Field Tripping

Inquisitiveness: Earth (5 Weeks of Highlights)

Learning about the Earth with
some magnets...

...by making (and eating) "Earthballs" for dinner...

(our magma spilled out, but our peanut core
was found in each one!)

...and learning about magma.

We learned about three basic types of soil
and did our own soil testing experiments
using a chart I found online.
The kids loved getting dirty!

Another soil testing experiment.

Eggs came in handy when we were learning
about the Earth's layers.

Some good hands-on learning about lava
with a sample of it dried, a hammer
and protective eye gear.

Learning about the largest percentage
of our planet...the ocean. This puzzle
was as tall as COS! We also read books
on Cousteau and watched videos online
about his life and accomplishments.

Making our own marine life with dough.

We learning a lot about plate tectonics.
In this shot we put together a puzzle
without knowing what it looked like and
without doing the border first. We talked
about Intelligent Design afterward.

We did several experiments demonstrating
how mountains were formed,
what causes earthquakes and how
volcanoes form new land mass.

This is another experiment with an egg,
this time dealing with plate tectonics,
volcanoes, mountain ranges and the like.
Eggs are such great instructional tools!

Perhaps their favorite activities...
making different kinds of volcanoes!
This one demonstrates an ash volcano...
and got the whole room dusty with "ash."

There she blows!!

LOVE her hair!

JSS's volcano spewed out the side and
got his square in the face! Good example
of the unpredictable nature of the beast!

More volcano experiments, this time outside.

THANK YOU for your support!

Jesse's popcorn sale season is almost to a close and we want to thank ALL of you who have blessed him in being able to meet his minimum sales number to cover his scouting expenses!

THANK YOU!!!

Support our Troop(er)!

Would you please look over the following brochure

and/or read through the descriptions

that follow and email us at

ericka@saintdepraved.com

with an order to support our little

troop(er)?

True story: Within an hour of receiving

his forms, this little guy was pounding

the pavement in the pouring rain going

door-to-door so that he could raise enough

money to cover his participation in Weebelos

this year.

Will you please consider helping him?

Top Row:

Buy Popcorn for Our Troops

You can donate a gift of popcorn to those serving our country at two levels this year. $25/silver level or $40/gold level

Chocolate Heaven (in a Chocolate Lover's Tin)

One-stop shopping for the king of sweets. Three ways to fall in love again. Chocolatey Triple Delight (2 bags), Chocolatey Pretzels, White Chocolatey Pretzels, 72 oz. total. $50

Chocolate! Caramel! Cheese! (in a holiday tin)

Savory & Sweet 3-way winter-themed tin. Chocolatey Triple Delight, Gourmet Caramel Corn with Almonds, Pecans and Cashews, Melt-in-your-mouth Gourmet Cheese Corn, 44 oz. total. $40

Middle Row:

Say "Cheese!"

The cheesiest 3-way tin with lip-smakin', finger-lickin' cheddar cheese popcorn (2 bags) and scrumptious white cheddar cheese popcorn. 21 oz. total. $30

Trails End Mix

The Gourmet blend...mmmmm! Raisins, cranberries, almonds, walnuts, yogurt cranberries, yogurt raisins. 18 oz. total. $25

Layers of Luxury

Smooth and Mouth-Watering chocolatey goodness with butter toffee glaze and yogurt drizzle. 18 oz. total. $18

Go Nuts!

Gourmet caramel corn with almonds, pecans and cashews. The world's best! An "awesome" blend of caramel-glazed premium nuts and golden caramel corn. 23 oz. total. $18

Bottom Row:

Lighten Up!

Butter Toffee Caramel Corn Light. Less is more with our crunchy, savory butter toffee flavor caramel corn but with reduced sugar and low fat. 18 oz. $18

Unbelievably Buttery!

15-pack Unbelievable Butter Microwave. Buttery flavor second to none. Unbelievably Dee-lish! $15

The Light of Your Life!

15-pack Butter Light microwave. The flavor you want and nothing you don't. Fewer calories, less sodium, all the taste of a great butter microwave. $15

Original Caramel Corn

Still great! Why change a good thing! Delicious gourmet caramel corn. 8 oz. $10

Note: We are selling to those that live locally or that we will see over Thanksgiving. For those that live farther away, would you please consider either of the tax-deductible military donations?

Order forms will be turned in the last week of October. Delivery is after November 7th.

Back to School

We began the 2009-10 school year on Monday, August 17. It's been a thrill ride every day since!

With the older kids, that meant the beginning of a lot of coursework. JDS is taking 4 of his classes at a drop-&-pay co-op on Thursdays near our house and he, so far, is really enjoying it...socially, that is. Economics class seems to be his favorite, but he is also taking Government, Shakespeare and Physics. In the spring semester when Economics is over, he will take Art History and he is most looking forward to that. Both of them are taking an SAT Prep Class and JDS will be taking that a few times this year. AMS is taking 100% of her classes at home, including her first science with a lab. She is, so far, doing pretty alright with a B average. :)

With the younger kids, our year is starting out in KONOS focusing on Inquisitiveness. The first two weeks focused on the stars and planets.

Here are some highlights from these first two weeks.

Baking and decorating star cookies

for our "Star Party" at G'ma &

G'pa's house on Friday night. :)

I discovered that a "Star Party" isn't the ideal

setting for photo-taking. If I don't use the flash,

I get blackness. If I use the flash, well, I get the

following (and a lot of complaining)...

JSS and COS camped out in G'ma & G'pa's living

room when it was time to hit the hay. Unfortunately,

I didn't think to get more photos other than

this poorly arranged one. G'ma & G'pa camped

out with them and made it all the more FUN!

A little "Star Game" that the younger ones

and Mom came up with for G'ma & G'pa to

"earn" their star treats for dessert.

We settled down to watch our two firstborn

"star" in a video back from 1995, I believe.

We got a LOT of laughs!

Fast forward to 6 AM. We were

hoping to get up before the sun to

see how the constellations had

moved across the sky, but alas

the sun beat us to it!

Beautiful time of day out in the

country, though!

JSS practicing with his bb gun & target.

Just something to remember the

morning by...(sigh)...just takes my breath

away remembering it.

What's a trip to the farm without

some good ol' hay bale jumping?

COS and Elanor decided to join in the fun.

This is an "accidental" shot. I heard her

laughing as she was racing Elanor,

turned around and shot two frames.

This was the second and I LOVE it!

The little kids were VERY tired

these first two weeks, mainly because

my Mother's Day kitties were rambunctious

all night! Here's a shot where even one

of THEM was tuckered out. (Peter)

Learning about some constellations

Can you guess which constellation this is?

What about this one?

This one?

And these???

We made a sort of "light bright"

version of constellations with black

construction paper, flashlight and a

2 liter bottle wrapped in foil. It was hard

to get clean shots, but here are two.

Can you guess which constellations these are?

JSS and COS went to their first planetarium.

Here are some activities outside the theater.

(JSS looks like a little person here.)

Do YOU know how much you weigh

on the sun? the moon? venus?

Jupiter? Pluto? WE DO, thanks to

this wayyyyy cool scale.

During these first two weeks, our home

school association had their Kick Off Meeting for

this school year. Here is my field trip

table all set up and ready for visitors. We made

it interactive this year. We listed the 26 field

trips we have coordinated for the Fall on the table

with "representations" of 11 of them and 2 more

representations of "sneak peeks" from the

spring semester. If you could match 3x5 cards with

the correct representation within 60 seconds, you

won a sweet treat! It was a lot of fun, generated a

lot of visits to our table and was a good way

to get people to remember some of our trips.

Special thanks to Candi & Julie for manning the

table with me all night. They were STELLAR!

(Get it? STELLAR? With all the star studying?)

Friday Night Family Date:

Biology lab!

This is a shot when AMS opened

her 6-day-old pond sample...

P-stinkin-U!!!!

We had to burn matches in every room

to get that funky smell out of the house!

A future doctor? Lab assistant?

Researcher?

This is not staged...

we really did have fun doing this!

Last activity of the study:

Make your own planetarium using

a garbage bag, a fan and a flashlight.

They got 30 minutes to try and figure out

how to do it. After 6 attempts...

(some photo'd here)

...I suggested that when we visited

the planetarium, we were INSIDE

the domed theater. The lights came on...

...and they figured it out.

(Photos aren't all that great because my

back is trying to give out on me and I

couldn't really lean over to get the

shots. These are from just holding the

camera down there, not lining up the shot.)