New quotes

"Alex, I need your phone."

"Why?"

"Because I am taking it for a couple days."

"Why?"

"Because you called me 13 times while I was out."

"Well you didn't answer the first twelve times."

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As we open the box the Christmas gifts come in from the kids grandma in CA Cyan says:

"I bet grandma bought me a pink ballet outfit."

"Honey, I doubt it. We just scaned your list yesterday, I didn't send it to her."

"Oh yes. I bet she did. She loves me... and she can read my mind."

Tree study going strong

The tree study is going well so far. Today, Alex looked up what type of trees we had in our old neighborhood in the Arbor Association book, and then I had him go out and figure out what kinds of trees we have in our new neighborhood. His best guess was a White Oak. But the book had white oaks only listed on the east side of the country. I had him look closely at the details: 'grow in stands' (place with a lot of the same tree variety) and between our neighbors and us there were 26 that he could see from our front yard. That sounds like a stand to me. 'Has a leaf with rounded lobes and has a rounded crown of branches.' Check, and check. But still... we are not in the middle east part of the US. So I had him check the placement on the map, just to make sure it didn't include somewhere close to us.

Above, he is mapping where the book said the White Oaks were most prevalent, he took string and mapped from each place they said. The book says that they only grow from 'west Missouri, to Maine, to Florida, and then back to Texas." We are in Washington. Not anywhere near there. We were stumped... we definitely have some type of White Oak in our backyard. So we asked the almighty Google for help. Sure enough, we found this in short order:

Garry Oak, or the Oregon White Oak

As far as we can tell, the differences are in the leaves. White Oaks have 5 - 9 lobes, most of the time having more than 7. Garry Oaks have 5 - 7 lobes, numbering in the lower numbers more often. There is also a slight difference in stature. Our oaks are smaller.

Interesting.

We also looked at bark from our Tree Ring Discovery Kit. We figured out how old the red oak was that we had the rounds from, and then identified all of the different pieces of the trunk (heartwood, sapwood, cambium and inner/outer bark layers).

After that, we saw a new bird in our yard... a spotted Towhee... and the lesson moved on. Cyan drawing what she saw out the window, Alex looking up birds and listening to the sounds they make in his bird book. There is a lot of nature in this little yard. Here are pictures from the ten minutes after the lesson before Logan drug me away for an episode of Blue's Clues.

This is a busy little yard. :)

And let me introduce you to the squirrel we have so aptly named "Spider Squirrel" or "Spidy" for short.

The season got off to a great start! It's amazing to see how much the boyz have improved from last year. They are both still wrestling kids that are older and weigh more. Dalton got his first "W" for the year beating a 8Th grader weighing 112lbs, 5-3 in over time. We stayed at a hotel in Albany with the boyz wrestling until 10:15 Friday night and back wrestling by 9 am on Saturday. The Raiders Boys basketball team started off a bit rough taking a loss at Sleepy Eye on Friday night. We are looking for some home court advantage on Thursday night.

First day of school in the new house

What a blessing this set up is going to be! I love not having the tv in the same room as our school time. Logan was able to watch part of a Blue's Clues while we were working, and the kids didn't get up to watch the tv once. It was wonderful!

Those windows may prove to be nearly as much of a distraction though. There are SO many animals and birds around here! What a great nature lesson in our own backyard. Already today we have watched squirrels chasing each other around our yard, we have seen 4 stellar jays in the same tree at the same time (it was a little tree too), and seen 4 other different kinds of birds eating at our feeders. I am glad I decided not to skip the Trees Unit Study. Because this will be a good introduction to the nature in our new neighborhood. And that means that my kids won't constantly be in trouble for pointing out the newest animal in the yard, or the trees that look funny, or the bird that just came to the window feeder. Because I have to admit, it is pretty darn hard for me to not be distracted by all the life out there right now... so it is near impossible for them.

Back in Nov we started this unit study with what trees need to survive. But that was over a month ago now, so today we had a refresher on that topic. We wrote up diagrams and talked about what they need and what each one is called (air, sunshine, water, soil, protection (bark)). Then we started a new mini unit of photosynthesis. The best way to learn that is to see it.

This is our photosynthesis experiment. For the next four days, this leaf, on our healthiest window plant, will be covered by 3 layers of dark colored paper. Nothing else is changed... the leaf is not damaged and still has access to air, water, and soil. The experiment will be to see if it is still the vibrant green at the end of our school week. Alex had to write up what we did for the experiment, a hypothesis about what will happen, and at the end, he will write a conclusion.

We have used quite a few books for this unit study already. The best (which we are still using) have been Trees by Mary Julivert, Berries, Nuts & Seeds, and Trees, Leaves, & Bark, (both in the Fun with Nature Take-along Guide series). The "Trees" book is a field guide. They whole thing is set up in two page spreads, much like a good encyclopedia.

Now we are on our way to the Festival of Trees downtown. Not quite related as they are ALL fir trees... but it will be fun anyhow.

Greensleeves by Mozart

This seemed appropriate for the season. Mozart wrote it, but it was an Englishman in 1865 who wrote the words that have become dear to our hearts this time of year. This is a beautiful tribute to Greensleeves and Mother Nature, who is sleeping, and to the baby that is rejoiced this time of year for his gifts of love.

And for fun, here is the history of the Christmas Carol.

Late start

Last month we were studying trees, Mary Cassatt, and Mozart. And then we found out we were moving in three weeks and all but the basics of homeschool stopped dead in the water. So I decided to bump it a month. This month has been a long one in coming. We have our homeschool corner all set up and are ready to begin some learning with our first full day of school in the new house tomorrow. :) I am excited and I think so are the kids.

I think I am going to try an experiment for this month. We are not going to do basics. By that I mean, we are not going to follow our reading, writing, and math curriculums as we have been. We are going to be studying trees, Mary Cassatt, and Mozart. And we are going to base everything, unit study style, on those three things. Cyan will read books about trees, or read captions in books I am reading. Alex will write papers, and keep a journal on the different types of trees they find in the neighborhood, and Cyan can draw pictures. They can count how many acorns they find in the back yard now that Alex has raked... or better yet, they can count how many acorns they find in a 2X2 square in the back yard and then walk the back yard to see how many would be in the whole yard that way. I want to try it. I think this is the best way to learn, personally, and I find it fun. So for this month, I think that is our plan. To immerse ourselves in the beauty of the trees we are getting to know. To draw and paint like Mary Cassatt, and to listen and appreciate Mozart and learn about his life. Maybe we will find a new way to do school in this month, and perhaps we will turn back... but it certainly won't hurt to try.

A neat tree web site we have been playing with:

Arbor Day Tree Identification

Oh my gosh they past 2 weeks have been a world wind of events! We got a new baby cousin Justin Elliott and we got to take Colin to school for a carnival. Had another great pheasant hunt over the Thanksgiving holiday. Mom has had the house full of people wanting Christmas photo's taken. But on the bright side we have a fun filled weekend of Basketball and Wrestling. Friday Tabor is in Sleepy Eye and Tanner & Dalton wrestle in Melrose.