Jello cells.

Yesterday, we made ourselves some jello cells. Very fun. Here's how:

1. Consult book. I love this curriculum. We've covered all three books in Level I already (biology, chemistry and physics) but are going back and reviewing them before summer...adding a few more "fun" elements as we review. Here's one of the pages we were working from:

(Here's another source for information and instructions. And here's one where they let the jello set longer and added things on top instead of inside.)

2. Buy assorted candy and jello. (I did this while the boys were at Options this week, to avoid the inevitable begging, lol.) I just snagged a variety of candies from those bulk bins at the grocery store for the most part. If I were to do this again, though, I think I'd brave the begging to involve the boys in this part, too. 

3. Make jello. I'd forgotten how easy this is...and how long it seems to take to set. ;) We used two boxes of each color.

4. Feed boys a snack. (See step 5.)

5. Sort candy. While we were waiting (impatiently) for the jello to set at least a bit, we labeled some cupcake tins with the cell parts we were going to represent. Then we sorted the candy we had into the spots according to what seemed to match best. (And, the boys managed to eat some of our microtubules...but, mostly, our supplies remained safe thanks to step 4.)

6. Add cell parts to jello. Though it felt like forever, we finally started adding cell parts after about 1.5 hours. For the animal cell, we made everything up in a gallon size ziplock bag...the plant cell, having a cell wall and all, was in a glass bowl. (If I'd had a more squarish bowl, I'd have used that.)

7. Return to fridge. It was agonizing to the boys, but we then returned everything to the fridge to finish setting. The torture was made better by eating some of the leftover cell parts. ;)

8. Enjoy. So, we tried to eat these for dessert. It was...interesting. Let's just say that there was ample opportunity for discussion about things that dissolve and things that don't and how that changes the consistency and taste of things. :) Yeah. Not really so tasty. But, we had fun "dissecting" our cells. ;)

That was all. I think it was a hit. I heard Micah talking about golgi apparatus randomly and saw him looking through a library book about cells that I picked up earlier this week. I even got Asher to try jello (which, if you know Asher and his tremendously picky eating habits, you know was saying something). 

Beyond that, boys are still fully enthusiastic about our "build your own country" project...I found atlases open, the globe out, and various music being examined for "national anthem" contention yesterday. We talked about fresh water availability and access to the ocean as they're narrowing down their locations. They started thinking about what national holidays they'll have. And, Noah's read through the entire book at least a couple times.

Life is good. ;) 

This morning.

Micah: "I woke up at 7:30!" (This, btw, is not normal. Given our odd schedule, boys don't generally wake up until 9ish.)

Me: "Why?"

Micah: "Sleep is just...TORTURE! It's sooooo booooorrrrring!"

Me: "Okay." ('Cause, really, what are you gonna do? You try explaining the beauty of sleep to a five year old, LOL!)

How To Build Your Own Country

Oh. My. Gosh. This book is awesome. I bought it a bit ago but finally started using it this week. Woohoo! Can you tell I'm excited? It's such a happy thing when I stumble across an idea or product that just truly excites us. This is one of them. 

It's not actually designed as a curriculum or anything. It's just so darn clever and fun. And it's organized such that it lends itself very nicely to a dandy little unit study. It's broken down into three sections...

1. staking out your identity (name, location, population, flag, anthem, etc)...
2. running the country (government, constitution, laws, money, services, taxes)...and, 
3. meeting the neighbors (keeping the peace, fitting in with the rest of the world, etc).

Like I said, we just started. Each of us is creating his/her own country. I've got it "planned" out to take a couple months. I don't want to rush it and want the boys to actually stop and give this some decent thought. We're talking about making up project boards to present each of our countries and then having those ready to show grandparents when they come to visit in May. :) (Nice to have deadlines sometimes, lol.) This week, I just introduced the idea and started reading the first chapter of the book to them. The goal is to have settled on a location and a name by the end of the week. (We do a bit of geography four days a week.) We're keeping notebooks for any ideas that come to us and will write up the final decisions later (and make flags and currency and passports and all kinds of cool stuff). Already the boys are having an awesome time. Here are just some of the things that have come up for discussion:

- Names. Obviously this has been hilarious and somewhat predictable. Still narrowing it down and trying to steer boys away from any place names in the Star Wars universe. ;) The book, itself, has some awesome choices. (For my own country, I'm in the very preliminary stages but have The Queendom of Bob, Amandaland and Country as possible names right now. I'm open to suggestions, lol.)

- Location. Decided to allow pretending here and let them overlap existing areas if they want. Had to clarify that we must be on the planet earth (for now...may actually go back and do this again for a study on the universe or something...where they can be anywhere in the universe). Worked in discussion about climates and habitats and economy. Found it freakin' funny that Noah immediately declared that he couldn't be an island nation because there wouldn't be enough land for all the cattle he'll need. (At this point, I also suggested Carnivoria as a possible country name, lol.)

- National (fill in the blank). Though I only asked for the first two things, they all quickly latched onto the idea of having a national bird, a national sport, a national food, a national language, etc. (Asher's invented an Ework for his bird, Micah's talking about stunt flying as a national sport and Noah would like to know if binary could count as a national language.) Man, look at all those side research topics. ;) If I were the kind of homeschooler who could let go of curriculum plans and rough schedules, I can really see that this project could cover all subjects.  

- Everything else. And, even though we're trying to focus just on the name and location right now, they've already been talking about forms of government and economy and international trade and armies and just so very many things.

They've been making notes and looking things up, and this has all been going on after "school hours," which just goes to show how into it they are. :) Plus, it's just plain cool. Happy sigh. 

Totally random.

1. Did you know that baby oil is an excellent cleaner for stainless steel surfaces (like on refrigerators and microwaves)? Hal at Home Depot told me so. He swore me to secrecy, though, so don't tell him I told you.

2. I love Monday afternoons. (Yes, I know that sounds weird.) After I pick up the boys from Options, we mostly go out to grab a snack. It's tradition. During that, they take turns telling me (in detail) about their day. I love that they want to do that.

3. Micah's kindergarten words of late have been Star Wars, technology, uranium, vector and war. (Vector, in case you were wondering, comes from the villain in the movie Despicable Me...not any precocious knowledge of geometry, lol.) 

4. My exercise "habit" hasn't yet reached habit status and I'm a bit behind on my goal of 3x a week, but I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that I'm making progress. One of the biggest hurdles was figuring out that I really just need to shift my entire schedule to getting up earlier *every* morning. (Keep in mind here that prior to coming up with this whole, crazy "I should exercise more" idea my schedule was definitely that of a night owl. I'd stay up late after the boys were in bed...and they go to bed late to start with (around 11 pm) for varying reasons that work for us...and then not worry about getting up earlier than them in the morning.)

Anyhow. Trying to get up early only 3-4 mornings a week just wasn't working because then I was staying up late the other nights and sleeping in those other days...which meant that getting up earlier to exercise was, um, not fun. (Okay. It's still not to the "fun" stage, let's be honest here, LOL!)

5. I love that Micah, though being the shortest kid at Options, considers himself "just one of the boys" and is more than happy to hang out with his big brothers and their friends (all the way up to 6th graders). I love it even more that those other boys all totally accept Micah and are genuinely delighted to let him play with them, happily adjusting their skill levels to give Micah a fighting chance. (And, obviously, I love, too, that Noah and Asher think this is perfectly normal and wouldn't even think about not including Micah.)

6. Legos are awesome. They once again came to my rescue this week during Asher's math lesson. The lesson was about volume (specifically cubic units). Once I explained things in terms of lego bricks, it all made sense. Whew.

7. Is it weird that I almost always eat M&Ms in this order: yellow, brown, red, blue, orange, green?

That was all. Told you it was random. ;)

FCMOA

On Saturday, we visited our local Museum of Art (FCMOA). They have an Ansel Adams exhibit we'd been wanting to visit, and it will be departing this month. Plus, we'd never been inside this particular museum before, even though we drive past it all the time and have lived in Fort Collins for years now. ;) 

So. We went. We started out in the main gallery area, looking at lovely big oil paintings on canvas that reminded Nathan and me of eastern Washington, where we grew up. We then headed upstairs and followed the awesome guide around the exhibit as she did her tour. In wandering and looking more individually at the photographs, the boys decided that these were their favorites:

Asher liked the sand dunes in CA...Micah liked Yosemite...and Noah liked the Grand Tetons. I think they were all terrific choices and couldn't decide on a personal favorite, myself. ;) 

And, here we are in front of the museum:

(I actually like the color version of this picture better, but black and white seemed more appropriate in front of the big Ansel Adams banner, lol. And, yes, I'm standing one step higher up than Nathan is. Gotta take advantage of the opportunity to appear taller when I can.)

So. That was part of our Saturday. It's rather rewarding to finally be experiencing more of the offerings right here in our hometown (like about a month ago when we visited Anheuser). Anyone have any recommendations for what we might tackle next?