Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Planes, Trains and Automobiles--ok--maybe just Planes!

We have been doing lots with school. For me, the easiest way to plan is to randomly pick a theme and then come up with some things to go with it. Pinterest is such a wealth of ideas. We recently did planes/flight.

As usual, the boys really wanted to do science experiments. The first one we did was seeing which weight of paper would cause an airplane to fly the farthest. We used cardstock, printer paper and tissue paper. Ollie hypothesized that the cardstock would fly the farthest and Dawson thought the printer paper. We quickly discovered the printer paper was the winner! The boys loved flying the airplanes. One other experiment we did was to see if a flat sheet of paper or a plastic bag would fall to the ground faster. The boys stood on the coffee table and dropped them. It's fun to teach them about drag and air pressure!

The boys learned a few terms- lift, air pressure and thrust. To demonstrate air pressure simply took a bowl of water and a cup. The boys and I pushed the cup straight down in the water and discovered that the bottom of the cup stayed dry! We did a thrust demonstration with a rubberband and folded piece of paper. The boys pulled the rubberband back and let the paper go flying across the room. For lift, we cut a strip of paper and held the small end in our lips allowing the strip to hang down past our chins, then we blew on top of the paper and watched it rise! Such fun. Later in the week, we had a quiz of terms.

I also gave the boys straws and some balls and pieces of paper. They spent time using their air to push the objects around. It was funny because the boys thought they were really tough. It kind of brought out their Hulk!


We practiced our ordinals by gluing passengers in our plane windows in a certain order. We wrote about what we learned. We learned letters that we in different words about flight. We followed directions to color airplanes. I made an airplane snack. We got back out our airplane playset. I wanted to take a trip to the airport but we haven't yet. I think we will soon though! We made airplanes out of toilet paper tubes.


 Overall, we played. We learned. We had fun. Sounds like a productive week to me!









Elenora is 6 months old!

I can't believe my baby is 6 months old. It's gone so fast. She actually turned 6 months on the first and I intended to post this sooner but we've had rounds and rounds of illness here are my house. I think we are finally on the mend. These pictures of Miss Pudgy Pants were taken prior to her having any food. Those rolls are 100% mama milk induced. Not a lick of formula or anything else! Gotta love that!

I can't even begin to tell you what an amazing baby I have. She is so content. Always. She rarely cries. So much so that sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with her but she's bright eyed and meeting milestones . I'm guessing she is going to be calm. I wonder what that will be like? Last week, I got sick. I mean really sick. I got so dehydrated that I lost most of my milk supply. Nora never cried about it. She whined a bit while nursing. She was squirmy and wiggly and wanted to nurse a lot. She began to wake at night again (only with cooing- she doesn't cry at  night) but she never cried. See, I'm telling you, super mellow baby. She would not take a bottle or a sippy of expressed milk but she still never cried.

We started food last week with a bit of avocado. She seemed to like it at first but really doesn't. She doesn't seem to like banana either. Ey, ey, ey...we may be nursing till she's 12. Ok. Not really. Even I wouldn't do that!

At 6 months old, she can coo, smile, laugh, sit up unassisted and roll over (front to back). She loves to jump in her jumperoo and is beginning to walk around her walk about. She can pick up things and bring them to her mouth and she's found her toes. She loves her brothers, especially Ollie. She laughs at him all the time.


 I'm such a blessed mama to have three beautiful, healthy children. I love having a daughter. I'm thankful God saw fit to place one in my life to care for and serve.

We have a doctors appointment today so I will update with her stats then! Have a happy Tuesday!