This week I was still a little hypomanic and was on a cleaning frenzy. I had a couple of migraines, but was more energetic than usual between them. So, I have gotten a fair bit of pre-holiday cleaning done so I don't stress about that over the next couple of months. This is important because I'm surely not going to clean more than necessary around the holidays!
The kids are both cooking quite a bit. Wild Man made pancakes early in the week. Ga'hoole Girl made a lemon meringue pie which didn't turn out well, so she's going to try again today. Our plan to make Irish Stew didn't turn out well because, even though I have a lamb bone to make the stock, the butcher shop won't have lamb for a few weeks. We also watched several Food Network shows, including a couple on using puff pastry and making choux pastry.
Ga'hoole Girl got me to buy her a pomegranate at the grocery store. When we got home, she looked up how to clean the pomegranate and get the seeds ready to eat. Then, she came to me to tell me all about the wonders of pomegranates that she learned online. She's still doing research on her project to get me to eat more veggies. I'm anticipating a yummy salad tonight.
The kids and I watched a History Channel show on the universe. The show presented the history of astronomy and cosmology and then, at the end of the show, presented the most commonly accepted version of the Big Bang theory. Last night, we watched a really cool show about some pits that have been found in the Gobi Desert that contain dinosaur skeletons in three dimensions. Wild Man was enthralled by it.
Wild Man (at my request) did a Google search on Teddy Roosevelt since he was rather interested in him from the movie, "Night at the Museum". Wild Man was a little frustrated by not being able to read the entries as well as he would have liked, but he was surprised to hear that teddy bears are named after Teddy Roosevelt.
Another interesting show we watched this week was on a huge cave found in a Mexican mine that is filled with huge gypsum crystals. It was amazing. Apparently, it is well over 100 degrees in the cave, so the scientists have to wear special suits. Anyway, Ga'hoole Girl is now rather interested in crystals, but she started with asking questions that are really basic chemistry. So, I have ordered several books about the periodic table from the library to get her going.
Wild Man has been reading a little in his Mythbusters book, so he and Ga'hoole Girl decided that they wanted to replicate the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment (if you aren't sure what this is, search YouTube for it). So, they made a little set-up in the backyard and did two runs of putting Mentos in Diet Coke. The first was pretty spectacular, but, for the second, they put a tornado tube on the top of the Diet Coke bottle, so the eruption had to go 10 feet or more! I'll try to post video in a day or two.
We listened to the book City of Ember on CD this week and then went to see the movie on Wednesday. Great book and movie!! The kids and I highly recommend both!
Last night was spent carving pumpkins. Ga'hoole Girl did her pumpkin completely by herself this year. I'll post some pictures later.
To end this entry, I'd like to include two pieces of writing. This is from an "anonymous" 13 year old:
A Halloween Poem
A sharp knife, a shiny knife
A pumpkin’s fate decided.
In pencil light, in marker dark
Angles and curves form a mask.
In a hole, a dark hole
A slimy, pulpy mass.
But in the slime, a treasure hides
Needing only to be found.
This is a short paper by Wild Man (dictated to Mom):
Ember
I'm writing about "The City of Ember". This week, we listened to the book and watched the movie. I liked the book better than the movie because the movie made the animals too big. In one part of the movie, Doon was walking and he saw a moth. That is not unusual for Doon, but the moth was huge! It was almost as big as Doon. Then, there was a rat in the pipeworks that is something that was not in the book. The rat was even bigger than the moth: it was huge! It was bigger than Doon and could break most anything.
One of the characters was Clary. In the book, she was very shy and slow to speak, and the movie hade her energetic and normal, which isn't Clary. I liked the movie, but I prefer the book, even if the book is longer.
3 comments:
I love weeks that I am full of energy and get lots done.
So sorry about the migranes, they are really no fun at all....
I hope your next week is another week full of energy and NO migraines...:)
Migraines are no fun, but it sounds like you got a ton of fun stuff done!
You could probably spend an entire year doing a unit study based on Night at the Museum. I wonder if someone has come up with that yet...you know, as in doing all the work for us. ;-)
I love reading about all the ways your kids are learning through life. That's so much more interesting and meaningful than just doing workbooks all day.
Post a Comment