Weekly Report: Animal and Extincts

Don't forget to enter Sam's giveaway! Leave a comment here: http://ouryearsofwonder.blogspot.com/2008/04/weekly-report-lessons-from-caterpillars.html to win one of Sam's favorite Usborne books.

This was the week of the animals extinct and otherwise. We sure spent a lot of time away from home. I took advantage of the van.

Here are some places we went. Notice, the unplanned theme.

Sea World came to Family First Credit Union in Orem and gave a free presentation of some of their animals. This alligator was confescated in California. Some one thought it would make a good pet. It is three years old and about three feet long. They can grow to be 12 feet! Who thought it would be a good idea to have a 12 foot alligator as a pet??
This is the lower part of an Orca Whale jaw bone. No wonder they are on the top of the food chain. We also made it in the news paper! We're little tiny specks in the audience, but Jeremy recognized me with Anna's hand down my shirt. (We're seriously trying to break that habit.)

We also enjoyed our unexpected visit to the "dinosaur museum." It's fascinating to learn about these amazing creatures. I guess the mystery is so intriguing. There is so much we don't know about prehistoric life. On the other hand, the museum showed us many interesting specimens and taught us much about the relationship of the earth and many ancient extinct creatures large and small. We believe that God created the world. We are not sure exactly how he did it. One day we will ask him where the dinosaurs fit in to the whole picture. We watched a film about the dinosaurs of Patagonia. The film suggested that birds may have evolved from dinosaurs. After our unit study on birds, it was SO interesting to think that dinosaurs may be their ancestors.

Today we went to the farm of a homeschooling family in Orem. My kids should have been born to farmers. They all loved being there. Elise especially. She has an affinity for all living things. She has never been afraid of animals. Today, Elise was in heaven. They are all begging me to build a chicken coop so we can have some chickens. I asked our landlord about it and he said that would be fine. Now we just have to convince Jeremy. That's going to be tough. Sam made friends with the other boys there. They were literally climbing on the rafters. Also, forget about getting a fancy swing set. If you really want to entertain kids, get about 20 bales of hay. Seriously, they could have played on the haystacks ALL day! They had fun milking the goat, but we still couldn't drink the milk. We are definitely cow milk people.

So what I want to know is, how did I end up with animal loving kids? Jeremy and I are not really animal people. We respect them. And admire them from a distance. Our only pet has been a beta fish. Somehow we got these kids who love animals. Perhaps their enthusiasm will rub off on us.






Here's a little bit of what we did at home:
For our science/nature study we are learning about plants. We learned about water movement in plants as we watched colored water flow up some celery stalks. The process is called a translocation. In our Usborne Science Encyclopedia we learned that a plant's fluids are carried by its vascular tissue, made up of xylem and phloem. The xylem carries water from the roots to the leaves, and the phloem carries dissolved foods from the leaves to all other areas. You can see the xylem in a stick of celery really well. Trim the end off a fresh celery stalk and stand it in colored water. After a couple of hours, you can see the xyelm as a pattern of colored dots in the end of the stalk.

After only an hour and a half we notice a big change in our celery.





We also remembered Shakespeare this week, it being the week of his birth and death. Sam has really enjoyed Shakespeare these last couple of months. Of course he's not reading the real Shakespeare stuff, but the abridged versions of his plays have been fascinating to him. We have a really good compilation of the plays for kids reading on a 4th/ 5th grade level. He has also enjoyed the Shakespeare youth group that get together at the library once a week. This is what he wrote in his journal:
Elise has been writing too. She has been reading LOTS about plants and thoroughly enjoys it. It is thrilling to see her become more and more confident as a reader. Her current preoccupation is her wiggly tooth. Her grown-up tooth is growing behind it, but the little one refuses to come out. We took her to the dentist. He said to just keep wiggling it. He wasn't concerned about crowding because she has a lot of space there. Her concerns came out in her writing this week:
Sam and Elise are both doing well in math. We are up to lesson 81. Sam has 120 lessons in Saxon 5/4 and Elise has 112 in Saxon 2. Which means we will probably be doing math through the summer. That's okay with me. And I think it's okay with the kids too, because it gives us more flexibility during the week. The kids are more receptive to math when we take a break from "formal" math every once in a while. I think it is better to take short breaks more often than to take one big, long break in the summer. That's just what works for us.

We watched a neat movie from the library about Beethoven called, "Beethoven Lives Upstairs". We listened a lot to his 5th and 9th symphonies. We enjoyed this radio program. Elise thinks it's great that he wrote a song called, "Fur Elise." I pulled out the old, "Sonata Pathetique." Boy, am I rusty.

We continue to watch our chrysalids. We expect them to 'hatch' any day now. I think our house has been a little on the cold side, so it might take a little longer. Our little caterpillar is still hanging in there. I wrote to the company to see what we could do for it. They suggested lettuce leaves and branches and told me it could still develop into a chrysalis. We'll see...

Scripture Study: Through Moroni Chapter 10
Chapter nine was tough to read. Part of me wanted to skip it because it gets a little graphic. Those Nephites and Lamanites were doing awful, awful things to each other. We think we live in a wicked world today. Then we read something like this and I am reminded that people have been wicked for a very long time. I don't think our current situation is unique and it kind of bothers me when people dwell on the current wickedness of the world.

We did not dwell on verses 8-10, but my heart lamented with Mormons when he asks:

O my beloved son, how can a people like this, that are without civilization--
(And only a few years have passed away, and they were a civil and delightsome people)
But O my son, how can a people like this, whose delight is in so much abonimation--
How can we expect that God will stay his hand in judgment against us?
Behold my heart cries: Wo unto this people. Come out in judgement, O God, and hide their sins, and wickedness, and abominations from before thy face!

I can picture in my mind Mormon, thumping his fist on his chest as he asks this in pure agony. And yet, the great lesson we learn here is this: "...my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God."

Last summer we memorized Moroni 10:4-5.

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

It was neat that even Claire remembered some of it. I have asked, and I know that these things are true. Every other truth in the world points to the truthfulness of this gospel. The Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon testifies of His love for us, of His unending mercy, and reinforces His eternal plan. I am so very thankful to have this knowledge. It is a source of great happiness and strength, not only for me, but for my entire family. I have much more to say about this and our experience reading the Book of Mormon as a family this year that I will continue in a separate post.