Mold, Decay, and Lessons of all Types

MOLD AND DECAY

Part of our study of Egypt involves the study of mummies and how mummies were embalmed. The coolest thing we learned is that they took the brains out through the nose with a big metal hook. We didn’t do any brain removal, but we have been looking at how some household items decay over time.

Our first experiment was to bury some stuff in the backyard. Pictured below are the results of a week and a half of underground decay:

(L to R: wood, peeled apple, apple, potato, peeled potato, Star Wars guy)

The most impressive decay was the peeled apple, which was just a blob of goo. Everything else seemed disappointingly intact.

 

THE MUSICIAN AND THE ARTIST

We got the trumpet! We got the trumpet! Isaac is already great at making random noises on his trumpet, although lessons don’t start until next Tuesday. Depending on how much he practices, he should be able to join the rest of the 6th grade band by the beginning of 2013.

I was a little bit leery about buying an instrument on ebay, but it met all of the criteria the band director gave us (brand, functionality) and was from a top-rated seller, and so far, I think it was a good buy. We paid a total of $225 for the instrument and the case, and shipping was free.

 

Meanwhile, Simon is loving his art classes. Pictured above is his first project: a monster made out of pieces of construction paper. His second project, a landscape made with the same technique, is still drying at the studio.

WHAT WE’VE BEEN DOING

This week, it seems like Math and English have taken up most of our time (and tears). Isaac is adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, and he just learned the “rule of four.” He does not like the “rule of four.” Here it is:

Step 1: take 5X3 to get the denominator for the first fraction (15).

Step 2: take 5X2 to get the numerator for the first fraction (10).

Step 3: take 3X5 to get the denominator for the second fraction (15).

Step 4: take 3X3 to get the numerator for the second fraction (9).

Simon is working on skip counting, which he thinks is strange and confusing.

In English, Simon read a cute story called “Hard Short Hay,” about a smart mama cow, a lazy son, and (as Simon calls him), a “sassy” goat.

Isaac has been doing a lot of sentence and paragraph writing, and I think he might be starting to figure out that random capitalization and non-existent punctuation make everyone miserable. First me; then, by the third re-write, him too.

Esme now knows the /o/ sound (ahhh), and she’s been reading words like “cat” and “ram.” She has trouble with the letter “i”, but she loves the sound “th.”

Foreign Language Classes

We’re still debating on whether to take sign language classes this year. I think it sounds cool, but they’re on Thursday nights, which is probably the worst night of the week for us to add another activity. The Iowa School for the Deaf offers free classes using the Iowa Communication Network (virtual) classrooms; all you have to pay for is the textbook. I’ve been having visions of the kids translating for famous speakers on the side of a stage in front of a huge audience…wouldn’t that be an interesting job?

http://www.iowaschoolforthedeaf.org/

Our second choice is Rosetta Stone Spanish, which is highly recommended by seemingly everyone, although I’ve heard it can be a little bit difficult for younger kids. It’s also expensive, so we’re still thinking about it. There are a ton of free and inexpensive beginner resources online, so once we get through our “Who is God” book (which currently occupies our Foreign Language time slot), we might start with the free stuff and work our way up to Rosetta Stone next year.

http://www.rosettastone.com