Week 12 Report & more Neopian Fables

We are one third of our way through 2nd quarter! We'll be taking next week off school -- Ginger (12) has eye surgery on Tuesday. In fact, I have decided to take the entire week off the internet. That way I'll be focused on being mom and nurse. I do plan to dedicate some time moving all my "stuff" from my old eMac to a newer, faster, better Mac...I think it is a G5. So, see you all in a week!

This week we finally mastered the days of the week in Latin! We all made flash cards. Ginger's are first with elves on every card, then mine, then Tullius's, then Momo's in pink -- written both in Dragon and in Latin.


And we studied the Ancient Maya people. They believed the world was flat with a giant tree growing in the middle. The root of the tree went into the underworld. Four jaguars in the four courners of the earth held up the sky. Ginger had fun creating this representation of their "compass." The white jaguar is in the north corner.


Our last week of re-writing Aesop's Neopian Fables! I tried to convice the kids they could use a different theme, but no...Neopia it is!
The Skree and the Bracelet, by Ginger (12)


The Lupe and the Miamouse, by Momo (10)


The Fighting Whoots and the Horus, by Tullius (7)


A few other notes for the record: Ginger finished Book 1 of Key to Decimals! She'll do Books 2 & 3 in the next 6 school weeks, Book 4 in January and then the Key to Percents series. We did not get to the cool leaf project I had planned from Masterpiece Art Instruction. Maybe tomorrow!

Hope you have a wonderful, wonderful week! Let the countdown to NaNoWriMo begin!

ABC Muffins & Broccoli Soup recipes

I love Cream of Broccoli soup -- this is as good or better then what you can get as the soup of the day at a restaurant!
This recipe feeds our family of 7 with no left overs. And even the kids who don't liked cooked broccoli, love the soup.


I make these muffins once a week or so -- using up whatever slightly mushy apples or bananas I have. You can also add raisins or nuts. If I have apple sauce I'll substitute 1/2 cup oil for 1/2 cup applesauce. They're moister then.
I usually make these in a 9x9 pan & bread pan, I burn muffins too often.

Click on the recipes to see a larger copy. I hope they print out okay for those of you who want to try them!

Oh, to make popsicles, I use a can of pineapple and a banana or two. If we have orange juice, I'll use some of that also. Sometimes I put in a little Vitamin C powder also. I have a couple plastic popsicle molds I got at the grocery store. Mmmm!

Comment troubles

Are these cute checkboxes the cause of my comment troubles?
No, apparently not.

Maybe it was using a different browser to upload the kids' Neopian fables as pictures...

A Test Post

Are comments enabled?

Apparently on this post they are! But not on my Weekly Report below! Hmmm, could it be the checkboxes? Or are the blogger gods punishing me for the lateness of my report... Did you know that the Maya people of Mesoamerica had at least 166 gods? I can't wait to move on to the Ancient Greeks!

Week 11 Report & more Neopian Fables

Ah, the weekly report...the belated weekly report. I love the idea, but I'd rather read about what everyone else has been doing that write up my own.

Look at this great check box Local Homeschooler taught me!! Actually, it looks cute in Safari but not in Firefox. I'm not sure what it looks like in Internet Explorer.

Several of you have asked about the blender. It still works. It never occured to me that it might be ruined or the blades dulled. My blender doesn't get much use -- making bread crumbs, creaming cooked broccoli & potatoes to make my delicious broccoli soup, mixing bananas and a can of pineapple to freeze for popsicles...this is not strenuous use of a blender. But perhaps we won't make more paper until we come back to TOG Yr 1 again!

So what did we do last week...well, we studied Ancient China and um, did school, and the kids wrote their next fables. Click on them to see the text larger!
The Eizzil and the Turtum, by Momo (10):

The Beakadoodle and the Veespa, by Ginger (12):

Two Petpets and Balthazar, by Tullius (7):


Can you guess what the original fable for each of these was? Last weeks winners were: Lisa at Koninonia Academy and The Genie Bottle! I wish I had a prize for you...ummm, I could draw you a picture! :)

To see the kids first attempt at Fable writings, check out the previous blog entry: Aesop's Neopian Fables

Mathmagical Monday: How many seconds old are you?

I got a book at the library yesterday called Men of Mathematics: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Mathematicians from Zeno to Poincare, by E.T. Bell. I doubt I'll finish all 580 pages of it. However, I did start it...which is more than I can say for some books I spontaneously pick off the library shelf!

Here are some quotes I liked from the beginning of the book:

A mathematical truth is neither simple nor complicated in itself, it is. -- Emile Lemoine

It is easier to square the circle than to get round a mathematician. -- Augustus de Morgan

It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense. -- A.N. Whitehead (1911)

I didn't understand all the quotes, and I probably should have looked up profundity before saying I liked the quote!

********
Now for a fun challenge for those learning to multiply large numbers: How many seconds old are you?
This is VERY approximate!

The formula is:
Age in years x 365 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds

If you want to be a little more accuate, you can use a decimal after your age (for example 10.75) and 365.25 for the days in a year.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm approximately 1,072,224,000 seconds old. To me, that is a meaningless number. However, when I look at days and hours (12,410 and 297,840 respectively), I feel like I could
a) DO something in an hour...I have so many! and b) like I've wasted a lot of time!

Paper Making

This week's history study focused on Ancient China. In looking through some craft books from the library, the kids picked paper making for their project. I tried to dissuade them...it looked difficult and messy. Turns out, it was fun and simple! And hardly messy at all!

This, of course, is not how the Ancient Chinese made paper. They used things such as old rags, mulberry bark, used hemp fishing line, and eventually, bamboo. We started with scraps of paper. We have lots of scraps of paper in this house.

1. Make a screen. Ours was a piece of old window screen, stapled to a styrofoam tray.

2. Put 1-2 cups of hot water in the blender. Add a large handful of small paper scraps.


3. Blend! Add more scraps if you think it looks too thin. Definitely a trial and error recipe.


4. Pour the mixture onto your screen. The screen must be over a container or in the sink. Lots of water runs out!


5. Press down on the mix with a spoon to remove more of the water. Fill in any holes. See all the paper scraps?


6. Flip the screen onto several folded paper towels.


7. Roll the paper to flatten it and remove more of the water.


8. Carefully transfer the paper to something for drying. We used parchement paper on a cookie sheet at first. After we filled that tray, we went to directly putting the paper onto the tray.


9. Wait. And wait some more. Even in the Arizona sun at 95 degrees, this still took over an hour for the thinnest pieces. I didn't get a picture of this step in the process, but I did come up with a new Chinese proverb: Watched paper never dries.

10. Marvel at your paper! The very white piece in the upper left is the first one we made. The others were made with a more colored scraps. The one in the lower right is supposed to be an ice cream cone...


We haven't attempted to paint Chinese characters onto the paper yet. If we get to that, I'll be sure to post a picture in our History Project Pictures!

Mathmagical Monday: Random 5 from our shelves

We have lots of children's books about math. Well, lots is a relative term.
To put it mathematically here are two equations:

Math books > Poetry books

Math books < Dragon books

And since it is actually already Tuesday morning, I will simply give you 5 math-related books I grabbed this morning. The first two will appeal to the younger ones and the rest to older kids. Check your library! Oh, and if you have any fun math books to recommend, please share!

*More M&M's Math, Barbara Barbieri McGrath
*Millions to Measure, David M. Schwartz, pictures by Steven Kellogg
*The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat, Theoni Pappas
*Mathematicians are People, Too: Stories from the Lives of Great Mathematicians, by Luetta Reimer
*Math Trek 2: A Mathematical Space Odyssey, by Ivars Peterson

Aesop's Neopian Fables

Ever been to Neopets.com ? My kids love it! I even have an account...although I can't say I've played recently.

Writing this past week was done progymnasmata-style: Read a fable, write 3 or so key words per sentence and then re-write the fable in your own words. The kids all enjoyed this, especially the "own words" part. All the illustrations and the names too are Copyright 2000-2007 Neopets, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used With Permission.

Click on each story to read it! Can you guess what each original fable was called?

Illusen & the Xweetok, by Ginger

The Weewoo & the Vase, by Momo

The Gnorbu & the Load of Salt, by Tullius


I can't wait to see what they write this week!

Holy Day Slideshows

A few weeks ago, when we studied the Ancient Israelites with Tapestry of Grace, we learned about some of their Holy Days.

The kids made slideshows using Mac's awesome Keynote program.

Ginger's Passover slide show:





Momo's Feast of Tabernacles slideshow:




Tullius' Day of Atonement slideshow: