Borax snowflake success!

This week-before-Christmas is very light as far as 'schoolwork'.  Instead we are doing a week of crafts and low-stress activities.  One thing I wanted us to try was making Borax snowflakes.  We've never had much luck with sugar crystals, but these worked like a charm!

Plus, they looked so pretty in the jars with a drop of food coloring:

And they turned out so sparkly!

The instructions said to leave them for at least 8 hours, but for us they grew so quickly that after only 6 hours they were starting to grow extra 'arms'.  Oh, well, still fun!

Our study of the Celts

A friend asked me the other day what we are using for our history study of the Celts.  This is what I told her, with some embellishment and helpful links:

As we were finishing up the last topic (Romans) I gave K a copy of Horrible Histories book, Cut-Throat  Celts, which he devoured, as is his way. Reading these high-interest books with a lot of humor seems to "prime" him for a topic--he is the child that needs a "hook" to get him interested in a topic.  L is usually up for anything.
 
Since then we've been reading Celtic-related stories and pages out of our history encyclopedias etc. Right now we're working on the Eyewitness Classics King Arthur, which includes a lot of background information and is a lot more Celtic than many versions. Last week we read "Across a Dark and Wild Sea" by Don Brown, which is argueably not Celtic--it is about the Irish monks that maintained literacy after the fall of Rome-- but I'm not too worried about it because it was good story. All Don Brown's books are good, but most of them are more modern history, so I was happy to find this one that tells an older story.

We also read pages here and there out of Usborne Encyclopedia of World History and do some of the Usborne recommended links.  I think this week or next we'll read a little about bog bodies or watch a Nova special (this link to the Nova website has a lot of interesting interactives--my kids really seem to respond to true stories about archeology, even if they can be a little gruesome) and maybe read Finn MacCoul out of "Favorite Medieval Tales" by Osborne. I would like to find something engaging on Boudica but I think that's not in the cards this time.

I also try to remember once a week or so to find some hands-on thing that ties in. I often get ideas from one of the Hermes House kid's encyclopedias:  Life in the Ancient World and Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Ancient World are favorites, but they have a lot of duplicated content.  The former includes a project on making Celtic shields based on the well-known Battersea Shield which looks like fun and a good fit to tie in what is known about Celts from archeology, Arthurian legend, and the kid's current love of battling each other--we have plenty of swords but more shields are needed around here!  

Kids on Wheels

Every Thursday, the boy spends the day with a combination of Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa.  The last few weeks he and Grandpa have been hard at work on a semi-secret project.  Today, they finished it!

Time well spent, I think!

Happy Carl Sagan Day!

My friendly facebook subscriptions reminded me that today is Carl Sagan Day!  Today would have been Mr. Sagan's 77th birthday.  A very good day to remember to pause and look up at the sky. 

Sadly, Cosmos is not available on Netflix streaming, but we'll watch The Universe this afternoon and watch the new Symphony of Science video released today.  A fitting tribute.

Mt. St. Helens south side Sunday

Yesterday could really not have gone much better.  I'd never been to Trail of Two Forests and Ape Cave before but that did not stop me from leading a group there.  Live on the edge, that's how I roll.

So does my daughter:

It's hard to tell from this photo, but she's looking down into an empty hole about 8 feet deep--the cast of the trunk of a big ol' tree that was standing in the forest, minding its own business, until a lava flow came down the mountain about 2,000 years ago.  Homeschool Distractions was also along and posted a great photo diary of the field trip that I don't need to recreate here. 

After the group split up at the end of the day--as usual, we lasted longer than the rest, we kept going a little way up the newly snowy road from Lahar Viewpoint to Stratigraphy Viewpoint to see the lahar and pyroclastic deposits.  It was near sunset by then, super gorgeous.

This is looking up Pine Creek toward Mt. St. Helens. There is a tree stump sticking out of the bluff at the right side of the photo, see it?  That's a fallen tree carried down with the 1980 lahar flow.  This would not have been a good place to stand 31 years ago.  

 L saw it. There she is, living on the edge again.  The kids have already asked to go back again.  I'm sure we will.  But on the way back we got to talking about the other volcano and cave sites we need to visit.  This world is so big and there is so much to see!  It is so hard to pick where to go next.  Luckily, thinking about it is one of my favorite things.  The ocean during a winter storm is awfully exciting...

Booklist: Eruptions!

Prepping for a field trip with a homeschool group to Ape Cave and Mt. St. Helens this weekend.  Like most of my field trips (with groups, or just the family) the point of it is really just to be out and about and see what's out in the world, but I usually like to wrap in some kind of earth science theme around the thing, too.   This time, it's just natural to make that be the different kinds of volcano eruptions. 

Mt. St. Helens steaming away in the background during our last trip to the volcano, October 2010.

I will make sure not to lose it if I share with you the list of recommended books I'll be handing out to the group, if they want to do additional reading.

For the youngers:

Pompeii..Buried Alive!  (Step Into Reading, Step 4) by Edith Kunhardt

Volcanoes (Smithsonian) by Seymour Simon

Volcanoes! (National Geographic Readers) by Anne Schreiber

For the olders:

The Secrets of Vesuvius by Sara Bisel

Will it Blow?  Become a Volcano Detective at Mount St. Helens by Elizabeth Rusch

Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mt. St. Helens by Patricia Lauber

For high school/adults:

Return to Spirit Lake: Journey Through a Lost Landscape by Christine Colasurdo

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester

No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras by Victoria Bruce

Melting the Earth: The History of Ideas on Volcanic Eruptions by Haraldur Sigurdsson

All ages:

Mt. St. Helens: The Eruption and Recovery of a Volcano by Rob Carson

The Explosive World of Volcanoes with Max Axiom (Graphic Library) by Christopher L. Harbo

Eyewitness Books Volcano & Earthquake by Susanna Van Rose

See?  Steaming!  Crossing my fingers for weather this nice this weekend.

A view of what's inside

Our house has a "territorial view", but often, the view of what's inside the house is way, way better. 

K and L, looking at what is inside a tooth in The Way We Work by David Macauley, because he had just lost his second baby tooth.  Say it with me now: awwwww.

I miss summer already

Today was a good day, we did our work and didn't argue (too much).  But it was drizzly and gray outside, a true pacific northwest fall day, so the kids couldn't burn off energy outside.  I miss the nice weather, already. 

The boy looking at tadpoles in a mountain lake.  That was a good afternoon.

At least I had a nice new pumpkin spice candle that kept the house smelling warm and cozy all day, like I'd been baking goodies.  Which of course I had not.  The Jehovah's Witnessess that stopped by today didn't know that, though, and they commented on how I seemed to have it all together, with my son that went back to the computer assignment he was working on when asked, and the dogs that did not attack them when I told them to "stay back!"  I'm not sure if I was saying "stay back!" to the dogs, or the Witnesses.  But they (the Witnesses) did not seem to take offense.  The dogs were a little ticked, though.   

Anyway.  Here's to another long long fall.  When the sun does come out for a few minutes and everything is lit with a golden light for a precious moment, it's really not too bad.

If a picture is worth a thousand words

This photo should tell you what this blog is about.

L at the Grand Canyon, June 2010