Miss Teagan. Look how much Teagan has grown up. She is the last little princess in pink in the above photo.

We enjoyed our Welcome Back Picnic this Wednesday. A few families were not able to make it. My favorite reason for not coming came from Karen, Douglas and Thomas' mom. The bridge they were going to cross was washed out and they needed to wait another day for it to be rebuilt. I suggested that as homeschoolers, they should have quickly crafted a raft out of debris along the river and float Karen's new minivan across. She thought not. If you were not able to make it yesterday and you have a more adventurous excuse -- feel free to embelish, please post it in comments.

Nina and her mom Leta

Blake is joining our group this year.

Tiffany and Lisandrea

New friends, Annabelle and Kristi.

Laura danced with Miss Kate to Mozart this afternoon.

Elinor is a sunggle sweetie.

Caleb sporting his new do while wearing Collin-wear.

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.

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.

Explorers!

Christopher had his lines down perfectly!
Great job Christopher!

This pictures pretty much sums up my life.
I may not look all that great but I'm surrounded by sweet children and I pray.

When Robin said "no science today, we're doing art instead" the class groaned.
The were truly disappointed that we might be skipping science.
Robin had them sting UV sensitive beads and test them. Very cool.

Does old sunscreen block UV rays.
Nope.
If it's expired it probably is not protecting your skin.
We also tested cheap sunglasses verses expensive ones.
Target $15 sunglasses worked just as well as some mega expensive ones.

Travis testing out his UV beads.

Miss Katy was trying to be brave
during cow eye dissection until the smell overwhelmed her.

Anya, Paul, Madison, Clara and Miss Tiffany
are acting out the absolute monarchs of the 1700's.

Grace and her UV ring.

Roberta!

Logan brought his dad today!

Moses

We are so blessed to have Peter in our group. Peter knows EVERY history card and is able to help us remember each motion.



I'm still not over Douglas' self-appointed role as Miriam.


Jacob and Douglas, Egyptian soldiers are being swallowed up by the Red Sea.


Christopher and Robert walking like an Egyptian.

Rockets

Eleanor and Richard