We started off with Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which is loosely based on Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island. I have to say that I was impressed by the concept of combining the island adventures of Jules Verne with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Gulliver’s Travels by Johnathan Swift into one ‘mysterious’ island – that was a pretty neat twist.

And though the movie could certainly be considered ‘fluff’ or pure entertainment with no redeeming value, the passionate enthusiasm by the lead teen character as a ‘Vernian’ – Jules Verne enthusiast – is enough to piqué the interest of your average adventure-loving kiddo. The movie’s catch-phrase, ‘Who’s up for an adventure?” was fun, too and  could definitely lead to outdoorsy family fun, not to mention the somewhat brief, but eye-catching mention of Morse Code. If your kidlet is interested, try showing him/her this: A mnemonic way to learn Morse Code!

Add to that a lesson on using a compass, latitude and longitude, not to mention plate tectonics and references to other literary classics (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and I cannot for the life of me remember the others right now – if you can think of them, post in the comments, would ya?); there was plenty to work with in this movie even if the movie fell short of the mark.

After a quick bite to eat, we were back to the theater for The Secret World of Arrietty, an anime-style film inspired by Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, which is one of those amazing classic children’s stories that easily lends itself to numerous learning opportunities. I found several resources that looked promising: The Borrowers Unit Study & Lapbook from Highlights of Homeschooling ($5.00) on CurrClick.com; EasyFunSchool.com’s Literature Unit on The Borrowers; and a .pdf sample from a lesson guide by Shelle Allen-Russell. You can also do a comparison study between the different versions; the original book, the 1997 film and the anime version.

If you’re feeling super adventurous, you could contrast Mary Norton’s ‘Borrowers’ with John Peterson’s ‘The Littles’ - a Venn diagram, maybe?

In any case, the animation was beautiful – a nice change of pace and quite restful to the eyes after the 3D-in-your-face-ness of Mysterious Island.

Next week, we’re planning on a Park Day and working on the Presidential Fitness Challenge. If you’re interested in joining in on the fun, contact us!

TH

To be fair, the kids did exchange valentines. Many of them even got crafty and made lovely, decorated mailboxes. My own children were certainly serving it up in high style with paper bags with their name on it that I grabbed as we rushed out the door! Unfortunately, we were all pretty busy chit-chatting and I don’t think anyone snagged a picture this time. But after the first 15 minutes, the kids took off outside to play and were pretty much soaked and covered in mud from that point on, so maybe that’s not a bad thing. They had an amazing time though (many thanks to our fair hostess for handing out plastic trash bags for the kids to sit on for the ride home)!

If you’re interested in Valentine’s themes or other February themes (Black History Month, President’s Day) for your lessons this month, check out:

Valentine’s Day (Feb 14)

• EducationWorld’s Valentine’s Day activities
• History.com – Valentine’s Day
  TheHolidaySpot.com History_of_Valentine
• Annie’s Homepage – Valentine’s Day History
• Annie’s Homepage – Valentine’s Day activities

While the kids were playing, the moms sat down and planned out the next few months of events. One of the things that we’re doing very soon is our group Science Fair. We’re getting everyone involved this year! The Moms are competing with the Kids! We’re also planning to visit the San Jacinto Monument, visit Gladys City and take in a movie as a group.

If you haven’t yet, check our home page for the calendar. As always, we don’t release the specific details of events to the public, but if you’re interested in joining us, please contact us.

Have a great weekend!
~h

TH

We met at the Village Creek State Park pavilion, a favorite location for our group. Despite the cool and cloudy day, we had 10 students ranging from grades 2 through 6 join us for this class. The kids learned about the four steps to survival, and what items they should always bring with them when hiking or camping – things like a small first aid kit, a whistle, a couple of garbage bags and a brightly colored bandana. They also learned which was more important in a survival situation, food, water or shelter.

If you missed the class, you can find the notes we used, complete with links here: Survival Class Outline and corresponding Notebooking pages. If you were there, you can also find the Notebooking pages and a quiz that you can give to your students later on to see how much information they retained.

See you next week!

TH

This year’s theme is Terminal Velocity and the video presentation featured four experiments by the Argonauts – student scientists in the JASON program. They learned about Newton’s three laws of motion in a demonstration that showed how those laws affect the ‘tablecloth trick’ – pilling the cloth out from under dishes without disturbing them. They learned about trajectory and the rate at which objects fall in an experiment called ‘Monkey Bullet’, which features a projectile weapon and a moving target. Then the Argos went out to the National Weather Service station to launch a weather balloon attached to a box containing instruments for measuring the temperature, atmospheric pressure and location via GPS. After that, the Argos went out to the Neches River to learn about cleaning up oil spills using simple machines – a wheel and an inclined plane in the form of an oil skimmer.

The highlight of the presentation is always the finale, when the guest speakers come out and we find out about the props. This year’s prop was a huge glass box in the corner of the room. Our guest speakers were from the National Weather Service and included a ‘storm chaser’.  They added balloons to the box, then turned it on and demonstrated the rotational current of a tornado. The balloons were neat, but they were nothing compared to the demonstration with dry ice! The fog clearly showed the formation of the funnel cloud and how it progresses as the wind speed picks up – at first, the funnel is loosely defined, wide and chaotic. As the wind picks up, the funnel is cleaner and leaner and spinning very fast.

After the video presentation and a brief Q and A with the students, the kids were dismissed to participate in the interactive sessions.  The kids learned about pulleys and inclined planes in the form of a wedge and how they’re used to bring down dead or dangerous trees from the National Forest Service.

Next, the students worked with Shangri La Botanical Gardens to build a model of a windmill to generate energy from wind power. The kids got to work with several volunteers to assemble windmills and record the air speed. They experimented with different sized and different shaped blades, and with the angle of the blades in relation to the wind and had the chance to document their findings.

After that, they moved on to the National Weather Service’s presentation and learned about harnessing the power of the wind with sailboat races. The kids teamed up to push their sailboats by blowing on the sails. As the teams rotated, the shape and direction of the sails changed and the kids got to see and experiment with different types of wind (blowing hard or soft) and what shapes harness it best (convex vs. concave sails). Then we moved over to the hurricane simulator and learned about wind shear and how crosswinds affect the formation of hurricanes.

The program was a bit different this year; we were limited to three hands-on sessions instead of getting to participate in all of them. Our group missed out on presentations by Village Creek State park that talked about the flow of water, erosion and how that affects the course of a creek or river, and on Time Warner’s presentation on the transfer of information over the internet. There were a couple of others as well, but they were hidden from our view.

Even though we missed out on some of the interactive sessions, we enjoyed this year’s JASON presentation very much and are making plans to attend next year!

For more information about JASON, the Argonauts and professional development opportunities for homeschooling teachers, please visit the JASON website. For our local JASON affiliate, the JASON Alliance of Southeast Texas, you can visit the JASET Facebook page.
TH

We started this morning’s performance with Leonard Bernstein’s On The Town: Three Dance Episodes [Times Squere 1944]. We were introduced to the saxophone, and its relatively young history as an instrument compared to the other instruments. Maestro Tipton talked about jazz being a uniquely American style of music and how much the composers of the day wanted to convey the action or feelings or images that they saw around them in their music.

Then he talked about summer – what we see and do, how it feels – which led into Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Summer featuring guest violinist, and 9th grade student, Karen Ji. We first saw Miss. Ji perform a few months ago at the Side-By-Side concert, and it was lovely to hear her perform again.

After Vivaldi, Maestro Tipton invited Lamar professor Lou Arrington to the stage to talk about movement; specifically, how music and dance work together. She demonstrated a tango step for us, and then Maestro Tipton led the orchestra in a tango number (complete with surprise dancers). In line with today’s concert theme, we then heard SUMMER – The 4 Seasons of Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla, which features samples from Vivaldi’s ‘Summer’ remixed with a tango rhythm.

The final performance was a fusion that many of the adults in the audience remember from years ago – the theme song from The Flintsones Meet The Jestsons movie. It’s always fun to hear music that brings back memories!

If you’re looking for resources to coordinate with this music, here are some that you might find useful:

• Leonard Bernstein Notebooking page from Homeschool Helper Online.com
• Vivaldi_Notebooking Page_by Amanda McCoy
• Vivaldi Bio page from Baroque Music.org
• Classical Music & Composer Lapbook from Squidoo.com
• Making Music Fun.net’s Great_Composer_worksheets
• Astor Piazzolla’s Bio page from Piazzolla.org

TH

This week, in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we visited the Memorial Park in downtown Beaumont. The memorial park was dedicated in January of 2008 and features a bronze statue by Ron Petitt. For a look at the casting process, you can visit Mr. Petitt’s website here.

Some of the resources that our group’s members have used this week include a unit studies on Dr. King from The Homeschool Mom, Easy Fun School.com, a video of Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, among others. There are also several resources from Well Trained Homeschool and arts and crafts activities from Artists Helping Children.

The concrete plaques that line the park walls include information about Dr. King’s early life and education, his ministry and his work during the American Civil Rights Movement. Several of the plaques hold quotes from letters and speeches that Dr. King gave during his imprisonment and during the March on Washington DC in  1963.

It was very interesting talking to the children about how things were compared to how they are now.  Most of our children haven’t ever experienced injustice in the same way that people did during Dr. King’s time. How sad that he didn’t get to live to see the fruits of his labors. If you have time, we highly recommend taking time to visit the Memorial Park commemorating Dr. King’s life and work. It’s a somber experience, but one that we are glad to have had today.

TH

photo by JustinHamlin via Flickr

Today was our first field trip of the new year. to all our families, we extend a warm, ‘Welcome Back!’.  To kick this year’s event calendar off with a focus on the great outdoors, we took the kids out to Pleasure Island for a little bird-watching this morning. It was a cold, windy day, still pretty wet from yesterday’s storming, but not so bad that we couldn’t be out in it.

We let the kids play at Riverfront Park for a bit, then went down Lakefront Drive to walk around and see what we could find. There were a few birds out; ibises, herons, a few ducks and some other birds that we couldn’t identify, but mostly the kids ended up climbing on the rocks that line Lakefront Drive and scavenging for geodes and crystals among the boulders.

We found quite a few hollow-sounding rocks, but most were too big to crack open. The kids did manage to break a few chunks off and got several fragments of (what we think is) citrine clusters. If you’re into rocks and would care to help us identify what we found, please comment!

One thing we’d talked about doing was a lesson plan from Flying WILD. We didn’t get a chance to do the lesson plan (since our focus shifted away from birds once we were out there), but we did pull out our bird behavior scavenger hunt sheet. Since there weren’t many birds out, it wasn’t much use, but we’ll probably keep it for the rest of the week and see if we can check them all off.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the bird conservation division of Project WILD, the Houston Audubon Society’s Flying WILD Resource page has tons of resources for amateur bird enthusiasts and for teachers, including a 50-page field guide of common birds in the Houston area, a bird-habit observation checklist and a bird identification worksheet to help students keep track of and later identify birds they see in the wild. Don’t forget to read up on basic Bird Watching Etiquette before you go out!

Additional Resources:

http://www.kidswhobird.org/

See you next week!
TH

The Symphony of Southeast Texas

Simply put, Red Ribbon Week is the oldest and largest drug prevention campaign in the country.
Red Ribbon Week serves as a vehicle for communication between parents and children, families and communities in an effort provide education about the dangers of drugs to children. The goal of Reed Ribbon Week is to connect families and communities by encouraging a stand drug abuse, and to encourage a personal commitment to live drug free lives.

Perhaps more importantly, Red Ribbon Week commemorates the ultimate sacrifice made by DEA Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, who died at the hands of drug traffickers in Mexico while fighting the battle against illegal drugs to keep our country and children safe. Read more about SA Camarera’s story here.

How can homeschoolers participate? In many schools, Red Ribbon Week is a flurry of awareness activities. Each day of the week is often themed, from silly things like wearing your father’s neck-tie to school, or wearing mis-matched socks, to raising awareness through outreach activities like handing our red ribbons in your community. As a homeschooling family, you can plan something like that for your children to participate in.

The main idea is to get your children talking. Talk about drugs, talk about how they affect a person’s health and relationships. Talk about what to do or say if they’re ever approached or see a friend using drugs. Don’t be afraid of this topic! If you’re not sure what to say, check out these links: Kids Health.org – Talking to your kids_about_drugs and  Time to Talk.org/.

If you’re interested in planning some RRW activities for/with your children, try:

• Prevention Partners.com - Planning Red Ribbon Week
• Activities
• Classroom Exercises (by grade)
• RRW ideas at ProTeacher.com

• One woman’s story – 10 years of drugs abuse
• Faces of Meth at Ebaum’s World (slideshow)
• Drug Free World.org
• American Council for Drug Education – Educators Section

	Tips for talking about drugs in the classroom
	Age-appropriate lesson plans
	Signs and symptoms of drug use
	Learn more about ACDE products
	Basic facts about drugs

Field Trip Update:

This week, we also visited the Beaumont Police Department’s Police History Museum in downtown Beaumont.

During the presentation the children learned that paleontologists like to “dig in the dirt” for fossils. They discovered that some fossils are formed by little pieces of the bone being replaced with sandstone and until the bone turns to rock, and that some fossils are as small as grains of rice. They also learned about the way that paleontologists collect fossils (by sifting them through nets or bags in the water) and that it takes many bags of dirt to collect two small piles of what may be fossils.

The diverse age range of children in attendance prompted a variety of questions; some simple and many that were quite in depth. The children sat surprisingly still and were mesmerized by the dinosaur bone pictures and discussion. The mothers held their collective breath so as not to break the kids’ intense concentration!

Mr. Burns wrapped up his presentation by handing around several fossils and casts. The children (and moms) were delighted to actually be allowed to hold and examine a mammoth bone, a Megalodon tooth, and vertebrae from an ancient dinosaur.

Afterwards, we all gathered around for an amazing taco buffet while the children played and polished their billiard skills.

Many thanks to Mr. Burns for coming out to talk with the kids!

~Crystal

Many thanks also to the Free’s, for opening their home and hosting this event!

TH