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.

Tablets and Scrolls

Last week we made some clay tablets and practiced cuneiform writing (ancient Mesopotamia-type stuff).

Here is Toviel's name in cuneiform:

Toviel also wanted to try his hand at this ancient writing:

I was getting ready to help Elijah write his name in cuneiform, but he stopped me. He didn't want me to write his name - he wanted to me write "mammoth". So I did:

And then he drew a picture of a mammoth with his tool:

We discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages to using clay tablets for recording information, then proceeded to make the more modern scroll:

Elijah wrote his name beautifully with paint in cuneiform script inside this scroll. Toviel slapped some paint on his and mucked it around a little (okay - a lot) with very precise strokes that seemed to me to be very random, but his level of concentration was too intense for it to have been random and willy-nilly.

Finger-Lickin' Good

We are studying ancient civilizations and are enjoying learning about mummification and pyramids and the like.
When I was younger and first heard about how the Egyptians preserved the bodies of the pharoahs I was totally grossed out. Why would someone do something so morbid as that? And why would they waste riches and goods on the dead? I'm guessing the pyramid robbers also thought the same thing as they were plundering the massive graves.

My boys are nothing but fascinated with the whole thing. Disciplines such as learning to read and write are rarely met with such enthusiasm, but the way that ancient civilizations have invoked intrique and interest in this house (did you get my alliteration there?  Pretty good, eh? I did that on purpose) has really surprised me.

I would suggest, at the horror of some, that history is the most boring subject ever taught in schools. The memorizing of dates and dry material brought me to tears as early as grade five. But here I am now in my late 30's actually learning about history with my 7 and 5 year old boys. They are loving it. I am loving it. It is definately, hands down, the best study we are doing right now. I think not having the pressure of passing tests and committing irrelevant material to memory has lifted the restrictions on my actual learning. I am glad that I am passing this freedom on to my boys at such a young age.

My boys made several intricate pyramids out of lego and then we built some pyramids out of sugar cubes. Tasty, delicious pyramids. Mmmmm.