Blast Off!

This day is the direct response to allowing my husband and twin boys access to an awesome hobby shop for obviously way too much time while Haley and I went shopping at Joann's.  Dummy me thought that they would have a nice time "browsing" all of the fun boy toys there.  But no...rather than just looking as I do, he left with a big model rocket, engines and all.

Notice Ryan WAY back in the distance with his fingers in his ears?  Yep, that's my boy.  He's not really into loud noises.  This was one of several different launches.  Haley's best friend Jaiden did the honors for this launch.

 Here goes Adam's turn being the official launcher!  One nice thing about this particular rocket was that every time it went up, it came back in one piece and was able to be launched again.  Even though the parachute didn't work and slow its descent as evidenced by the picture below.  It went really, really high too!

 Here's Adam with the launcher thingy.  No idea what its called.  Not my area of expertise.  The boys (both old and young) had a blast though.

We girls did our best to fly Haley's new dragon kite that she got for Christmas.  Never did manage to get it to really fly though.  She sure wore herself out trying though!

All in all it was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon with family and friends!

Mercury Models!

This particular activity didn't exactly turn out as planned, but the boy's enjoyed it none the less, so I guess we'll call it a success.  We're studying the planets again this year along with lots of other fun earth and space science.  This week we learned about Mercury.  Since Haley was taking AGES to finish up her math, the boys and I did this particular activity without her. 

First, we mixed up a big batch of salt dough from a recipe in the textbook.  I suppose it should have been thicker and maybe it would've worked better.  We were supposed to have balls, but ours looked like blobs.  The dough was just too soft to hold the sphere shape needed for Mercury.  So, we considered it half of Mercury.

Then, once we had our Mercury model to work with, the boys proceeded to make craters of all depths and sizes to recreate the surface of  Mercury.  You may have noticed that they are in their pajamas...yes, that's a big perk of homeschooling.  They don't have to get dressed!  Nothing says school time like PJ's. 

The boys really had fun figuring out all kinds of objects to make different types of craters.  Pencils, crayons, and even odd shaped Legos were used.  We sat the models aside to dry for a few hours and to share with daddy when he came home.  As I said before, I obviously need more practice on salt dough, because the models dried on the outside, but stayed gooey inside.  We finally gave up and simply threw them away. 

Happy New Year!

Well, I can't exactly say that I'm sorry the holidays are over.  I don't know why, but this year it all seemed more stressful than usual.  Every year I say that I'm not going to wait until November to start thinking about Christmas, and every year, I procrastinate until the very last minute.  So, if the holidays are stressful, I'm the one to blame. 

We did take a nice long school break throughout much of December.  This is due to the fact that we just had so many illnesses, extra curricular activities, out of town company and just plain craziness, that we really needed the time away from school.  Its been a bit of a shock to the system getting back into the swing of things this week however.

I have been so bad about posting on the things we've been doing and learning about.  I don't even know where to start.  We have some fun activities planned later this week, so I'll do my best to post about them and share some pics.  In the meantime, from our family to your's...Happy New Year!!