Christmas fun

For Christmas this year, we are going through the history of the symbols of Christmas. We have done the Christmas tree and decorating the tree, the Christmas star and today we did the candy cane. I just wanted to show you what we made with candy canes this afternoon.

We did not actually glue the butterfly together so that we could eat the candy later. We used the mini candy canes for both.

Indianapolis Colts

These past few weeks, we have been studying football. As an ending to this study, we were able to attend a Indianapolis Colts football game at Lucas Oil stadium. Here are a few pictures from our adventure:

Dallas Clark

Peyton Manning

The halftime show was Marvin Harrison being inducted into the Hall of Fame.



This was a 2 point conversion attempt after one of the Colts' touchdowns.

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Geography Fair!

It's that time of year again - time for our co-op Annual Geography Fair. Our numbers were down a little this year, but we still had a lot of fun!

Alex chose to do Madagascar. We learned so much, especially about the animals that live there.


On his board, he has the flag, branches of goverment (which are very similar to the USA's), facts including population, religion, national language, etc., a map of Africa showing where Madagascar is, a larger map of Madagascar (also shown below) that shows the capital, oceans and resources, a Baobab tree and a couple pictures of limestone along with some animal pictures to fill in.

Alex did a notebook that included about 20 animals that live in Madagascar - he separated them by mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish and invertebrates. Above is the Aye-Aye, a type of lemur and below is the Chameleon.

Here is a game that is similar to checkers.

Two of the main exports from Madagascar are cloves and vanilla beans. Below are Banana Fritters - a popular snack in Madagascar. Bananas are plentiful there.


Nicolas chose to Ghana, a country that his Aunt and Uncle have visited, and we have friends (relatives of his Uncle) that live there. They let him borrow many things from Ghana for his table.

On his board, he had National Holidays listed, the meanings of the flag colors, a small Africa map showing where Ghana is located, 2 clocks - on showing our time, the other showing Ghanaian time, a larger map of Ghana showing the rivers and ocean, facts about Ghana, including population, religion, national language, etc, the branches of government (which is similar to ours), a flap book showing what your name would be depending on the day of the week you were born, and some pictures of Accra, the capital and a Baobab tree.


Above is Adinkra cloth made by the Asante people. Each stamp has a special meaning - the hears are love, the pluses are strength and the "I"s are rhythm. Below is cloth that has been batiked by Nicolas's aunt in Ghana and made into an apron.

Nicolas did 4 lapbooks from Homeschoolshare of animals commonly found in Ghana.
Nicolas had plantains for people to try and below is Groundnut Soup. Peanuts are called Groundnuts in Ghana and this soup is made with peanut butter, tomato sauce, chicken, onion and some spices. It wasn't bad, but definitely different.
Other countries that were represented were:

Prey/Predator experiment

For Zoology, we did an experiment showing what happens as predators hunt and eat prey. We had large yellow pieces of paper representing Cougars and smaller squares of orange paper representing deer. We spread the deer out in a 2ft X 2ft square and dropped the cougars into the area. If a cougar landed on any, he got something to eat that year and lived. If he landed on more than 3 deer that year, then we was able to reproduce. Any deer that were not eaten reproduced for the next year. We went through 20 years to see what happens. In the beginning, the cougars were able to eat most of the deer, especially as there were more cougars in the area. As some of the cougars died off because of lack of deer, more deer were able to survive and reproduce. The more deer there were in the area, the more cougars there were. As the cougar population increased, the deer population began to decrease, until in the end, we were pretty much back to where we started - just a few deer and only 1 or 2 cougars. Interesting, and we had fun with it!

Jamboree!

We went to Eagle Creek in Indianapolis on Friday along with dad for a homeschool jamboree. The have this every spring and fall (from what I gathered), but this is the first time we ever attended. The boys chose 4 classes they would be interested in and we took a sack lunch. There were probably around 50 kids there total with no more than 8-10 in each of the classes our boys took. I don't know if any of the other classes were larger or not. The first 3 classes, the boys took together, but separated for the last one.

#1 - Wild about Woodpeckers

We learned how to identify the different woodpeckers that live in Indiana by sound and appearance - even the sapsucker which is here only during migration.

#2 - Hunting and Gun Safety


The boys learned 2 ways to unload a gun and most importantly - always treat the gun as loaded and never use it as a toy.

During our lunch break, we took a walk down by the water.


#3 Fishing

We didn't take any pictures, but he showed them different types of poles and different types of bait.

#4 Owl Pellets - Nicolas

Nicolas chose to dissect owl pellets - very interesting.


As he took bones out, they had an identification sheet to sort the bones. Each pellet contained bones from several different animals - all rodents - but it could be a mouse, shrew, vole, etc.
She gave them clay to take home and make their own animals out of their bones. Here's Nicolas's:


#4 Reptiles and Amphibians - Alex

Alex chose to learn more about reptiles and dad went with him to that class.
Toad

BullfrogBox turtle
Salamander

We all had a good time and the cost was only $10 per student. We might consider going back in the spring if they have classes that interest the boys.