We are using Apologia's Zoology 1 Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day for our first semester of science. I am doing this with both Emily and Brandon. Even though Emily is just in kindergarten I thought she'd enjoy learning about animals. However it starts out way over her head with classification, air pressure and aerodynamics. I was glad today was something she could get into a little.

Today was experiment day. We made two planes exactly alike except one had long narrow wings and one had short wide wings. Which plane will glide further?

Brandon and I hypothesized the wide wings because we thought it would have more surface to get lift. We were wrong. It was the long narrow wings because it experienced less drag. Either way at least the kids had two planes to decorate and play with and that is what really matters, right?




PS Ever notice how serious and pouty Brandon looks in school pictures. You'd never guess he is really a playful ball of cuddles. Must be the deep thought he is putting into his studies! ROFLOL HA! I slay me!

Keeping presents secret has always been hard on me. I hate buying presents way ahead of time because I always find myself wanting to give them early. I got these for Brandon. They've already came in the mail. Now I just got to wait for his birthday to give them to him! I just hope he full appreciates what a wonderful mother he has! ROFLOL

Amazon.com review

Equal parts droll and gorgeous nostalgia book and heartfelt plea for a renewed sense of adventure in the lives of boys and men, Conn and Hal Iggulden's The Dangerous Book for Boys became a mammoth bestseller in the United Kingdom in 2006. Adapted, in moderation, for American customs in this edition (cricket is gone, rugby remains; conkers are out, Navajo Code Talkers in), The Dangerous Book is a guide book for dads as well as their sons, as a reminder of lore and technique that have not yet been completely lost to the digital age. Recall the adventures of Scott of the Antarctic and the Battle of the Somme, relearn how to palm a coin, tan a skin, and, most charmingly, wrap a package in brown paper and string. The book's ambitions are both modest and winningly optimistic: you get the sense that by learning how to place a splint or write in invisible ink, a boy might be prepared for anything, even girls (which warrant a small but wise chapter of their own).

Book Description

The bestselling book for every boy from eight to eighty, covering essential boyhood skills such as building tree houses, learning how to fish, finding true north, and even answering the age old question of what the big deal with girls is.

In this digital age there is still a place for knots, skimming stones and stories of incredible courage. This book recaptures Sunday afternoons, stimulates curiosity, and makes for great father-son activities. The brothers Conn and Hal have put together a wonderful collection of all things that make being young or young at heart fun—building go-carts and electromagnets, identifying insects and spiders, and flying the world's best paper airplanes.

The completely revised American Edition includes:

The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know
Stickball
Slingshots
Fossils
Building a Treehouse
Making a Bow and Arrow
Fishing (revised with US Fish)
Timers and Tripwires
Baseball's "Most Valuable Players"
Famous Battles-Including Lexington and Concord, The Alamo, and Gettysburg
Spies-Codes and Ciphers
Making a Go-Cart
Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary
Girls
Cloud Formations
The States of the U.S.
Mountains of the U.S.
Navigation
The Declaration of Independence
Skimming Stones
Making a Periscope
The Ten Commandments
Common US Trees
Timeline of American History


From School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-Beginning with a warning that "this book is downright disgusting," Masoff presents a delightful compendium of facts about things that are gross, putrid, and stomach turning. Covering more than 50 topics from A to Z, she reveals the truth about some unsavory mysteries of the human body, such as acne, body lint, eye gunk, farts, halitosis, snot, and vomit. Odious creatures such as cockroaches, lice, maggots, rats, and slugs are also discussed. Other subjects include "Cannibals," "Gross Grub," "Mucky Medicine," and "Toilets." Ranging from a couple of paragraphs to several pages, the entries offer a great deal of information in a hilarious tongue-in-cheek manner. The author also provides pronunciations and definitions, historical perspectives, and advice on how to deal with each of her revolting topics. Amusing cartoons and well-chosen, black-and-white photographs with humorous captions support the text. A section of "X-Periments" (e.g., build an exploding pimple, mix a batch of make-believe mucus) makes an appropriate conclusion to the book. Guaranteed to improve the quality of the lunchtime chatter of all but the most squeamish, this delightful volume will be enjoyed by fans of grossness everywhere.-Cynde Marcengill, Horry County Memorial Library, Surfside Beach, SC

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

If you have read my blog in the past you may have read about some of my misadventures with what was supposed to be an science experiment. It all started when I bought a tadpole for Bran to watch it's metamorphosis in to a frog. After which I intended to set it free. Little did I know it would turn out to be an African Clawed Frog which is aquatic, can't be set free, and is the subject of several posts. So with many froggy experiences already under my belt I was tickled pink to read my blog buddy Marsha has had her own little frog adventure that only a little boy can give you! You should click over there her boys are just too cute!

Her story reminded me of something that happened here once...

*insert harp music and a fuzzy spinning fade away to days of long ago...

It was before the carnivorous escape frog and Brandon was may be say 7...

I'm in the laundry room taking clothes out of the washer to put in the dryer. I've grabbed a hand full and thrown them in to dryer already and reach in to grab another hand full... and let out a scream...not that I'm scared of frogs...I was just startled to find one sitting amongst my freshly washed laundry in my washing machine.

Brandon came running in (ever my little hero)
Brandon: "What happened Mom? Are you ok?"
Mom: "Yes, I'm fine. I was just a little startled. There is a frog in the washer!"
Brandon: "OH, so that's where it went!!!"

Apparently at one point it was in his pocket??? And I must have grabbed it when I got his laundry.... And I washed the poor thing!!!! Any way it seemed fine... and ... well rather clean when we let it go in the flower bed.

Sorry, I have once again slipped off to no posts land. Cecil has been taking a lot of vacation days and we've been spending time as a family and doing lots of little projects.

I don't know about you but our little projects seem to grow as we work on them. See first, Cecil bought me this cute patio furniture set with a deck box to store my chair cushions in so the would not get ruined by weather. Then he bought me this metal and canvas gazebo.

So we promptly set it up and had a tea party.

However after we set the gazebo up I wanted a floor in it...So we laid one. Cecil bought me a fan and I strung up some lights... It was really cozy.... But then there was this out door fire place on sale that Cecil had his eye on....so I told him to buy it... of course we had to lay more stone for that because we couldn't put it under the gazebo... and all that stone made me think....wouldn't it be nice if I had a nice stone walk way to the gazebo...so I made me a little stone path...last night as we sat admiring our handy work I started thinking about planting flower beds on each side of the path...or wouldn't one of those little ponds with a fountain look cute there in that space between the path and the front flower bed... Cecil pointed out that we need another area the same size as the fireplace floor to put his new grill on.... I think he plans to buy more stone and sand today....he mentioned something about a TV but I put my foot down and told him absolutely no TV in the out doors! LOL Here is what we have so far.




The Patio Floor




Cecil's Fireplace




My cute little path...











Whole set up.



Pretty night time shot.

So we've been busy. And despite all the mowing, trimming, burning, weed eating, floor laying, weed pulling and various other yard slave work we've been doing the yard still calls. I am beginning to think the more work you put into making something nice the more work it will take....Did that last thought make sense?

PS Notice in the picture of the whole set up that we also managed to get the house re-roofed with pretty green shingles to match my green trim!

PSS The path does have two different stones in it but all the rest of the stone is the red stone. It looks different colors in the picture because we use sand as a kind of mortar between stones and the fire place area hasn't had all the sand cleaned off the top good in the picture as it was just laid late last night.

PSSS If you click on the pictures in the post you can see them in full size.

I woke up hearing my guinea pigs very upset. There was a lot of cage rattling going on. At first I thought they had emptied their water bottle and were shaking it to get someone to refill it. So, I stumbled into the living room to hush the little demanding things up. Then I realized they were no where near the water or food. Two were scrunched up in a corner shrieking in fear while the third bravely fought something on the far side of the cage by the wall. All it was really managing to bite the wires on the side of the cage....

I thought a mouse must have been attracted to their food, was trying to get a bite to eat and instead was getting a bite from Leia the warrior guinea pig. Actually,at this point though not thrilled with the idea of a mouse in my house or the idea that I was going to have to get it out of my house... I kind of snickered at the idea that it thought it was getting easy pickings out of the guinea pigs food and was now under attack from the fearless one.

Then It moved trying to run away (it was kinda smushed against the wall and the wires of the cage) and I saw it was really big (longish, too long to be a mouse).... and I thought "OH, gross it's a rat! A rat in my house!"

Mind you, I stopped half way across the room as soon as I saw there was something moving on the outside of the cage that the guinea pigs didn't like. Then the light hit it's shinny smooth slick head....

(PARDON MY OUTBURST)....

"Holy crap! It's a snake! A snake has gotten in the house and is trying to eat my piggies!".... Now I hate snakes...love my piggies... so I inch forward to investigate how to get this snake....AND......




It was not a snake.......






Praise the Lord it was not a snake......








Victory dance here.....






Instead it was......







Are you ready for this?














My son's African three clawed frog!


It finally managed to get out of it's aquarium. We had always heard they were wild tank jumpers. After all this time (about two years ago?) she hadn't jumped out of her aquarium ....I just thought well may be we don't have to worry about this one. Not only did she make it .... she was three rooms away from her aquarium ... and in a lot of danger... on top of Leia the warrior princess, there was also a cat and two dogs in the house! Close inspection showed very few scrapes on her. We rinsed her off and slipped her back in the tank. Mission one today..... find something to seal up opening in back of tank so explorer frog is kept homebound!

Does this happen at your house when your boys ask if they can pitch a tent in your backyard? No? Oh well, I knew we weren't normal.....

The Royal Frog


Once upon a time a family had an aquarium and in their aquarium they had a giant frog and a giant gold fish. One day the Queen decided that the giant gold fish would be happier in a pond. So the family released the gold fish into the great wild to live out it's life in the freedom of a pond. But this made the little princess sad. So, the King and Queen told the princess she could get several fish to replace the giant gold fish. At the kingdom's local pet store the Queen carefully explained that the tank still contained a rather large-ish frog but the clerk was sure the fish picked would be safe. So the royal family happily installed their new pets into their little tank. Sadly the next morning they found that 6 of the new 9 fish were gone....and they had a very happy frog. Not too easily discouraged the family returned to the kingdom's local pet store and bought larger fish. Alas the next morning a couple of the new fish were gone including the largest one they bought! The royal decree? The royal frog got to have the 20 gallon tank all to itself and it's buddy the huge sucker fish. Also the monstrous duo were banished to the prince's quarters for the rest of their days! And the Queen and princess threw a royal fit until they got a pretty 29 gallon tank to keep all their pretty little fishes in!


New Fish Tank

Moral to this little tale?
So what if your freaking gold fish is huge!
At least your stinking frog can't eat it!

Emily's surgery went well. We got at the hospital around 8 for pre-op. She went into surgery around 9:30 and got out around 11:00 but we had a bit of hard time with her after surgery coming out of anesthesia. So we didn't leave the hospital until around 12:30. The dentist was pleased with how it all went. He said the four front teeth that we were so upset about removing were already loose and he feels their replacement adult teeth will start to come in by Christmas. That was wonderful news because we were worried it could be as long as 1 to 2 years. She was VERY mad about the Doctor taking her teeth and feels she is ugly now. She refuses to smile. Poor baby, I hope the Dr. is right and those new ones come on in soon.

Daddy promised her a trip to Toys 'R Us for being good. She slept for another say 4 hours or so that afternoon. When she woke up she didn't remember going to Toys 'R Us and picking toys out. So she was really excited to see what she got! LOL

And Daddy doesn't think we should put her in Dance class?

Where do I even begin on all the crafts we've worked on this summer? Air dry clay figures, painting wooden letters that spell their names, painting pre-made figures, homemade cork boards, latch hook, gluing puzzles together to make posters, weaving loom pot holders and dishrags, etc.... I don't know if the kitchen table will ever be the same again! LOL