Saturday, March 26, 2011

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Hogwarts

Spell books & practice

Playing along while I read Prisoner of Azkaban out loud earlier this week -- wand practice & pretend spell books.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

3/14: Happy Pi Day!!!

Celebrating Pi Day with circle measuring, websites, funny youtube videos, and pies while following interests wherever they go...

3/14:  Happy Pi Day!

the Math Kit
We love this book. It's an interactive pop-up. We started with the section related to circles and pi but ended up also learning about the Pythagorean theorem and ancient Egyptian mathematics (Egypt has been an ongoing interest for a little while now: there are Cleopatra and mummy movies, exhibits, and activities at our local museum right now; plus we all watched the Egyptian People's Revolution unfold recently, and Riley and I are still following that via an English language blogger/tweeter there and via the Global Voices website, even though it's no longer in the regular news much here).

Playing with the Math Kit on Pi day

Peeking into the pyramid in the Math Kit book

checking out the ancient egyptian math page in the Math Kit book

using the Math Kit book

homemade balance scale
Another side project we came across was making homemade balance scales. We used a hanger, two extra pie plates and the string that we already had out for measuring circumferences and diameters.

Comparing Bart and Kenny
Comparing Bart and Kenny

Comparing Bioshock toys
Comparing Bioshock toys

Comparing Kenny & yoohoo friends toys
Comparing Kenny & different numbers and size combinations of YooHoo friends toys


And, of course, what would Pi Day be without the other kind of pie!

making pie crust
Making pie crust

everyone's favorite kitchen tool:  the apple peeler/corer/slicer

vegan apple pie for pi day

veggie potpies & shepherds pie
Veggie potpies & shepherd's pie

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Welcome, March!

After reading the Aragog chapter (Seth's favorite HP creature) in Chamber of Secrets yesterday, we spent the afternoon roller skating with some local homeschoolers. Afterward Seth went home with a friend to play, Riley and a friend went to the skatepark with Matt, and Maya and I took a walk/scooter ride in our neighborhood, looking for signs of Spring and whatever else we happened to find.

Here are some pictures from our walk.

March 1!!!
From our yard -- spring flowers are not too far away!

1 - march 1 walk
Our front yard tree.

2 - march 1 walk

3 - march 1 walk
Check out those thorns!

4 - march 1 walk
Collecting these for "fairy hats" for the fairy garden we're going to plant later in the Spring.

5 - march 1 walk

6 - march 1 walk

7 - march 1 walk

8 - march 1 walk

9 - march 1 walk

10 - march 1 walk

11 - march 1 walk