Homeschooler Savvy

Secrets of the Pharaohs...History comes alive

We are studying Ancient Egypt at the moment (using The Story of the World as posted about earlier).  Needless to say we had to have the obligatory trip to the library to immerse ourselves in Ancient Egypt.  A number of the references indicated videos and dvd's on Egypt.  We have just watched the PBS special "Secrets of the Pharaohs" and I highly recommend it.  It is split up into about 15 half hour mini series, or you can do as we did, and just watch it in two sittings.

The added bonus?  They have a website with lots of cool links.  A timeline that matches what you have watched, complete with pictures, dates and maps....perfect for the kids to construct their own timeline.  This is a great way to reinforce the dates and sequence of events that occured in this civilisation.  They also have a place where you can explore King Tut's tomb, explore a 3d version of Khufu's tomb and a site on how mummies are made.

Got an older child interested in scientific research on these archeological finds?  They also have a link on the mass spectrometry, taking DNA from mummies and deciphering ancient diseases...did King Tut not eat all his veges, or was he murdered by a blow to his head?

This is a very painless way to have history come alive, trust us! 

Aussie Kim and Louisiana Sue

Over 16? Design your own dream trip to NASA at Florida or Houston!

If you have a budding aerospace engineer, or are just wanting a trip to see NASA at Houston or Florida, then get your little homeschoolers writing for this contest.  What's in it for you as the ever encouraging home schooling mum or dad......the "educator/sponsor" gets to go as well.  I can see those little umbrellas now...

"Your NASA Dream Experience" Contest

"Your NASA Dream Experience" is a nationwide contest as seen in Seventeen Magazine. A team of two students (ages 16-20) and an educator/sponsor will earn the chance to spend three days at either Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, or Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This opportunity will include job shadowing and behind the scenes experiences during the spring of 2009.

The deadline for entries for the contest is Dec. 15, 2008.

For more information about the contest, visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/education/seventeen.html.

NASA educating your child...

I've been involved in a couple of NASA competitions before, and they are very well run, educate your child in a very integrated way (sort of an unschooling way), and overall I recommend this (the Fall 2008 Cassini Scientist for a Day Contest) as a worth your time mini science project..... 

Want some more FREE educators stuff from NASA?  Feast your eyes here.

 

Fall 2008 Cassini Scientist for a Day Contest

The Cassini Scientist for a Day contest challenges students to become NASA scientists studying Saturn. Participants are challenged to examine three target images taken by Cassini and choose the one that they think will yield the best scientific results. This choice must then be explained in a 500-word essay.

The contest is open to all students in the United States from grades 5-12, working alone or in groups of up to four students. The essays will be divided into three groups: grades 5-6, 7-8 and 9-12. All submissions must be students' original work. Each student can submit only one entry.

Deadline for submission is Oct. 30, 2008. For more information, visit here. If you have questions about this contest, please e-mail your inquiries to [email protected].

History On Tape

 When is history irresistible?  When The Story of the World is on CD and the child is in control of the CD player.  Aussie Kim showed up with a CD for my Tiger a couple of weeks ago and he hasn't stopped listening to it since. I don't have to remind him to complete his history now. HE REMINDS ME! This CD has brought him hours of listening pleasure (and me, his mother, HOURS of blissful silence - which can not be underrated!).

Aussie Kim here - I have used this CD in our many drives to our afternoon activities, the downside is that the kids complain when we stop the CD (so we can keep up with map, timeline and biographies for the related chapters).  It is a major hit with both my 9 year old boy and 11 year old daughter.  It is much more fun than Radio Disney for me....

We both highly recommend these CDs as a history companion!  Below is a photo of the Ancient Times Volume. It is the first in a series of four that take the child from Ancient History to the Modern Era.

This is the life....

Here you are, 11 years old, lying in a hammock, swinging in the warm autumn breeze, reading Chinese Myths and Fantasies, and occasionally sipping iced water, at 10:30 am on a weekday.  What is this?  This is a snapshot of a homeschooled child in September.  Of course, she got up at 8am and helped with the cooking, cleaning, animals and clothes washing (it was her day), and then did 30 minutes work on Greek and an hour on Maths.  And all without a hitch (in my dreams). Every now and then, things do work out like this, and at that stage you say: "Wow, this is the life..."

Summertime fruit picking with kids

Nothing defines summer for me more than fruit. We are developing a family tradition of fruit picking in the summertime, specifically blueberries! 

The downside is that once you have eaten fat, juicy, sweet blueberries straight off the bush you will never look at them in the store the same. 

They keep incredibly well in the freezer, so at $8/gallon for pick your own blueberries, we normally try for 7 bags in the freezer by the end of the season.  This means we can eat a gallon a month from about August to February.  This generally gets me through the winter "blues". 

A gallon of blueberries weights about 6.5 lbs or around 3 kg.

So here are some inside hints about blueberry picking in the South (trust us, we did it wrong, so you could do it right!).  

Take these things with you:

1. Hat (preferably broad brimmed).  This keeps off the sun and insects (eg ticks)

2. Sun cream, Insect spray

3. Old sneakers, or ones you can dry out.  Ankle to mid calf socks (depending on fashion pain)

4. Water bottle

Do this when you get there....

1. Line everyone up and douse the shoes and socks and clothing with insect repellant.  Put a light spray on exposed skin.  Make sure you have the spray on the legs and shorts and shirt cuffs and your hat.  This will help keep off chiggers.  Avoiding long grass will go a long way to avoiding chiggers.  As you can see by the lack of ankel high socks in the above photos, these country kids don't think they will walk in poison ivy, or get chiggers...

2. Apply sun cream to faces and arms.

3. Hydrate - drink water before starting!  

4. Watch out for poison ivy.

Don't worry about all this mention of chiggers, ticks and poison ivy.  By taking these preventative measures we rarely get any of them.

Remember to check with the owner if he uses sprays on the blueberries, quite often they can be grown organically.  Whenever you get home with your gallon sacks of blueberries, you should be sure not to wash them (if they are organically grown) before putting them in the freezer - that way they don't clump together. 

Or, if they are not organically grown, or you feel the need to wash, lay them out on trays to dry before putting them in the freezer.  We mainly just eat ours straight from the freezer - scoop a cup out of the original gallon bag and sit in the sun (or aircondintioning) and eat them.  A cup of frozen blueberries are a great midmorning snack break from homeschooling.

If you are intent on using them to cook with, you can go ahead and bag them up in 3 or 4 cup ziplock bag quantities (depending on the receipes) before putting them in the freezer.

There are many upsides of picking blueberries for your kids.  Some places don't mind if you eat some blueberries as you pick - this is definitly a plus for the kids.  The last time we picked we got to see a baby bird (sparrow we think) sitting VERY still on a blueberry branch, with it's parents chirping at it to keep still and trying to distract us.  We saw a very pretty spider web.  There are lots of insects at the blueberry patch we pick at.  The kids get to find out what it would be like to be a fruit picker in the summer heat (reality check).  And most importantly, we picked about 2 gallons of blue berries in about 2 hours (probably the same quantity was eaten)!

Happy picking!

Aussie Kim

The Baby Baltimore Oriole that fell out of his nest.

This post could also be called: Barry the bumped out Baltimore (Oriole) Bird; or Oliver, the Ooops I fell Out Oriole.

A pair of Baltimore Oriole's built a beautiful teardrop shaped nest in our pecan tree. As the days progressed we soon heard chriping sounds comming from the nest.  One day we were walking through the front yard to the house and I noticed the two parent Orioles fussing about something near the ground so I went for a look.  It was a baby Oriole, not enough feathers to fly. 

Since we have 3 dogs I decided I could not put him on a bush (shrub) safely, and the nest was obviously not working properly - it was also too high for me to reach.  Of course Dirt Dude was flapping around begging to keep him. 

I picked the baby up (the parents really started to fuss) and we put him in a container.  I searched the internet for what to feed baby Orioles, they are mainly insect eaters, some grain.  In an emergency you can soak and mash up dog food to feed to them.  I raided the dog's food and boiled the kettle.  Made myself a cup of hot tea and poured some hot water over 5 pellets of dog food for the bird and began mashing. 

I noticed that the parents were still fussing around outside, I assume they were looking for their baby. Since there was still the chance that they might look after Barry if we put him back out there I began to think how I could rig up a fake nest in the trees. 

Then the light bulb went on (must have been the cuppa tea).  I dumped out a bunch of magazines from a basket I had, lined the bottom with dried cut grass and took out a rope.  I tied the basket to a low branch on the pecan tree (out of dog reach) and we placed Barry inside. 

Sure enough the parents were clicking, whistling and generally acting very agitated once they heard their baby chirping.

I sat and watched out of sight, to make sure they were going to look after him.  The Orioles are very very careful about approaching their babies totally out of sight, so it was quite difficult for me to see them actually hopping into the basket.  I did however, see them catching small moths and other insects and flying in the direction of the basket.  Finally I saw the mother fly into the basket with food.  Hooray!  We checked on Barry that afternoon and morning and night from then on. 

Barry - the first day - FEED ME.....

The parents would scold us whenever we got close, so we kept the viewing times to quick glimpses and a photo. 

He started to really fluff out. 

One of the cutest things I saw was one morning there was Barry, and right next to him was a mother size depression in the grass. 

Now I know where the Mohawk hair do design came from............. 

It only took about 5 days for him to fully feather out (mohawk and all) and fly off.  About four days after Barry flew out of the nest the entire Baltimore Oriole family left.  Talk about empty nest syndrome!  Perhaps next year......

Aussie Kim

Baby Mockingbird pretenting to be made of stone

I walked all the way around this little fellow, and he remained motionless.  Quite amazing.

There is a game called Predator - Prey you can play with kids.  One child is the predator, and the rest are the prey.  The predator goes out of the room while the kids hide (in full sight) by assuming frozen positions.  The predator walks around and sees if he can spot any movement.  Whenever he does, that person is caught, eaten and then becomes the predator.  This goes on until there is no more prey left. 

 To add some interest - let the kids act as specific animals.  You can also explain to them that this is the best defense if they ever happen to be in the woods and meet a bear......

Photo from the front

Photo from the side

Photo from behind

Back round to the front again - he still hasn't moved!

I wonder how close we can get............

Closer?

Closer?

OK, I zoomed in, but at this point Melvin the Mockingbird decided to run...the camouflage works just as well as his freeze position!

Where? Right there...........

I outlined him so you could see better..................

Happy birdwatching!

Aussie Kim

Camp Theme: Knights of the Round Table

To get us in the Camp Spirit...........We're Knights of the Round Table..............

Yes, I know it's a commercial, but still, it's very cute and it mentions ticks and mosquitos.......

Aussie Kim

Poison Ivy Identification (or, We're off to Summer Camp)

Poison Ivy is endemic in the Mississippi Delta.  It's just here and in your face (or on your legs, hands....), most of the year.  As a community service, here are some photos from the many poison ivy plants emerging or leafing back out within a 2 minute walk of our house. 

Here is THE rule:  Leaves of 3 let it be, Leaves of 5 let it thrive

Here are some other rules: 

Leaves of 3 let it be, leaves of 4, give me more

Leaves of 3 let it be, leaves of 5, you can jive

OR, more to the point :  Leaves of 3, You'd better flee!!!!

Not everyone is allergic to poison ivy, some people have not been exposed to it, and others just never developed allergies to it.  I never really knew what poison ivy was (growing up in Australia where it does not exist), except for THE famous camp song by Spike Jones (Hello Mother, Hello Father) .....

Hello Mother, Hello Father lyrics

Spike Jones

Hello muddah, hello faddah, Here I am at Camp Granada. Camp is very entertaining, And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining!   I went hiking with Joe Spivey, He developed poison ivy. You remember Lennard Skinard, He got tomain poisoning last night after dinner!       All the counselors hate the waiters, And the lake has alligators! And the head coach wants no sissies, So he reads to us from something called 'Ulysses'.   No, I don't want this should scare ya, But my bunkmate has malaria! You remember Jeffrey Hardy, They're about to organize a searching party! Take me home, oh muddah, faddah. Take me home, I hate Granada. Don't leave me out in the forest, Where I might get eaten by a bear!     Take me home, I promise I will not make noise, Or mess the house with other boys, Oh please don't make me stay; I've been here one whole day!     Dearest faddah, darling muddah, How's my precious little bruddah? Let me come home if you miss me; I would even let Aunt Bertha hug and kiss me!     Wait a minute; it stopped hailing. Guys are swimming, guys are sailing. Playing baseball, gee that's bettah. Muddah, faddah, kindly disregard this letter! When we get into poison ivy by accident, suspect we may have been near poison ivy, or breakout in a rash, we take a shower with Tecnu Skin Cleanser 32 Ounce. This adheres to the poison when you lather it on your skin and poison and all goes down the drain with it when you wash it off.  It's also not a bad idea to squirt some in the washing machine with your contaminated clothing.  You can get it in small quantities from some of the drug stores, or walmart, but for some reason the bottles seem really small.  Way too small for Mississippi anyhow - I get the bulk size online. Often, poison ivy is transfered all over your body by scratching the first spot where you got some, getting the poison on your fingers and then scratching somewhere else.  Another way to get poison ivy is from patting your pets after they have been rolling in the stuff (usually doesn't affect them!).  Happy Camping! Aussie Kim