The study of our solar system

We did a few visual's today to grasp the concept of how small we really are.  We took our basketball and a peppercorn and put them side by side.  The basketball is our SUN and the peppercorn is EARTH.  The kids as well as Mom were blown away about how ant like we are.  Next, we used the basketball and a marble.  The basketball is now JUPITER and our marble is EARTH.

For fun, we measured the planets our onto our driveway.  Jacob has the acromin below memorized so he was able to let me know which planet came next.  He was more interested in the size of the planet.  Ryan was intrested in how far away from the Sun each one was.   We used the book The Planets in our Solar System by Franklyn Branley for the distance in our driveway model.  We started with the Sun, of course.

My (Mercury) 36,898,000 miles from the Sun --- 2 inches

Very (Venus)  67,084,000 miles from the Sun ---3 inches

Excellent (Earth)  92,752,000 miles from the Sun ---4 inches

Mom (Mars)  141,298,000 miles from the Sun --- 6 inches

Just (Jupiter) 482, 546,000 miles from the Sun ---1 foot, 9 inches

Served (Saturn) 884,740,000 miles from the Sun ---3 feet, 2 inches

Us (Uranus) 1, 779,152,000 miles from the Sun ---6 feet, 5 inches

Nine (Neptune) 2, 787,892,000 miles from the Sun ---10 feet, inch

Pizza'a (Pluto)   3,658,000,000 miles from the Sun ---13 feet, 3 inches

Yes, we realize Pluto is no longer a planet.  But, we like Pluto.

Blogger Award!

I am very grateful to Busy Bees Are We to nominate me for the Versatile Blogger Award. It was so sweet and thoughtful of the Queen Bee to think of me. She totally made my day!


To accept the Versatile Blogger Award the rules are:

•Thank and link back to who gave you the award.
•Share 7 things about yourself.
•Pass it along to 15 blogs you've recently discovered and enjoy
•Leave your recipients a note, telling them about the award

Now 7 things about me:

1. I have been married to the most wonderful man for 12 years and he and the good Lord have given two wonderful boys.

2. Since I was a little girl all I wanted to be was a Wife, Mommy and a Teacher.

3. I never thought I would become one of those home school families. However, God had a different idea on what my husband and I should be doing.

4. I have tendencies of being a control freak - home schooling has tamed me a bit. I am still a work in progress.

5. I obsess to much. Like what to put down for the 7 things about me and the 15 blogs. UGH.

6. I LOVE sweets. Pepsi is my drink of choice, even though its recipe is very close to battery acid.

7. I LOVE coconut milk. I do not like coconut.

And here are the 15 blogs that I am passing the love on too...So in no particular order here are several worthy blogs.

1. Homeschool Success

2. Journey to Excellence

3. The Homeschool Chick

4. Noggins and Nonsense

5. Debbies Homeschool Corner

6. The Sunny Patch

7. Learning Laughter Love

8. Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

9. Blog, She Wrote

10. Living Math Book List one of Mama Jenn's blogs.

11. Lagniappe Academy

12. Consider It All Joy

13. Confessions of a Homeschooler

14. Light, Liberty, and Learning

15. Sassy Down Home Mama

Science - Swimming Creatures!

We are currently on an adventure of the underwater world!

In our first chapter we learned about the various types of mobility. Both the boys and I were having problems trying to remember the technical names for the various types of mobility. For a visual we used SpongeBob for the animals that swim, crawl, sit and drift.

Nekton: Squidward (swim)

Benthos: Mr. Crabs (crawl)

Benthic: Patrick (scoot)

Sessile: SpongeBob (sit)

Plankton: Plankton and Jellyfish (drift)

On Wednesday we went to the local aquarium for their home school days. We were able to see fresh water animals and salt water animals. On our behind the scenes tour we learned how the aquarium makes salt water for the animals on display, what they eat, how they arrive at the aquarium, how and when they are fed, if ill how they are taken care of and our favorite part was walking on TOP of the tanks. The Sea Turtle swam right up to us at the top and boy is he a big fellow! We were not able to take pictures of the tank area behind the scenes due to security. However, here are a few pictures of the animals we saw while walking though the tanks.

Ryan touching a starfish!

A few small sea horses.

A Stingrays beautiful old man face!

A freshwater turtle

The boys in front of a real beaver dam! Check out how tall the dam is.

The boys in the behind the scenes tour - kitchen.

While we were at the aquarium we were able to see all of the various animals with the different types of mobility's we are learning. We all had a great time and hope to do it again later this year.

Amy

Scripture Study On Positive Thinking

I enjoy reading Norman Vincent Peale's book The Power of Positive Thinking, almost yearly. I can easily move my thoughts towards negative thoughts rather quickly. Unfortunately, it is more natural for me than those nice positive thoughts. I have noticed that one of my sons seems to have this same dilemma. So, we are going to try a Scripture Study on Positive Thinking for the month of October. Each day the boys will have a scripture to look up and read based on recommend bible verses from Mr. Peale's book.

With our Scripture Study, the boys will:

Learn how to look up bible verses

Read the bible verses

Color the square on the calendar

Copy bible verses to a note card

At the end of the month if all of the squares are colored in on the calendar, the boys can earn a book from the used bookstore in town.

Today, we made a trip to store to purchase a bible for Jacob. He was so excited to finally get his own bible!

We also took the time today to learn how to look up the bible verses. Jacob got it on the first try! I remember as a kid that it took me a long time to understand chapter and verse. I can't help but think he was actually paying attention to what I was doing and saying!

If you are interested in the bible verses we are doing for the month of October, see the link below.

I made a blog button!

I am so proud of myself, I made a blog button! I figured I was not that techie but I found directions and I was able to do it all by myself {pat on the back}. This kind of celebration deserves some sort of treat -- ummm Chocolate maybe.

For those who would like to know how to make a button you first find a picture. Upload it to photobucket where you can then edit the picture. Finally, Shabby Blogs has directions on their site for the html code for the blog.

So, go ahead and grab the button. If you do not have a button I suggest you give it a try. If I can do it, I know you can!

<a border="0" href="http://completeknowledge4me.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i804.photobucket.com/albums/yy323/safreundschuh/country-school2.jpg" /></a>

Amy

Questions, Questions, Questions

We all have questions. Silly questions, inquisitive questions and some that make you go huh? questions. Being a homeschooling family some questions can easily get you off track for the day. Especially in the middle of a math lesson when someone wants to know how earthquakes happen. Makes me wonder - is this question for real or do you just not want to do math right now? My boys also seem to ask questions when we are driving down the road and these seem to be the questions I cannot answer, we must look up the answer. Is it bad timing or maybe they just want to know exactly how smart is my teacher anyway?

The boys and I decided to put our questions in a box. Once a week we will pick a question out and research the answer on the internet or the library. Now wait a minute, what if one of the boys needs to know the answer right now? Well, as with all things in life, exceptions will be made. Now, the tough part -- trying to remember to bring pencil and paper in the truck to write the questions on!

We went on a week long field trip!

In our History class we have been studying the nomads from our book: The Story of the World. The boys learned that a nomad wandered from place to place, looking for food {animals to hunt or berries to pick}. These families lived in tents or caves, they did not have the fancy houses we have today.

On our field trip we visited South Dakota. We learned about Indians and Mammoths.

The hut pictured above is a replica of a house in the plains of the Ukraine. More than 30 dwellings have been discovered in the area - preserved nicely do to a flood. This replica shown in the South Dakota Mammoth Site is made from 121 Mammoth bones, 8 bison hides, a variety of poles and raw hides. Some researchers believe that these huts were semi permanent - they believe the individuals would of followed the animals migration patterns throughout the year.

We went to the Mammoth Site off season. Unfortunately, our kiddos did not get to participate in the Junior Paleontologist Program. We did managed to stay for 3 hours! The tour was 30 minutes and the exhibit room would be about 30-45 minutes to view, so we could of been out of there in an hour and a half. However, my kids were so excited to see, feel and touch things we lost track of time! Not a bad thing when you are learning...

The site has about 20 more years of excavating before it is complete. Some bones are left in the site so you can see how they were found. Paleontologist are also there working as you tour the area.

If you give a kid a Mammoth what about all the rest of the Dinosaurs? So, starts a mini study on Dinosaurs...We are reading The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible by Paul S. Taylor. I highly recommend this book. This book answers questions that children as well as adults have about dinosaurs, how fossils are made and the Bible.