Battleship

Just a quick snapshot of what we're up to this blustery afternoon...

Yup. I have boys playing Battleship...periodic table style. :) I got the idea here (thanks, Pinterest!). I put mine inside page protectors so they can just use dry erase markers for repeated play. So far, we've done traditional boat numbers and also a two space boat in roughly each element group (one in alkali and alkaline, one in metals (including the lanthanides and actinides), one in metalloids and nonmetals and one in halogens and noble gases--so five ships total). I've been having the boys call them out by atomic number and name...using coordinates if necessary to help direct the other player. I'm thinking that at the very least they're getting more exposure to the names and to the organization of the table. (We worked through the chapter on the periodic table already earlier this week, and that was mostly review, as we've discussed this all in years past.)

Plus, we're not outside in the snow/rain mix that's blowing every which way. And, they're having fun. :)

Easter

Obligatory Easter pictures... ;) 

We enjoyed a low-key celebration here...missing family and boys are getting old enough that they're not really that into it all anyhow. :) So. We started with an indoor egg hunt (on account of the snow still outside, lol, and, yes, I keep my eggs in my Halloween cauldron...doesn't everyone?). Nathan and I hid 84 plastic eggs filled with chocolate. We gave Micah a small head start but he still ended up with a few less than his brothers, lol. Then boys dove into their baskets, which I made this year out of boxes of candy from the dollar store...just added some packing tape and cardboard bottoms...voila! (Really happy with how that turned out.)

Our baskets were pretty straight-forward in the candy department. Then each boy also got a small something specific to his interests and a tee shirt. The shirts followed a theme...and later that day we went to watch the new Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice movie. Nathan and Micah represented Superman, Noah and Asher represented Batman, and I sported my Wonder Woman tee. :) 

Yes, we have a bit of a dispute going on here about which superhero is better, lol. Don't get them started. ;) 

We didn't do our traditional egg drop challenge (again, snow...the ground wasn't horrible but we didn't want to get up on the roof and also didn't want to get the hose out, lol), though we might try to run that out in a few weeks.

And that was pretty much it...just a day of spending time together and looking forward to the new season. Hope everyone else's celebration was beautiful! 

Five on Friday

In catching up mode again...

1. Last weekend (at the end of spring break), Asher and Micah took a class at our local Museum of Discovery. It was a three hour class about comic books, and they seemed to enjoy themselves. (Micah was quite enthusiastic about the whole thing, lol.) This was actually (sadly) the first time we'd been to this museum since its move, and we're looking forward to making the time to go back soon hopefully to explore the rest of the museum. Here are the boys with a sculpture out front...pretending to be bored:

2. The following day (Sunday), Noah and Micah had a JOAD tournament down in Longmont. This was a new location for us, but apparently things ran pretty smoothly. (I wasn't there; it was Nathan's turn to take them, lol.) The boys didn't shoot as well as they've been doing during practice, unfortunately...so we're going to work on that before next month's tournament (which is the last of the season).

3. Nathan reported for jury duty for the first time ever on Monday. He ended up being selected for the jury and finished that up yesterday afternoon. He says it was very educational and is glad he did it, though now he's scrambling to make up for the lost work time. (It was a short trial for four different counts.)

4. In the middle of all that, we had a lovely spring storm/blizzard on Wednesday:

We ended up with about 6"...a good bit less than areas south of us. (I heard some places in Denver got almost 2 feet of snow, and the airport actually closed for awhile for the first time in decades.) Because 12 of the 13 jurors somehow managed to get to the courthouse that day, the trial was able to proceed. (All the schools and many businesses, though, closed for the day. Unfortunately for Asher and Micah, homeschoolers don't get snow days, lol.)

For those not here in Colorado...this is normal. It was sunny and gorgeous yesterday and right now. Another storm is expected later today, though, but then back to sunshine for Sunday. ;) 

5. Yesterday, I led Micah's monthly book club. The kids (and I) read The Wells Bequest ahead of time. We discussed the book, specifically, and time travel, generally, before making our own model time machines out of random stuff I had taking up space in my house, lol. Here's Micah's (the closer one):

And now I must go tackle more schoolwork for the morning. :) Happy Friday to you all! 

Foil towers

So, in my efforts to fill some of spring break with things other than screens, yesterday I handed each boy a box of aluminum foil (the cheap 25 square foot boxes from the dollar store) and challenged them to make the tallest freestanding tower that they could using only the foil. They set to work with somewhat predictable approaches:

Asher thought for a minute and began constructing his tower quickly but efficiently...perhaps lacking a bit in quality control but fulfilling the objective, lol. Micah immediately began tearing the foil apart and trying to make "bricks" of a sort. Noah carefully shaped his foil and observed his brothers.

In the end, Asher will tell you that if you look at time-to-tower ratios, he clearly won. Noah will point out that his is technically the tallest and that he had foil leftover. Micah, though, was probably the happiest with his (after I stepped in and helped him come up with a plan since he'd started making foil balls and was getting close to just throwing them, lol).

And, afterward, Micah turned his into a fun, swirly grappling hook...

There you have it. :)

(PS I actually got the idea off of Pinterest. It had a whole lesson plan about structural integrity and such...with a first attempt like this, then some lessons and instruction, then another attempt. I didn't purchase the lesson but figured I could still use the idea just for fun at this point.) 

Twister

Apparently spring break makes my boys want to dig out old games. :) We haven't played Twister in ages but gave it a go this afternoon. Noah was the spinner/caller during the first round, and all started out fine...

I fell out early due to being unable to reach from one side of the mat to the other with a boy in between, lol...which left Nathan and the younger two...

...and in the end, to no one's surprise, Asher out-twisted Nathan for the win. :)

We played again after that and even got Noah to join us. (Asher took over spinner/caller duties.) But we weren't allowed to take pictures of that. I'll tell you, though, that I won by edging out a small boy, lol.

Fun, fun times. :) If you have a Twister game at home, I challenge you to go play!