headed back to our cars and drive a few miles up to the Ape Caves.  The Ape Caves are long tunnels running roughly parallel to the surface that were formed by lava moving underground.  There are two sections: the larger but more difficult upper tube and the easier lower tube.  We walked the lower tube.  The caves are pitch black, and the floor is uneven.  Multiple sources of good light are required to explore the tubes.

I knew Sam would love the Ape Caves, but he really loved them.  He was asking me to form another trip through them before we were even out of them.  Mika even enjoyed them; she ended up helping a couple of the younger kids through most of the walk.  (They just love her.)

Don't be fooled by the light picture!  I had my camera set on night portrait mode, and it does a very good job taking photos in the dark on that mode (still many of the photos have blurring and ghosting from the slow shutter speed).  This was on of the smoother, easier to walk in parts.

Other parts were rocky like this section.

This part is called the railroad tracks.  The raised tracks go on like this for quiet a while.

The rock overhead is called "Meatball".  It was apparently a block of cooled lava that fell from the ceiling while lava was still flowing through the tube.  It was carried downstream until it got wedged in a narrow space.

And this is the end of the 3/4 mile tube.  The floor becomes sandy.  The floor and ceiling gradually slope together until it dead ends.  At this point, there's nothing to do but go back the way you came.

After the Ape Caves, we drove 9 miles to the Lahar Viewpoint.   I was surprised to find snow on the roads (but it wasn't too bad), and the kids were thrilled.

When around snow, one must make a snow ball, right?

And throw it at someone.

It was sunset as we were driving back down the mountain.  After 9 1/2 hours, we finally walked back through our front door.    The kids loved it and want to go back. 

Week 8 and 9

What a crazy, busy two weeks!  We're moving on Saturday...35 hours from now.

Last week, Mikaela and Samuel completed almost all of their normal school load.  There were a couple of assignments that were dropped but not many.  I didn't manage to get any photos, nor will I have a chance to write out any details.

I did manage to spend some time with Josh and Maddie as well.  I printed off parts of a pumpkin unit study for younger kids, and we did some of it.  I cut out jack-o-lantern parts for them to glue together, than Josh wrote "jack-o-lantern" under it.  He also did some measuring with a pumpkin ruler, which he loved.  I have library books on apples and pumpkins, but Josh hasn't had much interest in being read to lately.  Maddie loves the books, though.  Here's their jack-o-lanterns:

This week, we have focused more on getting our move done.  Mikaela and Samuel still completed some school. They worked on their introduction and conclusion paragraphs for their writing assignment (that never ends).  They did some math.  They completed a chapter of history and did their usual three sessions of Rosetta Stone.  We managed to get one astronomy lab and one geology lab completed.  We were able to get Sam to two of his taekwondo classes, and both kids will be at their flag football lesson tomorrow morning.

We were also told on Monday, that we had to take care of the cleaning of the new house.  Thanks for the last minute notice!  Either we could clean it ourselves and bill them or hire a cleaning service and get reimbursed.  We opted to do the cleaning ourselves.  Sam and I have been going over their each morning to work on it for an hour or two.  He's earning money by helping me out.  While he doesn't clean as fast as I do, he is still working hard, and we are getting more done than I would do alone.  Mika has been helping out with the littles while we clean.

While we're home, I've been bouncing around between packing, helping with school, doing laundry, cooking, and spending a few minutes here and there with the littles.  Today, I also cleaned inside and outside of cabinets and drawers as I emptied them and got the oven looking new again.  Whew!

Here's Maddie's contribution to our work this week:

I have no idea what happened with the photos to cause that weird back-lighting.  Mikaela took the last photo.