Columbus Day Boat competition

This is Part 1 of 101 uses for Craft sticks- My dad came over the other day with a HUGE box of tongue depressor/craft stick thingys that the boxes were a big damaged. And told the kids to build some cool things with them. So here's the first of 101 posts on what to make with craft sticks. :D

For school today- we read 2 books about Christopher Columbus. This one- A Picture book about Christopher Columbus and This one a little bit longer- but the pictures are amazing, and it's much more detailed. Then I assigned the boys to "Make A Boat" Roo was assigned the Nina, Doodle was building the Pinta, and Bug the Santa Maria. Here they are hard at work figuring out how to build their boats. Roo LOVES using scissors. So his boat had a TON of sails.

Bug and Doodle working hard on their boats.

Roo's version of the Nina. See all the sails. Doodle's finished version of The PintaAnd Bug's Santa Maria.
The Final exam- will they float?! It's decided that Clay might help make the sails stand up, but it is too heavy to float, so Roo and Bug's boats don't float. The Winner of the Best Floating Boat Competition- Doodle's Pinta

The Winner of the "Looks most like Columbus' boat" Bug's Santa Maria.

And the winner of the "Fastest boat in the ocean" (it would have to be with that many sails) Roo's Nina.

Fall is in the air...or is it winter?!

Ok so we get ready for church yesterday morning, look out the window and there is SNOW falling from the sky. After church there was enough snow on the car that it needed scraped off....(where in the world did that window scraper go!?- probably in the truck- it hasn't been used lately for some reason lol) Here's a view out our front door. ok- so it wasn't really a lot of snow- and it's mostly melted now- it's just the simple fact that it's FALL- and I don't wanna skip fall and go straight to winter!

Fall is when I'm in the mood for popcorn. :p yum it just seems to fit with the season for some reason. And When Ben was at the Produce stand buying apples for me to make applesauce with (that's a whole nother post my basement full of jarred goods) he picked up some popcorn. yes- on a cob! Seee!!! The guy there told him to just microwave it in a paper bag. So after church we decided to give it a try. YUM! The popcorn was delicious. It just popped right off the cob into the paper bag. Here's what it looked like when it was done. Except for the first one that I burned a little bit. yuck! I hate the smell of burnt popcorn.

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Our FIAR title for this week was Harold and the Purple Crayon. What a Fun, simple story with lots of imagination. Monday we talked about how the story happens in the Boy's imagination. We also read a go-along book Harold's ABC's.

Tuesday we talked about the artwork thoughout the story, and Doodle drew his own pictures of "Doodle and the orange crayon" on a huge paper. Wednesday was math day- we counted the windows on one of the pages, got well over 100, and talked about fractions and pieces of pie. Thurdsay we talked about the phases of the moon, we read a book about it, How the Moon Seems to Change and did a simple experiment to show how the moon doesn't really change shape, we just can only see part of it lit up. Using a flashlight, (the sun) a Ball (the moon) and Doodle's head (the ear

It was a Great school week!

UGG!! What's happened to my blog list on the sidebar?!

My little Chef

Last night for dinner- I made some fajitas (an overabundance of bell peppers in our garden this year). The boys were running around fighting as usual (sad that's an ordinary thing around here!) And Doodle was teasing Roo. So I called Roo in to help me make dinner. We went to the basement to get some fruit to make a fruit salad. Roo found some pineapple and mandarin oranges. I was going to mix some pudding mix, or cool whip or something in with them, but didn't have anything. So Roo made our salad. lol- I opened the cans, drained them and handed them to Roo. He dumped them in the bowl, and asked for a "stir thing" So I gave him a spoon and he mixed them all together. I handed him the bowl and said to put it on the table. He gets as far as the table, then said "take my picture mom" ROFL- I guess he's seen the big boys get their pictures taken with food they make as school projects. So I took his picture with his "salad" He was pretty proud as he asked dad "please pass the salad I made" Silly kid!

More Karate- Board Breaking

2 posts in one day- but some boys told me I needed to post these pics of them today! Last night was the breaking class at Karate, and both boys were excited to go. Last time I just got pictures of them after they got home with there boards- Here. But this time I remembered my camera- so here's some pics of the boys breaking their boards.

Bug broke 1 board horizontal alone, then 1 vertical, then 2 stacked up horizontal. He did awesome! My camera batteries were almost dead, so I didn't get one of his vertical board. Next time I'll try movie mode ;)

Doodle broke both of his boards horizontal. He was so pleased with himself. It took him a few trys to break his second board, but he did it!

Mr. Gumpy's Motorcar fun!

Doodle's FIAR story for this week was Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car It was a FUN story. In the story Mr Gumpy goes for a ride in his car, and the children, the cat, the goat, the calf, the chickens, the dog, the rabbit...... all come with him. He gets stuck, and they all help push him up the hill. On Monday we learned about England and Europe, as Doodle noticed that the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car. We found England on the map, and talked about some of the different words they use. This site that someone posted on the FIAR boards was very helpful! We also read a family Favorite- Mr Gumpy's Outing (same premise- all the animals and children are going out with Mr. Gumpy- only this time they take a boat ride, and tip over)

Tuesday we talked about the way the story was written, how it takes place all in one afternoon, whereas some books take a week, a month or longer for the whole story to happen. We also noticed that on one page in the story the characters all answer "Not Me!" and compared it to the Little Red Hen story. So we read that story.

Wednesday, Doodle wasn't feeling too well, so we kept it simple. We read the story, looked at the artwork, and talked about texture in artwork and crosshatching.

Yesterday we talked about the 12 "people" who go for a ride in the car, and talked about a Dozen. And since Mr Gumpy has a car- We also read Beep Beep, Vroom Vroom and talked about Patterns. We used counting cars that we have to make the patterns in the book. I also found this fun puzzle that we put together. Then since Mr. Gumpy "didn't like the look of the clouds" in the sky, we read a book about clouds, and how to identify different clouds. Here are the go-along books we used this week- It was a Fun school week!

Guest Blogger today- Bug!

me and dad

Me and dad decided to go on a backpacking trip 20 miles in 3 days. So we went up to the cabin and got our stuff ready and early Monday morning we headed off.

We stopped to get gas and went in to see how much bear pepper spray was. but it was too much so I got some candy and we left.(bear pepper spray is a kind of spray that you spray in the bears eyes it blinds them).so we went to west Yellowstone and went to the super market we bought our food (ramen noodles)and they didn't have any so we had one more errand to run. We went to find flies to fish with. While we were there we saw pepper spray and bought it . I got a pocket knife. We headed out and got our license to get in. We went to Old Faithful and got our back country permit and got a map. When we got to the place we hiked in and watched Lone Star Geyser and hiked on. But one half a mile away from our camp site around the corner comes a GRIZZLY BEAR! Right in front of me. dad was freaked out and I was too. He totally forgot about the pepper spray. The bear walked right by us on the trail. We headed in to our camp site and tied our stuff up.and tried to make a fire. The fire would not start so we went fishing.( when all hope is lost catch some dinner) then we went on a hike there were bear tracks everywhere! but yet again a half a mile away from our camp site a Buffalo was there we hiked around him and went on. Some hikers were freaked out one guy had his bear pepper spray out the whole time, because he was a chicken.( pakpakpakak) We found a spring and hiked some more. When we got back, we ate our dinner and hit the sack. but in the morning it was freezing cold but we made our breakfast and headed out to find the lake. we found it and decided to go home but we played around and fished and hiked and hiked out. we had stayed 2 days and hiked 30 miles. here are some pictures.
a movie of Lone Star Geyser