Save Your Money!

For a few years now my parents have been dropping their extra change into a container each evening. Sometimes they stick dollar bills in, too. When the kids find loose change lying around the house they run to put it in the container.


And so, a few days ago, we decided to count it to see just how much had been collected. We were surprised by the total:


How easy to save money by just collecting loose change. Now when our refrigerator completes its slow death and has to be replaced, we’ve already got a nice fund started to be put toward it.

Static Electricity

Last week the kids did the Young Scientists Club kit number 26 on static electricity. They had fun with it.

They showed how two balloons hanging on strings next to each other touch.

Then they rubbed the balloons on their hair.

And watched how the static electricity they created makes the balloons repel each other.

They showed how balloons charged with static electricity attracts your hair when you hold it away from your head.

They made balloons charged with static electricity hang on chairs and the walls.

They made Rice Krispies “jump” up onto a balloon charged with static electricity (bad picture, but this was Cameron’s favorite experiment from the kit).

They did other experiments that are not pictured, too. They showed how things charged with static electricity react to humidity and to dryer sheets. They made running water bend toward something charged with static electricity. Ani especially loved that one.

Fritz has Lyme Disease

On Saturday I noticed Fritz had a bulls-eye rash on the back on his knee. This picture was taken Saturday evening. The flash washed the rash out a little and you can’t see the sides of it on the sides of his leg and the center spot has gotten more pronounced since then, but you get the idea.

This morning he saw our doctor. He’s seriously one of the best doctors in the world. He is actually the one who diagnosed my mom and me with Lyme Disease 8 years ago next month. So now he’s diagnosed a third generation with Lyme Disease and put Fritz on a few weeks of antibiotics.

The crazy thing in all this is Fritz, like my mom and myself, does not like to go outside. And yet we are the three who got Lyme Disease while the others spend lots of time outside and have never gotten it.

Simply Soccer

A couple weeks ago Cameron needed to pick his next Download N Go study. I gave him a few choices and we settled on Simply Soccer. A perfect choice since the World Cup started at the same time he started his study.

He learned about the history of soccer, some famous soccer players, how to play soccer, and, his favorite, about the RoboCup where robot teams play soccer against each other. He was so impressed by those robots that he has decided he wants to try to build some robots.

Pipe Cleaner Sculptures

When I got out the ARTistic Pursuits book this week Ani whined that it’s always the same thing over and over and it’s so boring. I told her we were starting a unit on sculptures, but she still protested because she’s made a couple sculptures before and is sure that means she knows everything there is to know about sculptures.

Then we started the lesson and the assignment was to make sculptures of some sort of flying creature using pipe cleaners. In response to this, my previously protesting daughter exclaimed that that was really cool and that she’d never done anything like that before. So they (both) happily made their sculptures and the lesson that started out as surely being horrible and boring ended up being quite enjoyable and fun.

Ani made a pegasus.

Cameron made a flying ladybug wearing glasses.


Cameron’s Writing Process

It takes Cameron about three Shurley English sessions to write a two-point paragraph. The first day he does the regular lesson as well as writing so I guess it’s more like two and a quarter sessions.

The first day he gets his topic and decides what his two points will be. I have him write them down and also write why he chose them. Then he writes his introductory sentence and his two-point sentence.

The second day he writes the rest of his rough draft. That’s a first point sentence and supporting sentence, second point sentence and supporting sentence, and a concluding sentence to sum it all up. He then gives me his paragraph and I copy it over for him correcting the spelling and we talk about any other (non-spelling) errors I find and we correct them.

The third day all he does is write his final draft by copying what I wrote out for him. Even though all it is is copying, this day actually takes him the longest because he has to pay careful attention to the spelling and getting the mix of capital and lowercase letters correct.

Writing is not easy for Cameron, particularly since his spelling is so horrible (and because of his learning disability – a storage, processing, and retrieval disorder – I am not holding my breath on his spelling improving any time soon, though we keep working at it in the hopes that it will). I am very happy with how Shurley English is teaching him – slowly and gently – how to write. Cameron gets a little frustrated at the process, but he is happy with the results.