This is eating away at me...

Today Luci was reading this book

 and came across this fact

which led to this comment from her:

If you could eat yourself, would you get bigger, or just disappear entirely?

And we have a Winner!!

JT participated on a BEST Robotics team this year.   The teams from different schools get a set of materials and have to build a robot to complete certain tasks.  JT went to training to learn CAD drawing with SolidWorks, a form of CAD that lets you draw in 3-D.  JT was in a group of homeschool students.

Well...JT did so well with his drawings that he earned third place with this competition!  There were eighteen teams participating.  I am so proud of JT, and so happy for him.

John was one of the adult mentors with JT's group.  Which means he showed up at the first meeting and ta-dah! he was signed up.  :) 

 JT's team out on the floor.  The object was to have the robot climb the metal pole and deposit balls into the plastic container at the top.  There were also 2-liter bottles that were to be moved from the top to the ground.  JT is not in this photo, but later on in the competition he did drive the robot and got two balls moved into the container.  I'm sure John went wild watching JT!  Unfortunately, the robot's arm locked and knocked the balls out.   Luci and I missed it--we were there for part of the morning and JT worked in the afternoon. 

There was a huge, noisy crowd.

Did I mention it was NOISY?

Creekside Technology's booth.  (JT's homeschool group)  The team also won first place for their t-shirt design and second place for marketing.  Great group of kids!

Some participants really got into the "robot" and "space" theme.

A good luck hug before competing.  This is my favorite picture.  Luci is stingy with her hugs!

Science for a Second Grader

This month we are studying plants.  Today's subject was leaves.

John's job was to take Luci into the yard and find some leaves for us to study.  We have this nifty microscope thingy that hooks up to the computer.  You can capture a picture of what you see through the microscope.  Here are some shots of the backs of a few of the leaves:

I'm sorry I can't recall which leaf is which--they were not labeled as John took them.  The fuzziness of the center photo amazes me.  The leaf did not look fuzzy at all.  The leaf on the bottom reminds me of flying over cities, seeing the neighborhoods below.  The stems look like freeways!

We talked about what leaves do (make food for the plant) and what happens when they quit making food,  turn colors, and then fall off of the trees.  Luci knew exactly what that part is called...Retirement!

Which Song Comes to Mind?

John is helping JT with his final project for the year, after our study of Human Anatomy:

The Visible Man.

As they worked on the skeleton, and inserting the brain, this refrain from The Wizard of Oz kept going through my mind...

If I only had a brain!

JT's GPA for his first year of high school is 3.44.  Way to go, JT!

From the Heart

Yesterday was a Day of Awful Proportions.

Not a Happy Homeschool Day, that's for sure.

We had one who was reacting to some scents he had been exposed to, and one who thought noon was just an idea, since he rarely sees it with his eyes open.

So.

After supper I spent a great deal of time convincing (convincing is "Susan-ese" for talking extremely loudly) the boys to clean their rooms.  They did, but they were not happy about it.

After that melee, I took my Kindle Fire and went to my own bedroom and had a nice, quiet time.  Until Rock Band exploded in the living room!  Wowzer!  All three kids, getting along, and playing nicely!  Nice and LOUD.

Since this was a rare occasion, I took a photo.

The music went on for several hours.  Luci found some sunglasses, a wig and a cool hat.

And it's going on again, tonight!  It is NOISY.

And NICE.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight I was figuring out JT's grades (he did well this year!) and putting them into our online reporting program.  Since the dates of JT's birthday and Bryan's birthday are so similar, I had JT come check to make sure I got it correct. 

This discussion brought Luci...who has studied right along with JT and his anatomy classes this year...

Mama, when is my birthday?

October 26!  The best day of the year!

I wasn't born in your tummy.  I was born in your heart.  And believe me, it is not pretty in there!

from Apologia Science text

Field Trip!

Blogger has been acting wonky...totally ate one post and messed up another.  So here I go again, fingers crossed now hoping I get this one posted.

Luci had a Daisy Scout outing last Saturday.  She was so happy to wear her new "I ♥ being a Daisy" t-shirt.  The outing was a bust--they went bowling, and Luci experienced her first Mean Girl episode.  :( 

Friday I took JT and Luci to the Space and Rocket Center.  We met up with a few other homeschool families, and came up with a plan for the next few trips we go on:  To meet with the families for lunch, but keep our own schedule at the zoo, museum, Rocket Center, etc, since we have kids in the largest age-span.  It is hard to keep everyone happy when your kid wants to do one thing and the group is not interested and thus wastes most of the visit dragging you to places that your kids have seen before and then the "good stuff" (according to JT) gets missed.  Luci is at the age where she would rather visit with her friends.  She does not care where she is, and she ends up learning very little about wherever we are.  So splitting from the group is good for her, too, education-wise.

Luci promised to not be scared of the rockets and to stand next to one to get her photo taken.  This is the one she chose.  It looks big, but in comparison to the rockets around it, it was small-ish for a rocket.

See how happy she is, pointing at the rocket?  See, Mama?  I did it!

JT's an old pro on the climbing wall....

 and we got Luci up there for the very first time.  I am so proud of her.  She was scared to death but made it this high up:

and afterwards, hugged JT tightly! So I took a picture because this almost never happens. These were taken with my cell phone, which explains the bad lighting.

In the Apollo trainer...

and next to the real thing!

Come on, Mom!  The shuttle will take off soon!  I thought this was cool, walking the walk, but Luci was not impressed.

Catching Up

Saturday I got to go (ALL BY MYSELF) to Huntsville, to participate in a fun fund-raiser for Love Without Boundaries.  We painted this, at My Spirited Art, and most of the proceeds went to help pay for an orphan's surgery in China. 

 

John entertained Luci all day, much to Luci's delight.  They ended the day eating a banana split at Trowbridge's.  Mom and Dad, do you remember eating at this soda shop a week or two after Bryan was born?   Nothing has changed since we were there together!

The results of our apple experiment from last week:  The apple on the left was in the salt mixture and shrunk considerably.  It is terribly humid here lately, and I wonder how this would turn out in a drier area.  We were trying to replicate part of the mummification process used in Ancient Egypt (it is so much drier there). 

We started a 3-D human body for Luci, to go along with our study of human anatomy.  JT is studying a harder version (high school level) and Luci listens along and then we do something more appropriate for her.  This model shows the "skin" made of pantyhose on the upper body.  We'll attach organs, bones and muscles as the semester proceeds, and end up with "skin" on the bottom half as well.  Luci thinks you can't tell which one is her!

This is the book we're using for the patterns.  Weaver's 3-D Body Book is available at AOP.com.  It's only $5.  Can't beat that with a stick!

Levers

Here is the result of Wednesday's lesson on Levers. We submitted this to How to Homeschool Today, for possible inclusion on her webpage.

Science and Math, Honey. Science and Math.

I kept saying that I would turn all math and science over to John once he retired.  Everyone thought I was joking, but I wasn't.  Not much, anyways.  John had this experiment rigged up when we got home from karate this morning, demonstrating fulcrum and lever principles. 

Luci shows that, without the fulcrum, this is a lot of work!

Demonstrating the ease of use with a longer arm--pulling nails is easier.

And then, this impromptu science lesson:  a little house wren was stunned when it ran into our basement door's window.    Luci was thrilled that she got to pet it before it flew away.

And then, later this afternoon, the neighbor's dogs were visiting...the female is in heat (oh joy) so you can guess what Luci learned.   Puppy love!  (no photos, gag!) Perhaps, in two months, that doggy can tell her "which one does the juice."

Wonder Works

We went to Wonder Works today.  It's a lot of fun, unless...

you are sensitive to noise, light and crowds.  Luci spent most of the time like this:


JT on the Hurricane simulator
(he is hamming it up here)




and on the Extreme 360 (trying to get the video to work. I'll post it later if I can get it to work.)




Luci watching JT on the Extreme 360



JT rock climbing


and Luci watching JT rock climbing




JT pitching



and Luci watching JT pitch.



Even "going through the portal" and seeing your image in the mist in front of you was not enough to get Luci to take down her hands. 


JT in a moonsuit.






Finally!  Something that Luci wanted to do.  No hands over ears!



Oops.  Spoke too soon.

Here in the young children's section, there were several games Luci could do.  But even these were too loud for her.  That little triangular piece under the screen there is the speaker.  I covered it with my purse and we could still hear the machine's instructions.  I wish they included more things earlier in the "museum" for younger children to do.  Luci spent more than half her time here in tears, because it was so loud, and most of it was for ages 8 and up.  Not really geared for the whole family.  At least we got a military discount. 

JT wants to go do another activity tomorrow that is also totally noisy.  I told him he had to let Luci choose something more "bland" so she could have a good time, too.  So tomorrow we are going to a petting zoo.