The End of April

It's the last of April, and, judging from the 182 photos in the April folder, we've been busy!

Easter with our parish, Easter with extended family on both sides, gardening, outings, driving, Spring, Astronomy, Rocket Science, and Awesome History, it's been a wild ride!

Also, we saw the Avengers movie.   Actually, I forgot to mention it, but we saw Pacific Rim:
Uprising last month!

Tomorrow starts May and we are heading into our busy time of the year.

This is the last week of college classes for Klenda and Zorg,and next week is the last class for Mxyl, so they are all heading into finals.

Rockets!  What's next?

We are building our rockets to launch at NASA Goddard next Sunday, and that will be the end of Kid's Astronomy and Rocket Science.  Awesome American History is winding up as we approach present day.  We've started talking about what we want to study next year!

And, of course, the Emperor is starting to wrap things up.  His seniors will graduate in about a month, and his other students will finish up a few weeks later.

Also in May we have 4 family birthdays, our anniversary, a much anticipated visit from Angel (from Switzerland), and the big annual visit to the graves.

I love May!   It's chock full of family, friends, flowers, and classes, often with beautiful weather to boot.  And by June, I will want a nap.

Poem of the Week: Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

Nature’s first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf’s a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

HT: Poets.org 

Images from my garden. :)

The Lawn, or In Praise of Dandelions

More flowers!

Honestly, I love dandelions.  I never got over seeing a field of dandelions when I was 4. 

I know this is supposed to be the suburban gardener's nightmare, but if dandelions were difficult to grow, they would be really expensive!  Think about it: beautiful flower, interesting seed head, fascinating floating seeds, interesting leaf shape, and edible (and medicinal) leaves.

I love it that God didn't make them hard to grow!  Since they are so prolific, every child can make dandelion crowns from the flowers and blow wishes (or dandelion clocks) on the seed heads - play that never would be allowed on, say, a lotus.  I'm glad God didn't make beauty rare.

To me dandelions are an invitation to enjoy God's gratuitous beauty.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Wordless Wednesday: In the Garden

Rocket Science: Laws of Motion 2018

1st Law: A body at rest stays at rest, a body in motion stays in motion unless acted on by another force.

Looking at inertia with the quarter/card/jar trick.

 Looking at mass with scales and balances (and jelly beans!).

We also looked at momentum with raw and hard boiled eggs.

And we made balloon rockets.

Full  1st Law class here.

 2nd Law of Motion: F=ma, force equals mass times acceleration.

It takes twice as much force to move twice as much mass, or half as much force to move half as much mass.

We looked at this by dropping a heavy marble and a light foil ball into flour.  They hit at the same time, but the heavy ball made a big crater, and the light one barely sunk in.

We did a few other demonstrations including a race of a heavier and lighter car down a ramp.

And we made puff rockets!

Full 2nd law class here.

3rd Law: Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction.

Gotta love a Newton's Cradle!

We also did the thing where the kids stand in a wagon and push on me.

And the billiard ball thing with angles.

And Alka-Seltzer rockets!

Which worked this time since I had bought new film canisters.  It was still pretty random: some popped up 15 feet in the air or more, but many only popped up a couple of feet.  We got the best results with half a tablet and just enough water to cover it.

Full 3rd Law class here.

 Lots of science fun!


Next week, we'll build and paint our model rockets, and the following Sunday we'll launch them at NASA Goddard!

Kids' Astronomy: the Moon

 Just a few pictures from from our class on the moon.

I mean, we weren't actually on the moon, but, you get the idea!

Moon crater experiment: dropping rocks onto flour dusted with cocoa.

 Explaining tides: the round blue pot holder is the Earth, the black rope is the water.

Explaining moon phases with a ball of yarn stuck on a knitting needle.

 Drawing moon phases.

I love how into this kids get!






We also did the moon jump.  You mark how far the kids jump, then multiply it by 6 and mark again how far their jump would carry them on the moon!

The full class is here.

Poem of the Week: Spring

Spring

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         

   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;

   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         

   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

 

 

 

 

What is all this juice and all this joy?         

   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         

   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         

   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.  




HT: Poetry Foundation

Seven Quick Takes: You Drove Me to This!

1.  I just realized I never blogged about visiting New Jersey on the weekend after Easter.  

The short version is: We all went, and had a marvelous time!

Any eggs here?

 Also, I planted a little garden for them.






2. One of the weird things about life is that your kids can't see your parents the way you think of them.  They (the kids) just happened when my parents were older.  

I happened across this picture, and I didn't think anything special of it at first.  Then I realized: this is still my mental picture of my Dad.  So I took a picture of a faded picture to show them (and you).  

This is what my Dad really looks like.

We're like hummingbirds only bigger.

3. The hummingbirds have returned!

Um, yes, I DO know those aren't hummingbirds, but the picture I took of the actual hummingbird just shows a blurry smudge near the feeder.

4.  In case you needed more proof that having teenagers is the best thing ever, Klenda took me to the National Gallery and we spent a lovely morning  drinking in the beauty. Sooooo nice!

5. Speaking of so nice, Leena got her Driver's Permit!  

With three kids licensed, I've completed my first 200 hours of teaching kids to drive, and I'm now about 5 hours into the second half.

Fortunately, I really enjoy having the extra time with my teens (see #4), and Leena is a natural at this driving stuff!

Plus, I get to say to her, "You drove me to this!" Every time.  It never gets old (for me).

 5. I love these cute little English daisies!

They totally look like Dr. Seuss plants, and they just beg you to touch their fluffy petals!

 Spring is my favorite time in the garden.


 
6. Pro tip: When you want a special dinner, but you only have it in you to heat up some chicken nuggets and tater tots: keep around little paper umbrellas to stick in the Koolade!

Instant Mom win! (kinda)

7. Lastly, I leave you with this disturbing creative image, brought to you Mxyl.

I suppose it's just a cautionary tale about having art majors, but it reminds me of our family motto:

NON mali ingeniis excellentissima

(If you aren't up on your Latin, it means "NOT evil geniuses") 

That's it!  Have a great weekend!  More fun with Kelly! 

Awesome American History:1945-1969

Well, that's a big bite of history!  This was three history classes squished into one, catching up from traveling and illness.

Because I am blogging these to give a possible framework to others (and so that I don't have to reconstruct the class if I ever do it again), I'm going to treat the
three weeks separately.

1945-1947, WWII, Computers, and the Housing Boom (pages 267-276 in The American Story by Jennifer Armstrong.). Our art activity was coloring WWII posters from this book.  Our active activity was playing Battleship from this printout.  Our snack was Sun Chips (like computer chips).

1952-1955, Polio, Segregation, Montgomery Boycott (pages 277-287 in The American Story by Jennifer Armstrong).  Our art activity was a bus for the Montgomery Boycott.  Our active activity was a vaccination game using Glogerm to show disease spread.  Our snack was black and white cookies (segregation).

1956-1969, Elvis, Cuban Missiles, Moon Landing (pages 288-297 in The American Story by Jennifer Armstrong).  Our art activity was doing pictures in rhinestones while listening to Elvis, our active activity was dancing to Elvis music, and our snack was "moon" cheese.

Incidentally, I'd like to give a shout out to Extra History's excellent short videos on the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Three Reasons Why We Can't Have Nice Things: The Pet Edition

Why we can't have a chicken: I'd name it Johann Sebastian Bock.

SERIOUSLY?!

Why we can't have a dog: I'd name it Anathema.

Why we can't have a parrot: I'd teach it to say, "Help!  I've been turned into a parrot!" And I'd mail it to my sister. As a surprise.