Day 34 / 102 - The Fall of Babylon - Part 1

This week my children's IEW assignment has them writing about King Belshazzar and the fall of Babylon.  The paper needs to begin with the great king overlooking his kingdom and admiring all that he has accomplished.  However, we wanted to use stronger verbs than 'looked', so we started a list.  Then we added adverbs to tell us 'how he looked' at his kingdom.  Finally we drafted a list of adjectives to help us describe and modify the wonders of his kingdom.

I've entitled this post Part 1 because my son has loved this assignment, and his paper is coming together beautifully.  I'm assuming I'll post about it a second time before the assignment is completed.

Day 33 / 102 - Today.

Snow.
Sledding.
Green tea with honey.
More snow.
Fireplace.
Baking cookies.
Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.
Practicing math drill speed tests (and beating best times).
Homeschooling is the best!

Day 32 / 102 - Long Point Trail

Long Point Trail is a 3 mile round trip trail that leads to an outcropping with impressive panoramic views of the New River Gorge and the New River Gorge Bridge.  We have wanted to spend an afternoon at the point, and today seemed like the right day to do so.  There were a few mildly strenuous parts, but overall the trail was quite manageable and a great find.  The view at the end was spectacular, so this will be the perfect trail to take visitors in the future.

We also wanted to visit the Gorge today to witness the sky.  All our pictures of the Gorge are on beautifully, sunny days.  Today a storm is brewing, and our area of West Virginia is slated for blizzard like conditions as a result of Hurricane Sandy clashing with other weather patterns from the west.  I must say, the sky looked quite Cleveland-like.  The picture below really doesn't do it justice.

Day 31 / 102 - Okes Family Farms

Last week, we visited the Okes Family Farms and Pumpkin Patch as part of a field trip with our new homeschool community.  It was fantastic to have unseasonably warm weather for our afternoon.  We rode tractors, picked out pumpkins, and conquered the corn maze.  It was a great fall outing!

Day 30 / 102 - Khan Academy

If you've never visited Khan Academy, I would invite you to click on this link to see what you're missing.  Khan Academy is an educational organization with a website that hosts over 3500 micro lectures teaching mathematics, history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, organic chemistry, American civics, computer science, test prep, and more.  I'm serious!  Their mission is to provide high quality education to anyone, anywhere and they are well on their way.  Khan Academy has delivered over 200 million lessons.  Along with the video library, the site also has 378 automated practice exercises, mostly in math.

For over a year we've utilized Khan Academy in some manner to compliment our homeschooling.  We've either assigned certain lectures and assignments for our children to complete, or we've given them a time limit to spend on the site and allowed them to find, listen to, and report on lectures that interest them. 

If you are a homeschooler, I would suggest becoming familiar with this site.  If you are an individual who believes you are never to old to learn (like me!), I also suggest becoming familiar with this site.  I waste all kinds of time on the internet, but not when I'm visiting Khan Academy.

Day 29 / 102 - Fossil Hunting at Summersville Lake

Summersville Lake is a West Virginia lake formed by a rock-filled dam on the Gauley River.  Beginning in September there are whitewater releases below the dam in order to raise the water level on the Gauley for its world class rafting.  We heard that once the water level recedes at the lake, it's fun to go explore the shoreline and search for fossils.  We spent some time there this weekend, and our biggest find was this turtle shell (pictured below).

Day 28 / 102 - Nuttallburg Coal Mine

Nestled back in the woods of the New River Gorge are the remains of the Nuttallburg Coal Mining Complex which operated from 1870 - 1958.  Several weeks ago, while hiking in the Gorge, I came across the headhouse, so yesterday I returned with my husband and children to show them the site.

Nothing is going to teach my children more about West Virginia history than learning about the coal industry.  This headhouse is in the middle of nowhere.  Literally.  We hiked a strenuous mile and a half downhill just to see the location.  We discussed how it was possible for men to work in this environment and even how difficult it would have been just to show up for work at this site over 100 years ago.  We will never have to experience anything like it in our lifetime, that's for sure!

Day 27 / 102 - At Home Climbing Wall

My husband built this climbing wall for his own use about ten years ago.  Unfortunately, it was barely used at our last home, because there was not an optimal place to hang it.  In fact, it was used so infrequently that it was almost passed on and not moved with us.  At the last minute we decided to pack it, and now we are so glad we did.  It hangs perfectly off of our two-story deck, and the kids have spent hours on it since my husband hung it only two weeks ago.  This is homeschool recess at its finest!

Day 26 / 102 - Abstract Nouns

Over the past few weeks my son and I have been learning more about nouns, their roles in sentences, and their varying attributes.  Two attributes we've studied in depth are concrete nouns (something that can be experienced with the five senses) and abstract nouns (concept, quality, or condition that cannot be experienced with the five senses).

I found a great lesson plan on Bright Hub Education that you can see by clicking here.  Our favorite part of the activity was looking at a series of sentences and determining whether the underlined word was an adjective or an abstract noun.  For example:
The evening was a round of pleasures.
Don't try to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Day 25 / 102 - Greater Cleveland Aquarium

Last week, during a quick visit back to Cleveland, my children and I visited the Greater Cleveland Aquarium for the very first time.  The aquarium opened early this year, and like Cedar Point, it was another place we purchased passes to before my husband's job transfer came through.  Fortunately, with friends and family still in the Cleveland area, it's easy to make a visit back to Cleveland and to the aquarium.  The place was nearly empty when we were there, which made our visit that much more enjoyable.

Day 24 / 102 - Backyard Anatomy 101

In the ten weeks that we've lived in Beckley, our neighbors' dogs have made it perfectly clear that animal trespassers are not welcome in their yard.  We've even witnessed them run down and kill at least one intruder.  Our own dog shared similar sentiments when we lived in the suburbs, taking care of a few squirrels and a groundhog that wandered in.  However, she is no match for these West Virginia hounds.

A couple weeks ago, our children, along with the neighbor children, discovered another carcass in their two-acre rural backyard.  They began to add their opinions on what type of animal remains they were observing.  More than one said fox.  More than one said cat.  One said pig (?).  My daughter insists the animal had fur and there was no way it could be a pig.  My husband and I thought....Teachable Moment.

I had my children take pictures of the skull to begin researching it on the internet.  After visiting several animal anatomy sites, as well as doing a little more research on the bones, my children are 100% certain this was a cat that wandered into the neighbor's yard never to wander out.

Day 23 / 102 - Interjections! with Pictures

Last week we studied interjections.  To make our learning fun, I had my children draw pictures of scenes where a person would be using a strong expression of feeling or emotion.  Some scenes they created were a surfer being attacked by a shark, a baseball game, a hiker falling off a mountain, and a roller coaster ride which is pictured above.  They traded pictures and the other child had to come up with five interjections for that picture.

Of course, for my eleven-year-old son, I specified interjections and not expletives...even though he insisted he's heard 'all those words' while riding roller coasters.