First Week Report: Camp Daddy

In case you were curious just how my first week back to work was for the kids was, here is a recap of the activities I came home to witness over lunch and at the end of the day.

Science. Bases versus acids. They tasted EVERYTHING.

And kept detailed notes about each one. 

Sushi for dinner! Mango as well as avocado nigiri is remarkably simple and delicious.

Potato gun building and launch.

It took some fiddling but they eventually got this thing to shoot potatoes to the edge of the trees.

On our way home we found the most terrific toad. 

Check out this beast!

A history time line in the hallway of Animas.

Thanks to the history prof down the hall from Justin, they scored some history books that they were able to cut pictures out of to use for the timeline.

Color coded for Old World, New World and people. They add to it each day. And they did reading and math flash cards each day. This Dad's default is education and there is just no way around it. They may thank him one day for all of this.

I am pretty sure, they don't miss me at all! What do you think?!?!

4th of July Math

The Silverton 4th of July parade left us with a multitude of bead necklaces. When got home, the boys went right to cutting them all of them into individual beads (don't tell Declan and Dashel!). Which turned into an impromptu math lesson. They were both murmuring about which color had the most and how they were going to count them and graph them for comparison. Here was the result.

Once the data was collected, I helped them on a really cool site I used to work with when I was designing for Farm Journal called Create a Graph. 

Yes, I know it's a kid's educational tool but when you have loads of data that needs to reported accurately, this was a lifesaver! You simply move through the tabs at the right, previewing along the way to make sure things are turning out the way you want and then it generates a downloadable file in any format you could possibly need.

Since I have illustrator, we downloaded the files as eps and then tweaked the color scheme to make it clean and clear. Such a fun tool. Who knew learning could be so fun?

It's not Rocket Science

Justin has been wanting to launch rockets, I mean let the kids launch rockets since last summer. So for Aeneas's birthday, he went all out. Anything science puts this artistic Mama into a panic attack. But I try really hard to keep cool and encourage it. We tag teamed helping the boys build their rockets (Patrick got one for his un-birthday too, of course). And every time I would get stuck on how something glued together, Justin would say, "It's not rocket science, Anna." And then laugh with his best mad scientist laugh, WHA WHA WHA!



This picture says it all. The man was nothing short of giddy about this whole thing.

So we went out last night to a vacant parking lot after the students moved out for the semester, in the wind and too little clothing for the chilly Colorado Mountain air to do some rocket launching. (Note Aeneas's space jammies. He actually planned that!)

Aeneas is carefully hooking up the launch wires to complete the circuit.

The key that turns the "ready for launch" light on is my favorite part.

A successful landing.

Patrick's rocket has shuttles that glide back down once the parachute is deployed. And we still have one for Aeneas to be built that has a clear payload section that allows you to put critters in it. Watch out lego people and small bugs. You are going on a space mission!

Patrick's NASA Shuttle launch.



Aeneas's Giant Amazon Rocket launch.

Never a dull moment around here. And I can proudly say I can pack a parachute with the best of them!

The Venus Fly Trap

Aeneas has been working on a research project to go along with his "Ready Set Grow" unit in Kindergarten. He chose to research the Venus fly trap. He made a list of questions that he wanted to know the answers to, we researched them online and in books and then he wrote a paper about his plant and all the interesting facts he learned about it. We then constructed a little display around the Venus Fly Trap.

We weren't the first family to be given this assignment. I found this blog and got some great ideas about how to craft a Venus Fly Trap out of bottle caps. We set to work painting the pieces, the box, mixing salt dough (and coloring it swamp colored!) for the bottom and forming little flies with Sculpy clay. We then painted the flies and glued everything together. He then arranged all his fly traps in the dough and stuck in some extra swap grass that I got from the floral section at the store. I handled the glue gun but other than that, I simply directed the whole thing and he executed. He even thought to paint the flies eyes red!

All of the kids painted "Explorer Hats" and wore them any time they were working on their projects. They were all very proud of their hats. His class hosted an open house where you could go around to listen to each of the kids give a presentation about their research project and read their papers.

Venus Fly Traps can eat whole frogs and caterpillars and grow in the swaps around Deda's house!

Here are his bottle cap traps up close!

And the creepy fly buzzing around from a fishing line.