The Up's and Down's of Life

Our S.O.S. playdate went well.  New people came and we made more new friends.  One day, hopefully,  everyone will  get to meet each other. :-)

          

The kids learned about a game called Rolblox, and loving it!

They have even been taking turns nicely too! :-)

Pumpkin made a parking area on Rolblox and parked four cars.  This lead to a talk about parking spaces and sizes of them and vehicles.

Then it started to snow. WOOHOO! 

It came down looking like "Dippy Dots".

And didn't last long. :-(

We had Yummy Eat-N-Park cookies, thanks to my mom. (Thanks Mom! :-) <3! )

Pumpkin worked on his gaming programming , that we 'dropped in on' the other night.

 Check out what he can do! 

A fight broke out and there was an injury and tears.  Sharing the computer didn't go so well that day.  After some down and alone time away from each other they were best buds again.

We hung out at the library and then waited for Latin to start.  Fireball Coyote used some color paddles I found when cleaning out a drawer.  (I knew he'd have fun with them.)

Pumpkin started to re-read a book, then put it back after he saw Fireball Coyote on the computer.

Pumpkin and his friend acted out some scenes in the book with his friends friend from school.

We also said Goodbye to one of our cats today.  Fuzzy Head needed to go to a new home and the girl was Thrilled with him.  His being literally under my feet when I walk out will be missed a bit, but his love and friendship will be missed Greatly!  Be good Fuzzy.

Coming up a hike at a lake, computer gaming class, hanging with friends, an up coming S.O.S.'s MNO and more.  Have a great week!

Filling in the Spaces

In between the "big" events of the past week, Second Saturday & Benedict Arnold, the boys have been working on math, science, spelling, language, and more.

More Valentines  to fill out for a pizza/Valentine's Day party.

Working on his computer homework.

Playing Math Blasters.

 

Playing outside.

Saving dragons and playing Pokemon with his sword.

Animal Jam

Sent out our Valentines to the Christian Unschoolers.

Buying Pokemon cards with their own coins (poor cashier!).  Luckily, one lady that was in line behind them the cashier took her next, and the customer kept saying "What a great learning experience."   I was happy to hear that.   I think it helped with the cashier, too.  I offered to buy her a pop, but she refused and said, "No, don't worry about it. Go and enjoy your day."  (Bless her God!)

On Tuesday, the 12th, Pumpkin had a Lego Robotics class at R.M.S.C., so Fireball Coyote & I walked the paths (yellow). The blue was what we all walked before class.

What's wrong here?!? Hummm....

We all were surprised at how much the pond rose compared to before. 

I walked the halls after the outdoor walk and read amazing facts about the blue whales! (Sorry for the sideways picture)

Pumpkin and his partner testing their vehicle. 

After watching (2 weeks ago) PBS's part 3 of Attenborough's Life Stories, I noticed a picture for Lonesome George.

As always we enjoyed last weeks Nature, Nova, and Life of Fire. In addition to this weeks Nature and Nova.

Valentine's Day and Pizza

Going "behind the scenes".

Fireball Coyote learned that they need a 30 lb. bag of flour to make  60 dough balls.

Getting ready to pass out Valentines.

"STOP TAKING MY PICTURE MOM!!!"

Making their own pizzas.

In to the oven for 7 minutes and done.

Looking sad because, "I want a friend to sit with me".       (& YES! Each child received a WHOLE pizza!)

What clowns!

Yeah! His friend!!! ;-)  (Fireball just commented that he has better table manners! ;-)  )

A few of us then moved to a local park and fun was had by all! (mom's included! :-)   )

Some down time with Sploder! 

And (eye roll) Pokemon.

 Then,

 on to a new computer class, game programming.  More of this to come next week, we (& 2 others) were a week early.

Showing brother what he learned.

Pumpkin also realized by being in this class that he needs to work on his typing skills.

 (& maybe spelling too). ;-)

The weekend and next week brings, a SOS playdate, computer programming class, a playdate with a friend, Latin, PBS, computer game programming class, and whatever comes our way. Bring it!

Benedict Arnold

           Meeting and interacting with
                   Benedict Arnold

The Greenville Chautauqua and Ken Johnston presented Benedict Arnold, Sunday.

 Making his announcement that he had news and for all to gather in the hall.

Benedict asked the audience what was going on at the time of his life ~ the American Revolution. The reason of the revolution, and a few other questions.  Then he proceeded to tell us his side of the story.  It was up to us to decide if he was a traitor or not.  

Some highlights of what Benedict Arnold experienced: 

That our government was established at this time and they didn't listen to the people back then either.

Many of the attacks that Benedict led, they succeeded in, and people wanted to help him and be part of his team.

  He knew how to attack a troop in Quebec, Canada, informed George Washington, and the government was late in their aid, which led to Arnold being one day late in his attack.  We lost Canada because of this.
 
His left leg was shot at three times and crushed by his horse, he refused amputation, and survived.

He had been married twice and had a total of six children, five sons and one daughter. 

He fought for our freedom with his own money, since the government wasn't ready to support what he needed, even though they approved and liked what he wanted and did do.  Then they (the government) tried to bill him (Benedict).

 That after five years of war,  England granted America what we were asking for and the government turned it down.

 This is when Benedict became upset and disappointed in America and the government.  He finished what he needed to in America then returned to England, his children stayed.

The floor was then open to Benedict for questions and later Ken for questions. 

The boys were a bit bored, but it was a 'short, sweet' introduction  to our American history. And from someone else's point of view that they would of never know of in a different light. 

Engineering Fun & Frustration

R.M.S.C. Second Saturday

Engineer-It 

The boys decided to start (in their now favorite room ~ Computer Lab~ That had 4 engineering  areas.

For "Runaway Train" they needed to build a device that would save the people on the train.  Sadly, Pumpkin's first try did not work, so back to the 'drawing board'.

Fireball Coyote's first try succeeded.

Re-configuring.

This time less people fell off. Pumpkin tried four times and some one always fell off.  

"The Smasher" ~ They were to design a structure that would survive the smasher.

When Pumpkin was done here he tried his fourth try with the train and lost 1 person.

Fireball Coyote's basically survived, the foam cup was a bit smashed.

While Fireball Coyote was working on his, Pumpkin built a foil boat that was to hold pennies.  Pumpkin had the most with 83 pennies!!! :-)

"Race Your Engin-eer!"  was where they put a lawn mower engine together and took it apart, all timed!  The first 3 winners got a prize.  Together they put it together in 2 min. 23 sec. (4th place) and Pumpkin & I took it apart in 1 min. (2nd place).

There was 2 rooms where there was some observe activities.  Two robotics school teams were showing their work and Milliken demoed things.  One of the things the school kids developed was a robot that shoots basketballs.

We moved on to another building and they did some engineering work with states of matter, sponsored by Fluor.

This one was called "Make a Block and Tackle".  Here they learned that 2.2lbs are in a kilogram and how to make things easier to lift with a pulley.

Pumpkin moved on to "Materials Structures and Bridges".  

We left there to go see "Super Cool Cryogenics Show", by Milliken, with a real scientist demonstrating the use of Liquid Nitrogen!!! (7N)

Here, he put a piece of dry ice in water and we watched it rise out of the beaker and talked about the properties of it.

(sorry for the bad picture) Here he had Liquid Nitrogen in the container and blew up a balloon.  He put it  in the 7N and it shrunk.  He placed it in a glass jar and we watched it.   

Expand and grow

out of the jar.  Not what he wanted to happen.  So he did it again and the second balloon busted as it  approached the top. 

Putting a light bulb without the glass into 7N. 

Drawing a picture on a metal cabinet and a guy welded it out.

Clemson University Civil Engineers designed a concrete boat that floats.

When we got home Pumpkin used his metal detector he received Friday from his "aunt".

            

Then they moved on to the foam puzzle from Fluor and became very frustrated putting it together.

Played with the balloons form their work.

                                

They also played with the Lego's Fireball Coyote got.