Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Chemical Change Unit

Joseph and Caroline are finishing up their "Chemical Change" unit for MBTP. Their final project was to create a poster or a power point presentation about Chemical Change in Digestion. Joseph asked if he could a webpage because he is teaching himself HTML. Caroline also asked to do a webpage (but not HTML).
Here is what they came up with:
Joseph's Chemical Change Page

Caroline's Chemical Change Page

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Getting Caroline to Minnesota

We have started a fundraising campaign to try and get Caroline to Minnesota. If you have a few dollars or AA miles to spare, we will be forever indebted!

Monday, May 9, 2011

JoeFest (AKA Joseph is 11!)

Joseph turned 11 today! Joseph is the same age that Alex was when he was born.
We started out the day really living on the edge. We had Joseph's La Madeleine Ann's Cake for BREAKFAST! This was a first in our family, but there wasn't too much push back on it. ;)






Then it was time for our long awaited trip to Legoland Discovery Center in Grapevine. We got there a few minutes before they opened.

It starts out with a mock tour of the "factory". Joseph got to turn the crank because he was the birthday boy.

There there as a ride that had shooting involved. This is a picture of the screen of our "action shot" during the ride.

The other ride at the Discovery Center was one of those that goes around in a circle. You go up and down by pedaling.
Because of the indoor lighting, lots of yellow and the speed of the ride, the pictures might make you sick. :p






The kids did some building. There was a racetrack to test cars on and shaking platforms to simulate earthquakes for lego buildings. 



The coolest thing there was the miniature Dallas/Ft. Worth made out of Legos. They had all kinds of landmarks. The big ones like Ranger and Dallas stadium, but smaller ones like Granada Theater. Also, historic ones like Union Station and the Book Depository.



Most of us made it through the morning with just the cake, but Caroline did need a little pick-me-up of cantaloupe. The food was typically high priced and mostly snacks. I did see some people in the center eating from brown bags, so I guess they might allow outside food. You can get your hand stamped, go to the food court and eat, then come back. It wasn't worth it to us. We were ready to leave after a couple of hours.
One thing that threw us was when we were in the store and trying to buy some things, Joseph couldn't use his Lego gift card that I bought for him because Lego Discovery Center and the Lego Store associated with it are not the same company as the Lego Store in the other malls. So, after a lunch at Ritzy's, we made a stop at Stonebriar Mall to spend our Lego gift card.
Joseph and Ken are joined by "Bananas", Libby's new monkey stuffed animal that she got the other day as a gift from Alex.


Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Carter Jr.

I believe I have posted before about the amazing grant that I received from National Endowment for the Humanities, Picturing America. They gave away thousands of grants to schools and homeschools for an American Art and History program. They sent gorgeous 24"x36" prints plus a teacher guide....all very well done. That was amazing by itself.
Our co-op has enjoyed the prints for multiple classes and semesters, especially during our last semester which had an America theme.
Even better was when the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth offered an additional grant to those that had already received the prints through NEH. I was lucky enough to have been selected to participate with about 50 other teachers, including public, private and homeschool educators. Through this grant, we received a lot MORE benefits, including a stipend for me to attend, a special planned field trip for our co-op (including mileage reimbursement!), access to special materials and then, today, I received a box with books, posters and note cards in it. 
We already love the Amon Carter Museum. They do an amazing job with their educational programs and my kids love going there. We just did their latest book club and adored the selection. I highly recommend The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate to all of my friends, whether you have kids to read it with or not.
So, to the point of this post. After the box arrived in the mail today, the girls were very excited. They decided to create "Carter, Jr." in our school room. We hung up the posters we just received (the other prints will be added after we receive them back from co-op) and they displayed the books that the museum sent, plus a few select ones they thought would fit in.
Currently, they are in there, conducting their own Carter, Jr. Bookclub. :D

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Chera's Bluebonnet Pictures!

We got them! They turned out incredible despite our eccentric outfits. :D