Show & Tell: Adventures Weeks 33 and 34

Oh, yeah!  I have a blog! 

Okay, okay ... so I really thought my next blog post would be Adventures Week 33 and only Week 33.  But then Week 34 happened, and Week 33 still wasn't blogged.  Then all of June happened, and Week 33 still wasn't blogged.  And then all of July, and then part of August ... you get the idea.  You might remember this same thing happened when we took off for Christmas vacation.  Apparently when vacation time rolls around, I'm good for absolutely nothing!  ;)

A normal person would just pick up where she is and start blogging again.  But I'm not normal.  I'm me.  :)  And because I have what can only be described as a severe case of OCD, I have to finish blogging Adventures before I can start blogging ECC.  Truly must.  So without further ado, here is my Show & Tell for Weeks 33 and 34 of Adventures in My Father's World.  Three months late, but done nonetheless.  :)

In science we learned about the effect air resistance has on objects as they move through the air.  Hannah took two identical pieces of paper (one crumbled and one flat) and released them at the same time to see which would fall to the ground first.  The crumbled piece fell first because it was a smaller object, so it had less air pushing against it.

Next we put to good use this new understanding of air resistance and some of my scrapbooking paper.  (And that's a good thing because apparently back when scrapbooking was all the rage, I bought out the entire section at Hobby Lobby.  Any guesses as to how much of it I've used over the past 8 years?  Suffice it to say my my oldest hasn't even made it home from the hospital in her baby scrapbook!)  Anyway, we took a square peice of scrapbook paper and folded it into a pyramid shape.

Then we released it to see how it would land.  (Watch Hannah's face at the end of the second video.  I love how it "clicked" for her all of the sudden!)

We also cut up a couple of Wal-Mart bags and made a pair of homemade parachutes.  Our goal was to see the effect weight has on air resistance.  Hannah chose two dolls—a light one and a heavy one—to attach to the parachutes.  Then she launched them from the top of her swing set to see how they fared.  Here are the two victims subjects:

And here's a video showing how it all went down.  (Get it?  "How it all went down?"  Oh, I really need to get a life!)

We also read about The Wright Brothers, which led to some flight activities.  We made paper airplanes with rudders and flaps in the wings which were supposed to help us see how planes can turn, climb, and dive.  We tried several different times, but we never had much luck steering the planes.

We did, however, have success with the activity that explained how planes fly.  Hannah held a sheet of paper just below her mouth and blew.  We expected her breath to blow the paper down, but it actually went up instead because the air coming out of her mouth was moving so quickly across the top of the paper that the slower-moving air beneath it pushed back harder.

And finally, we learned about electricity and did a couple of static electricity activities.  Hannah rubbed a balloon on her sweater and was impressed when static electricity made it stick to the kitchen wall.

But that wasn't nearly as fascinating as our next hair-raising activity!

In fact, this one was so good it required several minutes of staring into the mirror.  Girls!

In history, we learned about the last six states added to our country:  Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii.  When we learned about New Mexico, one of our activities was to make Navajo Fry Bread.  Hannah's Sunday school class made some a couple of years ago, and it apparently made quite an impression because she couldn't wait to get in the kitchen and start cooking!  :)

Our taste buds loved it.  Our arteries?  Probably not so much!  ;)

The girls chose to have theirs plain ...

... but I drizzled mine with honey.  Delicious!

 

 Hannah finished off her year by writing a letter to the President.  This took many a pep talk on mama's part.  I'm not exactly what you would call an Obama fan, and I found myself on more than one occasion thinking, "If only she was three years older, her 2nd grade year would have fallen during Dubbya's presidency, and she would be writing to him."  So I just put her on the computer and told her to write something.  Anything.

My husband dared me to put this picture on my blog without commenting about the mess on the desk, and I can't do it!  Yes, this is what my desk looks like at the end of the year!

This is the rough draft Hannah came up with on her own.  We worked together to edit it a little bit, which was mostly just reorganizing her sentences so they flowed a little better, but she also ended up adding a few other thoughts.



The finished product.



She was very proud of this letter!  (Click to enlarge and read.)

She even illustrated it!  :)



She added a stamp ...

 

... addressed it ...

 

... and put it in the mailbox.  (Just pretend like the bird bird poop isn't there.  We do!)

She asked if President Obama would write back to her, and I told her I didn't know what would happen.  So imagine our surprise when we opened the mailbox a few weeks later and found this in it!

What'd'ya know?  President Obama did something that put a smile on my face!  It's a miracle!!  ;)

Millie's Pre-K continued to go really well—much better than I ever expected!  She especially loved those days when she got to read a new Hooked on Phonics book, and I got excited right along with her.  I thought teaching her would present lots and lots of challenges, but she really did great!

We took two months off from Pre-K in February and March (oops!), so she only made it through Lesson 17 out of 26.  But that's okay because we'll be doing them again this year on a Kindergarten level.  (We'll focus on the science and Bible portion of each lesson, and she'll use A Reason for Handwriting and Hooked on Phonics for language arts.)  So far she loves her school—especially the games and songs.  Here she is singing her short vowel song.

So there you have it ... our last weekly report for what was truly a wonderful year with Adventures in My Father's World!  Now I can blog ECC in peace!  ;) 

I hope you guys have all had a wonderful summer!  I've missed staying connected via the blogosphere.  It feels good to be back!  :)