Poetry Night

This week we did a poetry night on Friday. Joey and Wilson created a "Syrendell Cafe" with a couple chairs and some snacks. We each had a job to do before we actually read any poems. Joey was the waitress, Wilson was the server, and I was the chef. We made some hot chocolate, chai tea, cucumber water and coffee for drinks, and some French beignets, or French doughnuts.

After everyone was done eating and everything, we each read our own poem. We either chose one that we had already made or created one for poetry night. Joey made up her own poem called "Butterfly" which is a letter poem. I did one called "Opposite Sides of the World" and it is a diamante poem that we had made previously. Wilson did a song about spring to the tune of Frere Jacques. Mommy did a free verse poem called "Blissful Path" which she wrote for poetry night. Lastly, Daddy did a poem called "Monsters have Mommies too" that he wrote for poetry night. Here are some pictures: The one on the bottom is of the Syrendell Cafe, and the area where whoever was reading/singing a poem would be standing right where you can't see in the picture. The one on the middle is of the menu, and the one on the top is the sign that Joey made for the cafe.

My Middle Ages "S.S." book.

The last post that I did about my Middle Ages book ended with Australia/New Zealand, the bottom of the world. The one after Australia was about the Medieval Franks, and the most recent one is Medieval England. The next one that I'm going to do is about the Crusades to recapture Jerusalem.

My current favorite is "The Norsemen" which is about the Vikings. It is my favorite because the border that I drew around the page features Scandinavian runes.

Glass Fusing

Today we went to a glass fusing class to make some glass pendants/magnets. The teacher's name was Diane Wood. We learned about the history of glass fusing and looked at examples.

We each got a base piece of glass, some smaller dichroic (two color) glass bars, and some clear bars to put over it to make it smooth.

First, we made our design with the dichroic bars, then we clipped off the edges to make it fit the base piece. Then we put the clear bars on top of it to make it smooth and so that it has depth. Then, we glued all of the pieces together with tiny bits of glue so that nothing would fall apart.

After everyone was done, we gave everything to the teacher to take home. She will fuse our glass in a kiln. We are going to pick them up in a few days.

UC Davis trip.

This week, we went to UC Davis for my aunt's birthday. First, we went for a walk through the Arboretum. While we were walking, we sketched some plants in our Botany Books. We had dinner at the UC Davis Tercero Dining Commons.

Our Aunt Jessica works at a place called Sprinkles. Sprinkles is a nice cupcake store where you can buy high-end cupcakes. She brought us some for my Aunt Stephanie's birthday.

Here is a picture of the cupcakes:

Both of our aunts got us Trivial Pursuit, which is a mind game.

We learned about Medieval Africa this week. We made an African mask and learned about some stories and kingdoms that existed during that time.

Here is a picture of the mask and us making the mask:

Oct-Tetra and our Botany Books

This week we folded special paper into tetrahedrons and octahedrons. What you do is you fold the special paper on the fold lines and then connect the flaps that are on the sides with paper clips. To make an octahedron, you have to fold two pieces and then attach them together. For the tetrahedron, it comes in one piece. We connected an octahedron and a tetrahedron to form an Octet-truss. It looks like this: We can connect a lot of the octahedron and tetrahedrons (or octas and tetras) to form bigger things, like a giant tetra or a pyramid.

This week we did a bulb observation for our bulbs that we planted a couple months ago. They are finally starting to grow! We planted tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths, and some pansies to put on top. My daffodil is getting really big. It is about 7 in. tall. I think it's gotten so big because I planted the pansies unevenly, and it's in the spot where there is the biggest space between all the plants. So, we are doing a bulb observation and then drawing a picture of the bulb in my Botany book every two weeks.

2/7/09-2/13/09

This week we started to learn about volcanoes for Joey's science. For Story of the World, we learned about the Plague, or Black Death. I made my yarn for my flute case also this week.

I made the yarn for the case out of some dyed wool and some fiber that we already had. First we dyed some white fiber with a light red (Brazilwood), and it turned out a peach-ish color. Then I alternated using the yarn we had, a combination of yellow and deep red, and the one that we dyed to make the yarn. I am going to crochet the yarn to make the case.

Here is a picture of the yarn:

For the Plague, we learned that the actual name is the Bubonic Plague and that it came from a disease that is carried by fleas. The fleas gave it to the rats, who in turn gave it to all of Europe, one part at a time. Once the Black Death subsided, the need of peasants and farmers increased, so they could demand to be paid instead of just being given a place to live. Because of this, the Feudal System of Europe where there is a lord who owns the land and gives the peasants and farmers land in return for working for him, broke down. Now, the lords started to get poorer and peasants slightly richer.

We just started to learn about volcanoes. We learned about the different types of eruptions, about the Ring of Fire, and about earthquakes.

Crayoning and my Middle Ages "S.S." book.

This week we used a lot of crayoning techniques for drawing. We used block crayons, which are just sticks of colored beeswax. First we had to condition the crayons, which means that we have to wear down the edges to get them rounded. We learned how to use all of the sides of the crayons, and how to draw certain things with them. First we drew some trees, then we did a landscape with one tree. We did a stereotypical tree with fluffy-looking leaves, and a pine tree.

Here are pictures of us doing the crayoning:

The top one is Wilson drawing his landscape. The one on the bottom is one of Joey, Wilson, and our Mom doing their landscapes.

Over the past couple of months, I have been creating a Social Studies book for the Middle Ages. I started with "The Fall of Rome" and the most recent one was "Australia and New Zealand". I draw a map or picture of something that had to do with whatever area I was studying, then I write some facts and events of what happened during that time. Then, I drew designs and colored in the empty spaces.