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Wordless Wednesday: Billy Goat Trail A

Awesome Geography: Peru

After watching Geography Now, we had our snack.

I had bought some "Incan Corn" from Peru (by way of Trader Joe's) for our snack.  It was really good!  It tasted like tortilla chips but looked like giant puffy corn kernels.  Also, it was super crunchy!

I had big plans for our art and active projects: we were going to spin some wool on a drop spindle and then do a weaving project.

Genius!  Except...

No one wanted to do it (besides me)!

So, I asked them to come up with a project.

They decided to make a rope bridge.

Which even supported our llama, so I count it a success!

Poem of the Week: Love (III)

Love (III)

By George Herbert

 

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

                              Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

                             From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

                             If I lacked any thing.

 

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

                             Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

                             I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

                             Who made the eyes but I?

 

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

                             Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

                             My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

                             So I did sit and eat.

HT: Poetry Foundation

Awesome Geography: Chile and Argentina

Besides the Geography now videos, we watched a beautiful documentary on Patagonia

Our active activity was lassoing like the gauchos in the documentary.  My favorite comment was from Choclo who announced he would teach us, "how to lasso a kid"  He tried for his sister, but ended up flipping it back on himself.

Technically, he did lasso a kid!

A few tries later he also got his sister.

For our snack, we ate beef kabobs.

Because of the extra video time, we didn't do an art project per se, unless you  count learning to tie a lasso knot!

Oreo Mitosis

 It's hard to believe that we are nearly done with Biology, but we are!

Last week we did mitosis, always a tricky subject.

I went hunting for more ways to explain it, and found these cute Oreo representations on Pinterest.

 Making Oreo models was both fun and delicious, and I think did help illustrate a fairly complex subject.

Poem of the Week: Enemies

Enemies

By Wendell Berry

If you are not to become a monster,

you must care what they think.

If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,

and so become a monster

of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy

that is the way of liberty?

From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;

they are to you as sunlight

on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except

as monsters like yourself,

pitiable because unforgiving.

HT: Poetry Foundation

Wordless Wednesday: C + O Canal

Awesome Geography: Antarctica

This was a fun one!

I wanted to do an art project based on icebergs, but I wasn't sure how to do it. 

Finally, I hit in the idea of having the kids crumple and tear paper to make their iceberg, and then photocopy the crumpled paper. 

 The crumples gave a great ice like texture, and the photocopying provided realistic shading, including a shadow behind each berg.

Then the kids drew tiny penguins with pens.  Really, you just need the idea of penguins, so these are mostly little lines.


Lastly, they used pastels and/or crayons to indicate water, sky, and even an aurora!

One cool trick is to make a gradient from lighter to darker blue to indicate water depth. 


And, of course, most of the iceberg is under water!

For our snack we made snow cones by grinding ice in the blender and pouring a simple sugar syrup over it.


As you can see, Mike really liked this class!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Bonus Poem!

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

HT: Poetry Foundation

Poem of the Week: God's Grandeur

God's Grandeur

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

HT: Poetry Foundation

Wordless Wednesday: National Gallery