School on the Road

It has been quite a while since I posted... mostly because our schooling has been a bit different lately partially due to my pregnancy. Anyway, we have enjoyed learning on the road. We have studied elephant seals and visited them, we have been to Victoria, BC and held and observed various insects, been to the butterfly gardens, been to plays, and on top of the Space Needle. We have listened to MANY books on CD and planted a garden. Learning takes on so many forms.

If I were Pharoah-

We went to a play yesterday called Pharoah Serket and the Lost Stone at the Children's Theatre. The scenery was once again phenomenal and the acting was excellent too. I am continually amazed at the special effects that this theatre is able to pull off.

Today I assigned a paper called If I were Pharoah. The idea came from the questions posed to the children at the end of the play by the actors. They asked if the children like to be Pharoah and why or why not. They asked what they thought it would be like.

After doing a web diagram to help get his thoughts in order, he wrote 1 page hand-written on wide ruled paper. This was the paper E wrote (no editing has been done) :

If I were Pharoah-
I would build cities because people need to live there. I would build houses because people need to eat and drink and sleep and work there. I would build colorful bridges for cars and people. at the times there were lots of cars around, I would build a flat, steel, surface with a motor above. It would have a sensor built in the cover, and when it detected cars, it would spin the motor to make the flat, steel, surface up and I would have a road built underneath. When there were lots of people around it would detect people and down that platform would go. And I would paint lovely pictures on the outside and a shading roof on the top followed by another motor that pulled the roof in and off the side when it wasn't sunny.

Computer Games

I am always amazed there seems to be a computer game somewhere on the internet for reviewing various math facts and procedures. E was practicing rounding today and after doing his workbook, I let him play Half-Court Rounding on this site. For him it makes a difference. He also likes to practice his multiplication facts and division facts on multiplication.com.

Children's Museum Science Class

E got to take part in a science class at the Children's Museum. They were studying the Solar System and all the planets. They dressed up and discussed the attributes of each planet. Here is the class picture.

School doesn't stop for vacations

Over Christmas, we toured the Museum of Flight. We boarded the Concorde, sat in the cockpit of a Blackbird, toured a retired Air Force One, and perused WWI flighter planes, tactics, and uniforms. Here are a few pictures from that.









Then we went to OMSI in Portland. We did brain teasers and played in the science play ground. Here are a few pictures from that.

Edventures

I came across a website that utilizes Legos, Knex, and other materials to teach engineering, science, architecture, art, and other things. One of the assignments on the site was to learn about form follows function, proportions, scale, and design. E was assigned to design a pizzaria including an office, kitchen, dining area, bathrooms, exit, storage room, and refrigerator. The tour, in 3 parts because blogspot will only upload 100MB at at time is his creation.

part 1



part 2



part 3

The Wizard of Oz

"Oh, we're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz..." E and I had the opportunity to go watch an incredible children's Theater performance of The Wizard of Oz. I don't think I have ever seen a play with such incredible special effects! During the tornado, they dropped a see-through screen and then projected on the back screen and the front screen the tornado. They also projected things flying through the tornado in perspective- like the cow, etc.