Homeschooler Savvy

The Brainless Guinea Fowl

I love the guinea fowl.  This is mainly because they look like they have a face which was made of plasticine  by a kid and then melted in the sun.  Plasticine for those who do not know is a type of clay normally for kids which never hardens.  It has a magnetic attraction to carpets and the space between pillows on couches.  It sticks to shoes.

 

Their feathers look like they are little old ladies in great hoop skirts, with their petticoats just showing.

They walk around in big groups (like teenagers?) with non stop talking, and every now and then a big drama happens, and the discussion of the event becomes deafening.  Big dramas include people, dogs, cats, snakes, insects, cattle, sheep, other bird life and anything which wasn't there 5 minutes before. 

What's even more amazing is their co-ordinated movement, and how panic spreads so quickly through the flock...

 

 

"Oh wait, that looks like an American tourist...." (Co-ordinated look right)

"Like, wow, look at what they're wearing." 

"It's totally rad." 

"Wow, look at that white fluffy cloud."

"Is that a Gap shirt?" 

"Did that leaf move?"

"That shirt is the bomb diggity"

"Wait, I think I saw that leaf move"

"I like that cap, it's just perfect." 

"What is that they're holding?"

"Is that food?"

"Food, did someone say food?"

"Food, everyone, Susan said she saw food."

"I saw it first"

"I'm off wheat at the moment - it's my blood type diet"

"Wait, I'm sure that leaf moved"

"Which direction was the food?"

"If you squint your eyes, I swear that cloud looks identical to Elvis."

Co-ordinated look up

"Oh, they're comming closer."

"Why is that boy comming closer?"

"Wait, that leaf really did move."

"Look out, here comes the 8 year old boy"

"Hold on, that's not a leaf, it's a rock."

"AAAAHHHHHH here comes the boy, he's going to kill us...."

"Holy, Fried Chicken, I'm getting out of here."

More co-ordinated panic.....................

"AAAHHHHHH The boy is comming, lets run left........."

"AAAAHHHHHHH  no, lets go right..........."

"Circles, cirles, we must run in circles to escape."

Meanwhile, the Galahs sit and watch entranced at the shenanigans.

Aussie Kim

Planning Junior Girl Scout activities

Girl Scouts is a great activity for homeschoolers, particularly unschoolers.  They address many age appropriate topics for girls, educating them in a non-sexist way, on a whole range of topics with a whole range of activities.  The badges they earn are leading them towards a good understanding of themselves, the world they live in, and the many things they can do independantly, both now and in their future. 

A well run girl scout troop is a joy to behold, and depends on the troop leader, assistants, helping parents and the girls themselves of course!  Louisiana Sue is our Junior Girl Scout leader, and she does a superb job, mixing humor into everything along the way.  This friday night we had a lock-in, this is where the girls get to sleep overnight locked in somewhere.  What goes on?  Karioke, board games, nail polish, pillow fights, balloon games, scavenger hunts, pizza, brownies and a couple of good movies. 

To take advantage of the leader and her parent assistants all being in one place LOCKED IN for the evening, we planned the year to come.  We are sharing our planning work, to give some insight into the types of things a girl scout will learn in a year.   Here is the summary of the Junior girl scout badge names and how we have planned it for our troop which spans girls in their first, second and third year. 

• July 3rd weekend - girl scout swim party, water fun merit badge.
• August 18 - game day, outdoor treasure hunt, discuss leadership badge and service project
• August 25 - swimming badge
• September 8 - Service project planning, divide into patrols and pick leaders
• September 15 - outdoor creativity badge (come early for Religious Emblem work)
• September 22 - Hiker badge, wildlife badge
• September 27 - go on a hike, visit nature center
• September 29 - present badges, play games - plan horse rider and horse fan
• October 6 - Earth connections badge
• October 11 - Complete Service project, (come early for Religious Emblem work)
• October 13 - outdoor cooking badge
• October 20 - Eco-action badge
• October 27 - present badges, games organised by the girls
• November 1 Saturday - Girl Scout camping or hike
• November 3 - girl scout led badge - Creative Solutions
• November 10 - girl scout led badge - Healthier You, Lets Go Cooking,
• November 17 - girl scouts STAR badge work, (come early for Religious Emblem work)
• November 24 - present badges, girl scouts STAR badge work - talent show
• December 1 - Cookie Sales Training badge
• December 5 - Girl Scout LOCK-IN fun (Friday overnight)
• December 8 - girl scout organised games, adults meet
• January 5 - Adults- cookies, girls Drawing and Painting badges
• January 12 - Visual Arts badge
• January 19 - Local Lore badge
• January 26 - present merit badges
• February 2 - Ceramics and Clay badge, Sign of the World badge
• February 9 - Pottery field trip
• February 16 - Model citizen badge
• February 23 - finish up Model Citizen badge, present badges
• March 2 - Sign of the World badge
• March 9 - Girl Scouts in the World badge
• March 16 - paperwork for Bronze Star, Fit and Fun for younger girls
• March 30 - present merit badges
• April 6 - First Aid Training badge
• April 13 - Camera shots badge
• April 20 - Healthy Relationships badge for older girls, Walking for Fitness badge (younger girls)
• April 27 - High on Life badge
• May 4 - Weather watch badge
• May 11 - wrap up loose ends on badges
• May 15 - LOCK-IN, presentation of badges and awards.

Now I tell you, is that a pretty good curriculum or what?

Mississippi Delta Agricultural Snapshot (Kim Cam)

Everyone wants their kids to be more aware of the world around them (right?). 

Well here are some questions you can ask, regardless of where they live.  These questions are particularly good when you sit down to a meal.  Remember: if you eat, thank a farmer!  If you wear cotton underpants: thank a cotton farmer! 

Toast: When do farmers plant wheat? (Winter or early spring); When do they harvest?  (Summer)

Vegetable oil: What plants does this oil come from? (Soybeans is a common one) )When do farmers plant soybeans?  (Spring)

Popcorn: When do farmers plant corn? (Spring).  Is popcorn a different sort of corn from corn on the cob? (Yes).  How big does corn get?  (7-8 feet)

Cotton clothing: When do farmers plant cotton? (Spring)

When is rice planted? (Spring)

These dates are generalizations on the planting windows (best times to plant) for crops.  Normal crop planting dates depend on the temperatures and rainfall for each region. 

What follows here is what's happening down on the farm in the Mississippi Delta right now.  This year is very different from normal as we are surrounded by corn, soybeans, corn, more corn and the occasional rice and cotton crop and more corn.  Normally, here in the Mississippi Delta it is wall to wall cotton.  The price for corn and soybeans are at record highs, the price for cotton is quite ordinary.  Consequently, Spring in the Delta is looking a bit different this year.  For the first time I have ever seen it, we are surrounded by corn rather than cotton.

This is going to be similar to living in a one story neighborhood and then suddenly getting high rise around you. 

If you drive through the country on a regular basis, make it a habit to ask your kids what the crops are on the sides of the roads, you'd be amazed at how quickly they pick this up!   Of course, you can do the same if you live in the city - ask they similar questions about the action going on outside the car as you drive along.

Whats the action this week?  Well, if you haven't planted your corn yet it's just about too late - corn ranges from 1-4 feet. This is going to make a dramatic difference to the view around here!!! 

Most of the soybeans are planted and up already.

Cotton planting is underway and there is even baby cotton up in some places.

Rice planting is underway (note the different planter boxes behind the tractors - these indicate the two crops).

"What about the winter crops?" I hear you ask.... Yes, yes, it is coming close to that time of year!  The wheat harvest.  The wheat is starting to turn color.  Seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago it was looking lush and green.  Hopefully this should help those countries having food riots at the moment !!!!

Stay tuned for the next Kim Cam snapshots of the Mississippi Delta....

Pause for a Peaceful Sunset

Spring in Mississippi - gotta love those Magnolia flowers!  This one looked like it was saluting me.....

Aussie Kim

Science fiction happening now - The Phoenix Lands on Mars Sunday

Write the date in your calendar, and plan to put the TV or radio on at 6pm Central US time May 25th (Sunday), to watch the landing of the Phoenix on Mars. 

What happens if they find water?  Mars starts to look quite peachy as a get away destination from Earth!

Mars is a cold desert planet with no liquid water on its surface. But in the Martian arctic, water ice lurks just below ground level. Discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 show large amounts of subsurface water ice in the northern arctic plain. The Phoenix lander targets this circumpolar region using a robotic arm to dig through the protective top soil layer to the water ice below and ultimately, to bring both soil and water ice to the lander platform for sophisticated scientific analysis.
The spacecraft must perform a series of challenging transformations and activities during the seven minutes after it enters the atmosphere to slow it from 12,000 mph to 5 mph and a soft touchdown.  For a detailed schedule and landing timeline, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix

This map shows the estimated lower limit of the water content of the upper meter of Martian soil. The estimates are derived from the hydrogen abundance measured by the neutron spectrometer component of the gamma ray spectrometer suite on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. This photo is from the NASA website which explains this in detail.

Phoenix will be the first mission to return data from either polar region providing an important contribution to the overall Mars science strategy "Follow the Water" and will be instrumental in achieving the four science goals of NASA's long-term Mars Exploration Program.

--Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars
--Characterize the Climate of Mars
--Characterize the Geology of Mars
--Prepare for Human Exploration

The Phoenix Mission has two bold objectives to support these goals, which are to (1) study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.

I can see it now, Vacation Rental Homes By Owners on Mars, Earth view positions available now!

Aussie Kim

Baby Mockingbirds Update - day 3

Celebrate!  They've opened their eyes!!  We waited till the parents flew off then we peeked again at the Room With A View Mockingbird babies, and here they are....

Ready for the food - "hey Mum where are you?"

Disappointment, as they realize the noise was only a passing blogger.

Here comes Mum (with dinner) see her in the tree? (she's circled). 

Here she is closer..........

and in this one you can even see the big fat green grub (worm) in her beak that's for dinner.....(hopefully taken from our vegetable garden)...........

My definition of Summer is being able to walk barefoot in green grass and looking up into leafy green trees.....

Well, I guess Summer's here...........................

Aussie Kim

Dog food as substitute eggs in the Eurasian Collared Dove nest

Our excitement about the baby mockingbirds in the Room with a view, led us to look in the nest in the fig tree - sure enough those babies had hatched too!  The mother was dancing around us and clicking at us so we only took a very quick peek.  The kids noticed if someone made a sound near them they instantly craned their necks and opened their mouths.  Very cute! 

The next nest to peek in was of course the Euarasian Collared Dove, we watched the mother sitting on the nest in the Plum tree.  She flew off as we approached so I went up the step ladder stretched my arm out and took a photo, I climbed down and we looked at the photo. 

To our amazement what looked like three pellets of dog food were sitting in the nest.  I decided something must have gone wrong with the photo.  So I climbed up and looked in for myself.  Sure enough, there they were. The white fluffy thing is a feather caught in a sunbeam.

I guess her eggs were another near tornado victim. 

The kids asked me lots of questions which we wondered about together. 

Had she or he placed the dog food in the nest?  Did she miss her eggs?  Had they hatched already and flown off before now?  Since we had never looked at the nest before now - had there ever been any eggs in there from the start? 

Was she going to eat her dog food egg babies?  Did the dogs know about this?  Was this why the Doves always stole the dog food off the verandah?  As any parent knows, the questions go on and on.........

 

Sort of like the open mouths of the baby mockingbirds in the fig tree and in the grape vine.

Aussie Kim

Room with a View and baby mockingbirds

Baby mockingbirds!  These ones are from the Room with a View (nest on the fence). It's very exciting, since to get here they had to survive the near tornadic winds, continual rain, wishful looks from Edu-kitty and the king snake. 

Our birds are all still safely in the nest. For those of you who find orphaned mockingbirds, here is an extremely cute video of a baby mockingbird being fed.  Reminds me of some teenagers I know.....

If you find a bird on the ground, ideally just watch it for a while, the parents may continue to feed it where it is.  If there is a bush nearby, you could place it there for safety.  If the parents have obviously abandoned it, then you might want to take it in and raise it.  This is quite a commitment!  For more information on what to feed insect eating wild birds you can read this short paper.

Aussie Kim

Financial Education for your kids

Here's an opportunity for your older kids (8 and up) to get their hands dirty learning about trading shares and stocks. CNBC has a million dollar challenge going at the moment.  You sign up, and they give you a fictional million CNBC bucks.  You make fictional share and currency exchange trades.  Along the way they give out a major weekly prize (superbowl tickets, MLB World Series tickets, a Jamacian weekend getaway etc ) and at the end the grand prize is $500,000, first place is 250,000 next $100,000 and 3 prizes for the next highest in value of $50,00 each. 

It is going on now, and will end July 18th.  Here is the website for it.  Perhaps you kids can win you something!

Aussie Kim

Homeschoolersavvy OUT of this world!

Here it is, proof that this website is set to be OUT OF THIS WORLD!  You to can send your name into orbit, just check out the previous post here.  But first, read on about the landing of the Phoenix on MARS!!!  Will they find proof of life in outerspace existing in the ice samples?  I guess we'll have to wait.  In the meantime you can watch a NASA preview online here on May 22nd 12pm EDT.  Or go to their website link for more information on the Phoenix mission.

On May 25, 2008, the NASA Phoenix spacecraft will arrive at Mars. Phoenix will be the first vehicle intended to land on the surface of Red Planet since the Mars Exploration Rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity" landed in January 2004.

Phoenix is a three-legged lander that will perform its "entry, descent and landing" sequence and, if successful, will commence a three-month surface science mission. Phoenix will dig down to an ice-rich layer that scientists calculate lies within inches of the surface. The lander will check samples of soil and ice for evidence about whether the site was ever hospitable to life.

Aussie Kim