Snooker

The girls played with their mini foosball game.

Georgia wanted to learn how to play snooker, so we looked it up on the Internet. We also watched some videos of snooker championships. Then her and Olivia tried it out, making some new rules for their game.

More Snow Fun

Olivia tried making a snowman. It kept falling over!

She had a lot of fun making snowballs and throwing them at me and Dad.

She helped Georgia work on another snow shelter.

Archaeology of Ohio

On Saturday, Mark and Georgia attended a lecture called Archaeology of Ohio. Author and editor Robert N. Converse shared his knowledge on the prehistoric cultures of Ohio, with a focus on artifacts and prehistory of our county. After the presentation, he offered to inspect any artifacts that we may have found, letting us know more about the pieces.

Georgia brought in her arrowhead that was found at her great grandmother's house.

She was told that her arrowhead was from the Archaic Period, and probably came from the Glacial Kame or Red Ocher cultures. He said it is about 5000 years old!!!

After returning home she told me all about the lecture. We searched the Internet to learn more about the Glacial Kame and Red Ocher cultures, the Archaic Period and looked at a virtual gallery on the First Ohioans.

She also watched some videos on making a stone age weapon, flintknapping stone age tools, and making a knife by flintknapping.

She also bought a dinosaur excavation activity from the gift shop. She needs to dig for the bones and then put the skeleton together. They are supposed to glow in the dark, too. She's found most of the bones, but still needs to put it together when she finds the rest.

Olivia worked on crystal mining.

We are still chipping away at the crystal mining block. It gets taken out from time to time. When all the rocks are free they can add them to their rock collections.

Shelters!

Inspired by Survivorman and Man v Wild, the girls think of different ways to build shelters in the house.

There's the bunkbed shelter...

The long and low shelter...

the video shelter, where they can watch Survivorman and Man v Wild

and most recently the snow shelter...

I lured them back inside with some hot chocolate...

In the Paper

Phew! We don't look like goobers! :-)

Homeschool Nature Club

Georgia went to her second meeting of the homeschool nature club. They meet at a nature center, so while we waited, Olivia and I had fun exploring. We first checked out the bird vista and looked in the bird books to identify what we saw. She found a ladybug crawling around in there, too.

Right after I took those pictures a photographer from the local paper came in. He is doing a story on the bird vista and wanted to know if we would like to get our picture taken and be in the paper on Sunday. So we did. We'll check the paper tomorrow to see if we made it. Olivia said, "I hope we didn't look like goobers, that would be embarassing." Ha ha...I agree.

We also went for a winter hike. We saw a lot of animal tracks, and heard a lot of birds.

The first club meeting Georgia attended was about rocks and fossils. She learned all about the rocks and fossils that can be found locally. She also made a rock collection container with an old egg carton. She received garnet and a fossil to start off her collection. However, she has loads of rocks in her collection at home. So when she got home she went to work organizing her rock and fossil collection some more. She used white-out to make a white spot on each sample and once dried she wrote a number to correspond with an egg compartment. On the lid she listed the number and name of each specimen.

This meeting was about Winter Adaptations. She said they played Animal Tracks Twister until everyone arrived. They talked about what animals do in winter and the different signs of wildlife to look for. They were introduced to an eyeless owl. He was found and brought to the rehabilitation center where he now lives. They also met a cornsnake, which Georgia held! The kids took a hike through the woods to look for the signs of wildlife they discussed. They found tracks, scat, yellow snow!, a bird's nest, evidence of digging, insect tracks on logs, and scratches on trees.

Olivia is now signed up for the nature club. There was a confusion about age requirement and space. The club is for kids over six, but Olivia is five. Also, I think Olivia is the last one to be added, unless someone else cancels there is no room for new members. Phew! Glad we made it! The homeschool nature club will meet once a month from September through May.