Pro-school: Christopher Columbus and meteors

Hello, this is my world map rug that I got from Big Lots. Isn't it awesome? I love it. I also got a Buzz Lightyear that has all of the planets and where they are from the sun on it. They are fantastic!

Anywho, okay, we learned about Christopher Columbus on Tuesday. We watched these video's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZEEbQ3hWmU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/kids/history-kids/christopher-columbus-kids/

Which are both fantastic!

Here is our timeline we are making. We talked mostly Christopher Columbus, but also discussed the Vikings who most likely came before Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci who is most likely the person America is named after. (He discovered that the America's were a "new land" and not the Indies as Columbus had thought) There are a lot of "most likely" back in the day...;)

And then we did crafts. And my table ended up like this. And I'm thinking, 'why did I want to do this again?'

But they did make some pretty dang cute Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria's out of egg cartons. Directions here.

And then this is where I sway from my Pro-school plan...

Wednesday morning Liam asked me, "Mom, why do things start on fire when they come into the earth?" I said, "I don't know. Let's look it up." So we did. And we did our Wednesday pro-school about it. We read about the science behind why things burn up when they come into our atmosphere on the internet. Here. Here. and Here.

One of the reason meteors and such burn up is because of friction from air molecules. To understand this, we went outside got a stick and rubbed it as hard and as fast on the cement as we could. Then we quickly picked it up and felt how hot it got. It works.

I also made the mistake of finding an animated "meteor enters earth atmosphere" video on YouTube and didn't watch it before I showed the kids. It, of course, had the meteor hit the earth...which may have freaked my kids out a little bit....

Then I had them write about what we learned. Emma wrote new three words we learned about (with my help). And Liam wrote this. Translation below.

"If a meteor fell and was still in space, atmosphere would be around the earth."

"So the meteor starts on fire, then the meteor crashes into earth. The End."

Darn YouTube clip.

Pro-school: Beginnings

Ever get that feeling like you're not doing all that you could be doing? I get that a lot with myself. One of my most recent slacking feeling is with my kids. I talked to a friend of mine a while ago and we were talking about homeschooling. I like homeschooling and people who do it. I just don't. We have our kids in public school, and that's great, but it's not the teachers job to teach our kids EVERYTHING. Absolutely not. It's my job to teach my children, and hopefully his/her classroom time will reinforce what I teach, and visa versa.

Well, I've been slacking on my end. I always think, 'what kind of a homeschooling mom would I be.' Pretty sure I'd be the slacker kind...Any ways, I've recently decided to over come this serious flaw of slacker-ness and plan a lesson everyday to teach my kids.

I thought of how to do this, what to teach. And I decided I would teach what I want to learn. Perhaps that would keep me on track, and give me motivation. We read, do ABC's, and practice math now, just in everyday life, so I chose something we don't do. I want to learn about the history of the United States. Really, I do. I would like to be able to say "oh, yes, I know about that. The war of 1812 happened in...1812." And more intelligent stuff like that. ;) So that's what we are doing. And I thought I'd share with you exactly what we are doing incase you would like to go along with us or mix it up with your own flair.

I'm starting the farthest back in U.S. history I know, and that's with the Lamanites and Nephites (not forgetting the Jaradites which came first, but...ya know).

* We have a big world map rug. I'm going to show the kids where Jerusalem is (where Lehi and his family came from) and where the America's are (where they traveled to).

*I also plan on reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon. And discussing some of what happened in the Book of Mormon (it's a big book, but will touch on somethings and leave the rest to family home evenings :)).

*We will also watch the two short videos below and color this picture (the title page)

http://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/conference-coloring-three.pdf

which works great because conference is this weekend. :) (Not the best picture, I know, but I really had a hard time finding a good one, and this will help me incorporate Conference)

*I plan on making a timeline that will border our learning area (aka kitchen). And will mark the things we have learned. Today Nephites and Lamanites, tomorrow Columbus, and so forth from there. Liam wants to learn about cars, so Henry Ford will be involved. Emma wants to learn about "lights", so Thomas Edison will be on our timeline too. I think it will be fun. If I can keep up with it :)

Each "Pro-school" (is what I'm calling it, instead of preschool. Eh? Eh? pretty clever hu? ;)) is at night and only going to last 30ish minutes. But hopefully I can teach them a little bit more than they already know, and maybe we can learn new things together.

Keep motivated.

Keep motivated. :)

Chicago-Lincoln Park Zoo

For the next day of our anniversary Chicago trip we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was Fabulous!

Us in front of the Chicago landscape

This is my favorite picture of the whole trip. That seal was one of my favorite parts (except the hippo! They had a hippo!! I about died. It was so awesome. And in a more natural habitat than just concrete...ahem, Hogel.) And look at my cute kids watching it. :)

Liam being a monkey

This is a picture of me in front of the monkey house. Tony said he wanted to take it just because the building was cool, but I know his real intent.

Action shot of Fox chasing a seagull.

Us being birds on the "bird bench," which we aptly named.

You can't really see the birds in the background, but we named them "Little Liam", because, as Liam pointed out, they had a red mohawk, "just like I did that one time, Mom!"

Emma the fierce polar bear

Liam the more happy fierce polar bear

This is a structure in Lincoln park

(The last three picture were taken by Liam) It was a super fun trip, and I can't wait to go back. I could live without the traffic, but Chicago is really quite a fun place. :)

Chicago-Shedd Aquarium

For mine and Tony's anniversary we decided to take the family to Chicago. It was a blast! Our first day there we went to go to Shedd Aquarium to see the fish, as Liam is demonstrating.

Unfortunately, since it was a weekend and the being of "spring break season", as one worker told me, it was PACKED, and we waited in line for two hours just to get tickets. It was kind of ridiculous, but luckily it was a beautiful day, so the kids and Tony played while I waited in line. And when we finally did get in we got to see all sorts of cool fish and animals...and touch/be scared of giant snakes.

see how scared Liam is

Tony said he was so scared in this picture he almost punched himself in the face ;)

Fox was not so scared

I had to add this one. Look at that cute little chubby cheek and arm boy getting ready to jump off the tiny ledge. :) Man, he's one cute kid.

After the aquarium we went to play the park. The kids loved it.

You got to love all of Liam's faces. Holy cow he's growing up. I love that he's so nerdy and silly. This trip really brought out a fun personality in him. The next post will have pictures (many, many pictures) of me, I swear. I just happened to have the camera the whole time this day. :)

Best Day Ever

Spring break started today.

As soon as I got up, Liam said to me "Mom, I made a list of the best day ever!" Then ran to get the list. I immediately started to think of ways to let him down easy about how, even though it would be the best day ever, we couldn't just up and go to Disneyland, or even Monkey Joe's (a bounce house), and how we probably wouldn't be able to get the toy that would make it the best day ever...

I had all my explanations and excuses ready when he got back back with his list written on my girly, butterfly, "to-do list". Here's what is said (don't worry there is a translation below...he had to read it to me...sometimes he gets a little excited when he writes ;)):

-Eat breakfast. "I ran out of room when writing that one, Mom."

-Get dressed.

-Play pirates. "We already played pirates this morning."

-Karate. "Emma doesn't really want to do Karate, so we changed that one to 'rides'."
-Play soccer.

-Take a nap.

-Eat lunch. "I wrote take a nap before eat lunch, so then I switched them" (said with a sly smile)

-Go outside.

-Play monkey's.

-Stand in the sun. (love!)

-Eat dinner.

-Go to sleep.

I'm pretty sure we can make this best day ever happen :)

Walmart bag kite flying

One day I'm going to do a post on all of the glorious things you can do with a Walmart bag. This is a classic, that worked out super good for a crazy windy, but sunny day. The kids had nasty colds and had been stuck in the house for...well, forever, it seemed. So despite the sicknesses, cough, and lack of real kites, we had to get out for a little while. So we whipped up, once again, fantastic Walmart bag kites. The wind was blowing so hard the kids barely had to move to get these babies flying.

We spent about a half an hour in the fun, sunny, kite-flying weather before we headed back inside to curl up in a blanket, cough some more, and watch another re-run of Curious George.

Random questions

I've decided to answer two different peoples random questions. The first is from my Mama, whom I love. :)

And the next is from one of my best friends...whom I also love. :)

My answers are short. I'm sorry. I've only got a little while to blog this morning. But they are short, sweet and to the point...:)

1. If you could be a superhero, what would your super powers be?

I would have telepathy, the super power where I can move stuff with my mind, and teleportation powers. Really anything with "tele" in the front of it...;)

2. Hot dogs or hamburgers?

Both. Really. I like 'em both

3. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?

I'm pretty much perfect...but at this very moment the thing I would change about myself is to have more will power.

4. In the next life, when we are all perfect :) what age would you be?

I don't know, I haven't lived every age yet, and I hear the next little while is pretty awesome too, but from the time I have lived I would choose sometime in the past two years. I don't have achy bones or anything yet, I'm happy, and fairly health...I think :)

5. Tell me your favorite movie and why it is.

I'm kind of a lame-o when it comes to movies, but I love Tangled, Despicable Me, How to Train Your Dragon. Anything light, simple and that makes me laugh and feel good. That's it.

6. What would your dream vehicle be?

I have my dream vehicle. Really, my Toyota Sienna is AWESOME! I would however take a newer one. And I guess this is my dream "Mom" vehicle. My dream grown up vehicle is probably something smaller that runs and is paid off :). And has heated seats. Never knew how much I love them until I got a car that had 'em.

7. If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you'd do with your new found wealth?

Pay off school debt.

8. If you could spend an hour with anyone (alive or dead) who would it be?

My family. I miss them.

9. Where would you like to see yourself in 10 years?

One or two more kids. Living in a house, with a nice big yard. With enough money to go traveling a couple of times a year. :) With a happy family.

10. If we had the "beam me up Scottie" technology- where on earth would you travel to?

Utah and Disneyland. I miss my family....I miss Disneyland.

11. If you had to change into either a dolphin or a falcon which would you become?

(Tom. Honestly.) Falcon, I'm not a fan of ocean creatures.

And the other one-

1. Were you named after someone and if so whom?

A muppet gelfling from Dark Crystal. I don't think you can get cooler than that.
2. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?

Yes.
3. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Their looks. Weither they look "goofy" or not. That's horrible but true. I try not to judge them too harshly though. I've made some excellent friends who I thought were totally "goofy" looking...
4. Who do you miss at the moment?

hu, I don't know ;) My Utah family.
5. Mountain hideaway or beach house?

beach house
6. What is the farthest you have been from home?

I've been to Mexico once, for like three hours.
7. City or country?

In between? Not too far from the city, but not too close either.
8. Would you bungee jump?

No. Tony and I argue about this all the time. Let's not talk about it.
9. Favorite sport to watch?

Superbowl commercials? I like to watch volleyball also.
10. Favorite school teacher and why?

Oh, wow, um...I had a couple of seminary teachers that I really liked, Mr Ormond (high school english), everybody else hated him, but I thought the stuff he taught was fascinating. Mr. Finlayson (junior high science), I t.a.-ed for him, got to hold the classroom animals, and actually helped Tony yesterday with some of his biology class with stuff that I learned in that class.
11. What do you want to do when you retire?

Travel. Really that's all I want to do ever. I love going new places and seeing cool things with my family.