Boaz finally got to try out his wetsuit in the ocean!

Jack wrote a message to Douglas and placed it in a bottle. Then he and Grace threw it into the waves. Be sure to look for Jack's bottle when you're at the beach!

What are Jack, Melissa, Boaz and Douglas doing? Practicing for their role in a MOB DANCE!!! We can't tell you where it is but we'll post a video link when they're done!

What are you doing this summer?

Jack, Boaz and Douglas learned an economics lesson by visiting a Friday garage sale. They bought wetsuits for $10 each. Why wait for water when you have a perfectly good wetsuit to wear? They also took turns "driving" my huge pickup.

General Rob lead his troops in the French and Indian War.
Twice his fearless troops were defeated and driven back by the Indians. With Travis and Jack on his team it is hard to imagine how they failed, but alas,even the fiercest warriors are defeated sometimes.

Griffan and Cy did a great job cleaning! Thank you!

Julie, Cy and Pam!

General Washington-Joseph is shooting at British Commander Bo.
I'm not sure which side General Ethan was on but he fought bravely.

What are Tiffany and Jen doing? They are SHOOTING weapons!

British General Douglas dramatically died several times during our presentation.

Friends

Miss Robin taught us about bacteria today.
She explained how we preserve foods with salt, dehydration and sometimes alcohol.

We talked about bacteria and viruses today. I told the children that I'd send you a link to show them how small they are: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/ Just move the scrubber to zoom in and make sure you zoom back out too. Very cool.

We talked about needing beneficial bacteria in us to break down food, and eating things like yogurt to add more beneficial bacteria. We discussed the food chain with bacteria being part of the decomposers and that without bacteria we would all die in one big trash heap. However, we like things decomposing after we're done with it, not before, so we discussed the science of food preservation. Here is a good article on the different methods of food preservation:

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/menus/food-preservation.htm
You can read this article with your children while looking in your food pantry for all the different methods of preservation. Make it a challenge to find all of it...although it might be hard to find freeze dried.

For a demonstration of chemical preservatives, we also looked at the bread we used in the densities experiment for Week 7 which was October 20. I bought the cheapest white bread at Target since we weren't eating it and it still hasn't molded! It has been sitting in my kitchen for over two months. Scary. Stay tuned for the end of the year when we check back in to see if it ever will mold.

Your children also received a petri dish with bacteria that they collected from themselves or the church. Please take out the paper in the baggie and read it carefully and record your colony counts daily. Please be careful not to open the petri dish. PLEASE BRING IT BACK NEXT WEEK!! We want to compare all the fun, gross things we collected. Hmmm, is Boaz's nose more germy than a toilet seat?

Miss Robin brought a MRE in for us to try.
Brian, Bo, Elizabeth and Elinor all prayed for Major Shaw and his troops.

Miss Tiffany shows her class how a loom
works and discusses how much more efficient a power loom is.

Bo is showing off his UV bracelet.
Miss Robin taught the children about UV light using beads that absorb rays and turn colors.

Robin the Spanish Explorer.

Douglas and Justin snacking.
Apparently the best part of dissecting starfish was all of the fun
you could have posing for pictures.

Joseph.
Notice the difference between Joseph and his sister Clara, above.