Fractals - Or Something Like That

The other day I was teaching both my sons some math and we were playing with equilateral triangles. We discussed the properties of equilateral triangles and played with different sizes of them that I had cut out of paper. I came across a side note in my guide saying that we were going to be discussing ten fractals the next lesson.
Frac-what? What the heck are fractals? And why are my 5 and 7 year olds learning about something that I know nothing about?

It turns out that fractals are geometric shapes that can be split into parts, each of which is a smaller size copy of the whole. And a tens fractal merely suggests 10 of the smaller = one of the larger. Well, it is way more complex than that, but for our introduction to fractals it was simple (thank goodness!)

The 3 of us made ten 10-fractals with equilateral triangles. Then we glued those all together to make one big fractal to show how 10 of these triangles with 10 triangles in them equals 100. Then, we were supposed to make 10 of the ten 10-fractals and glue those together to make one monstrous fractal, which shows how ten 10's are 100, and ten 100's are 1000 or that ten ten 10's are 1000. This process is way to monotonous with 2 boys who don't know how to switch off their imaginations to perform the tedious processes of life and 1 ADD mom who is easily distracted and has difficulty staying on task for more than a few minutes. So we just did one of the 100 triangles.

For the 1000 triangle we just used our imaginations, since those run rampant all the time anyways.

A Little Acedemic

Okay...

After that last post it makes it look like all we do is play all day with a few chores mixed in there.

I actually DO teach my kids acedemic stuff.

Last week we learned about linking verbs.
A verb is a word that does an action, shows a state of being, links two words together and something-something-something (I can't even remember).

Anyways, we were concentrating on the "links two words together" last week, and this is what we did:

Cool hey? See how the linking verb links the words together? For those of you less inclined to remember how we parse sentences, the linking verb is on the white link.
I thought it was a cool, hands on idea for reinforcing the concept.

No, it wasn't my idea (Thanks Jessie Wise). But I implemented it pretty well.

What We Do Instead of School

Last week the weather was so nice. Not your typical September weather. I felt bad for all the kids who had just returned to school and had to miss out on part of the sunshine, since we had such a wet and cool summer.

This is what we did the first week that other kids went back to school:

It was something like 35C or 37C out. We had only had 3 or 4 days this summer that were even close to being pool-worthy, so I happily filled the pool up and let the boys spend the afternoon splashing around and keeping cool. I usually add some bubble bath to the water and they enjoy some bubbles while getting clean.

When they were done and eating a 100% juice freezie, I announced that I was going to harvest some of our garden. Elijah protested and asked that I wait until he was done his freezie because he wanted to help.

He loved plucking the beets and carrots out of the ground. He also helped me with the tedious peas-and-beans-picking from start to finish. I was lucky that I was able to employ my mom (who was visiting for a few days) to do the shelling, cutting & washing of the veggies as that is my least favorite part of having a garden.

It was an enjoyable and relaxing end to the summer.
Now...on to fall....

At The Farm

The other day we went to The Ranch.

We played in the hay and straw for a bit....

...then we put Elijah to work.

He is a huge fan of combine harvesters. He is a huge fan of anything that is really huge, actually!

We drove through several fields (passing through one of the gates I managed to smash up our van pretty good...but we won't talk about that)....
We walked to the lake through millions of foxtails.

Toviel found a pretty hawk feather. He suggested we make a writing quill out of it...

...and when I cleaned up the table in the evening, this is what I found. He HAD made a writing quill out it.

Foraging For Food...

...in my back yard! My teeny-tiny back yard!

Our garden is bring forth fruit (and veggies).

Peas!

Green Beans!

Zucchini! (it is so teeny still)

Beets!

Red Onions!

There are SO MANY ladybugs in our garden this year!

The Harvest

Delicious Peas!

I love peas. Especially raw. I love peas so much, someone dear and close once called me pea-ness.
These peas are especially good, and especially raw.

I can tell you one thing, if I had to work this hard every day to get food to eat, I'd be a whole lot thinner.