The Headless Horseman Scarecrow: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Reading from both the abridged and unabridged version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.


Horse is BLACK now.  Real horsehair tail is being died now.  Needs more painting if anyone wants to come over this weekend!

Niah & I working with google images to re-create an authentic Hessian uniform.

Hessian Soldier

So far...

Siphon Experiment

Added blue food coloring to start bucket.

Funnel was used to create vacuum in hose.

The grade, or fall, distance from top to lower bucket.

71 feet!

 

 

Water coming in from siphon.

Balboa Park's Free Museum Admission Tuesday

Yesterday was another extraordinary day for us homeschoolers!  I had made a mistake thinking workshops started yesterday at GSDA but they begin next week so we were all dressed and ready for a day away from the house.  We decided to take advantage of opportunity and go down to SD for the free admission to select museums at Balboa Park.  On the first Tuesday of the month, both The Natural History and R.H Fleet Science Museum's are free so we targeted those.  We headed down at about 10 am, I taught 'factoring' lesson in the car, got pretty hungry and decided to go out for Dim Sum and hot Jasmin Tea at the Jasmin Restaurant in Mira Mesa.  I, of course, took opportunity to make this an educational experience all around by opening up conversation about China.  For timesake I will consolidate what unfolded with a few lists. 
First, China:
- China has about 5,000 years of history compared that with our US which is 229 years old
-The Great Wall: looked up facts on Wikipedia while sipping tea
-great Wall is about 5K mi. linear, 13K mi.  counting the branches, several areas are natural ie rivers, mountains etc.
-Jasmine Tea is really green tea with jasmine flowers
-Talked with very friendly waitress about her life in China, having to learn so much history-she says it helps to travel to historical locations to learn.
-Learned how to say 'thank you' and 'good-bye' in Chinese and practiced with waitress.

At the Nat, we were delighted that the 'Flying Monsters' 3-D movie was delayed and we arrived in perfect timing to see it- we rushed to get tickets and went right in.  Wow, it was spectacular.  It is a National Geographic endeavor partnered with a 3-D tech film co. producing such a high quality film, we were so excited! Then we:
- Wandered the floors of museum looking at pre-historic fossils
- Skulls, saw college students sketching on drawing tabs, some were so, so good.
- Toured the California water resource exhibit and learned how valuable the resource is.  Kids learned that Mexico gets very little of the water that comes from the Colorado River.
-THE HORSE exhibit was fabulous, wish we had focused on this entirely- we will return with a unit study outline soon as a visiting AP 5/6th class was doing one and one of the teachers just happened to have an extra packet for me when I inquired about what the group was doing!!!!!AMAZING!!!
-viewed VAVRA's photographic exhibit, his subjects are horse and horse with man.

Now, off to the Science museum:
-hurricanes and tornadoes
-high/low pressure
-sound as vibration
-human body, cellular, embryo, skin, stem cell
-built a marble roller coaster with misc materials
-Foukault Pendulum
-Mental Math- how much is admission for our family, estimating, rounding, calculated how much we saved! over $70!!!! -less the $5 per person for 3-D.

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
-Thomas Edison

 

THIS WAS A SUCCESSFUL DAY!

Tiny Marmoset skull at right-so cute! Teeeny!

Our RUBE GOLDBERG thing.

I came home and read over the 5th grade science STAR test, we covered MANY topics today!

Photo Shoot with my Dogs

The Secret Garden

We live in the Secret Garden.

We are also reading the classic, The Secret Garden, by Burnette.  What a nice change from curriculum anthology readings.  We are incorporating the literature unit study for comprehension and activity options.
This feels right.

Painted Lady aka Vanessa Cardui

Caterpillar (larva) eating the Passion Vine

Newly emerged from Chrysalis

One of hundreds of Chrysalis attached to stone pillar.

 Interesting Facts:
Scientific name: Vanessa Cardui
They migrate long distances
Begin as eggs that hatch into larva
4 weeks eating as caterpillars before change into cocoon
7-10 as a chrysalis


We have hundreds of these butterflies in our backyard.  They are attracted to our Passion Vine and return every year.  The kids are very protective of them as they make their crysalis everywhere.  The gardener is not allowed to work in the area as he may disturb them.  We find their cocoons everywhere!

More Room for the Self to Emerge

A new stack of books await me, an exciting bundle of information ready to shape my thinking and I am excited!  So many books, so little time.  I will have to learn to read faster, skim and comprehend the pages so that I can extract the main ideas and understand the facts and move onto to another.  Ah, the joy of growing with my children!  I realize that though my college coursework laid a great foundation for the basis of my intellectual self, I know that I must learn more so that I have a current inventory of information to share with my children.  So I read.  No time for television.  I have to gain a solid perspective on what the future may look like.  Must keep abreast of the changes so that I can stay on a positive trajectory that will gracefully land us on our feet, ready to live independent lives in the 21st century.

One of the books I have in my possession is Hold on to Your Kids, by Neufeld, Ph.d & Mate', M.D.  I have not yet read this book, however, I randomly opened the book to read a page to see how it may or may not grab my interest.  It did catch my attention as I read, "In our urgency for our children to socialize, we leave little time for our kids to be with us or to engage in solitary, creative play I've called emergent play.  We fill up their free time with play dates-or with videos, television, electronic games.  We need to leave much more room for the self to emerge."  Well, this really hit home for me as I not only struggle to be sure my kids have enough 'social' time but also, I need to get a handle on the TV addiction.  I can't tell you how many times I threaten to cancel cable!  Yes, many mom-friends tell me, just don't allow TV during the week.  Seems easy enough, right?  Okay, I am working on this.  Somehow I feel that they deserve a break, time to be mindless, especially for B who is enrolled in public school 3rd grade- a very intense place to be, he comes home stressed out.  He enjoys TV but on the other hand, the quiet time would be healthy (despite the complaints and adversity), and the creativity that would emerge is a far greater good. 

I look forward to reading this book, it seems promising as it addresses 'peer orientation' issues which is especially important for those who have children in larger education institutions - like me.