Sunday, November 8, 2009

Replicas of the Nina and the Pinta

We recently went to see the replicas of the Nina and the Pinta down on the Ohio River.  They were so neat.  It was good for the girls (and me!) to see just how small these ships were that Columbus ventured out with!  Amazing that they actually made it across the ocean.....surely God's hand was on them!

We learned that Columbus' crew were mostly in the age 12 to 19 range!  The Nina was built to size, but the Pinta is actually 50% larger than the original.  The Nina was built without the convenience of power tools.  Aboard the Nina was a boat that was handcrafted by a 14yo Brazilian boy.



The Nina


Nina

The Pinta


Pinta



We all wanted to apply for the job opening!

Job
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Saturday, November 7, 2009

Hedgehogs and weasels.......oh my!

Last week the girls learned about weasels and hedgehogs!

The girls had to choose a mammal to do a poster/report on for their co-op class.  They were limited as to what they could choose and (smart teacher!) they could not choose cat, dog, or horse.   DD9 choose weasels and DD12 choose hedgehogs.

So, the last couple weeks we were surrounded by weasel and hedgehog books from the library, print outs from the Internet, and I even found an audio about weasels on my computer that I had downloaded some time ago from "You Need A Story."  

DD12 did a bit more than required for the project.  She and a friend (they're doing the project together) decided make a unique presentation, by being a reporter (dd12) and interviewing a hedgehog (friend).

They also made a hedgehog out of salt dough (with cocoa added to make the dough brownish) and toothpicks.  Then the night before the presentation dd12 made hedgehog cookies.  Since we have a child at co-op with peanut allergies, we could not do Jan Brett's traditional recipe.....dd12 instead frosted the back part of the cookie with chocolate frosting and added chocolate sprinkles to make it looks spikey. 

We didn't do it, but if your child is interested a  FREE lapbook about hedgehogs can be found at Homeschool Share


Here are the display boards that the girls did:

hedgehog board

Weasel board