Science Week!

Science week also known as tear-my-hair-out-week! Or it would have been if reinforcements hadn't shown up! We started these projects well ahead of time. The experiments were performed, data collected and pictures taken. All that jazz was out of the way and so I thought we were out of the woods on this! Murray worked with them mostly, he's better at this stuff and handles the high tension environment better than I! However, even he threw in the towel one night when Honey was giving us the gears while practicing her presentation.

Luckily Nanny had come for a visit to see the big Wizard of Oz performance! (Since they were calling for a lot of snow, Grampy stayed home to keep the driveway cleared.) Also to our advantage: a sick day plus a snow day! Sweetie was home for a couple days not feeling well and but was well enough to sit at the table and put her poster together. She and Nanny were at it those two days for hours and hours while the other 2 were at school and made some good progress on the layout. It was a good thing Lovey's teacher hadn't assigned a project. There's no way we could have gotten all 3 done at the same time! Honey & Nanny logged a lot of time on the snow day and got it shaped up quite well!

Sweetie's:

Honey's:

 

Since she was in town and all.... we wanted her to really enjoy her visit and not feel like we only wanted her for her science talents! So if you're looking for a good time, you know where to come! I was never so happy to run to the hardware store in my life! Woohoo! A dishwasher that doesnt' crash and slide out of its own volition AND a microwave stand that doesn't wobble and tip? Sign me up! We're not sure if she'll ever come back after her little encounter with our slave labour guest house approach but we definitely enjoyed having her!

Movember for everyone!

It's not just for the fellows anymore apparently! Their school had a fundraiser and today they could wear a mustache if they brought in a donation for cancer. These were drawn on in a hurry as the bus approached but they did the trick!

Lovey's class had won a reward and had a movie and pj day in their class! AND it was pizza day for hot lunch AND they were finally writing their science quiz that she'd been excitedly preparing for all week. She came home after school and said she was disappointed because the questions weren't what she'd studied at all! She had prepared to list all the names of different types of rocks and how each was made, under what conditions etc Instead, they had questions like "true or false, a rock is a living thing". I'm going to assume she did well on the quiz!

Sewing Circle

Sweetie got a sewing kit for Christmas so today she wanted to work on a project. She cut up some squares of material and wanted to sew the different patterns together to make a doll blanket for her sisters.  She and I were working on that as Lovey & Murray tried out her Tasty Science kit and Honey read her book. 

Things got a little hairy when I asked Sweetie to get her needle threader from her stocking so I could show her how to work it. That met with a cry of despair and a good long tantrum on the stairs while she resisted my unreasonable demands! Eventually she pulled it together and we were able to work on her blanket. Of course she wanted everything perfect from the get go and was very frustrated at any mistakes but caught on quickly and got going on her stitches after a few attempts.

Lovey then wandered in to see what we were up to and wanted to join in on the fun. I got her needle threaded and she promptly pulled it too hard and the thread came out. Then Sweetie finished a row and needed help knotting off the thread. Then Honey wanted to join in on the fun and put 47 scraps into a pattern and wanted to sew them together. Suddenly I had 3 tyrant seamstress wannabes all demanding instant service. I was not entirely comfortable being surrounded by angry, frustrated, overtired and stressed out workers with access to sharp pointy objects! Trying to keep up with the requests for help was daunting and frankly I was glad when it was time to get supper ready because by then, everyone was on the edge and trying to rein all that in was wearing me down!

Earlier in the day Honey worked on her Sour Candy project and made some suckers and marshmallows that were good and sour too! She was quite pleased with her production and was quite excited to have everyone sample her wares!

Thank goodness we got all these kits and activities for Christmas because it seems like they've forgotten how to entertain themselves. Every time I sit down to read or watch an online workshop, someone is hovering at my elbow with "what-do-I-doooooooooo???" syndrome!

They also haven't had any outdoor activity for almost 2 full days so tonight we hauled them out after supper for some skiing. It went much better than the initial "I don't WANT to go skiing" pronouncement. The snow wasn't ideal, not very deep and a bit too tacky. We just did a loop in the field across the street. We were going to cross the beaver pond but it looked a little sketchy and had too many rough patches so we turned around. It must have been a 45 minute trek and enough to knock their silly energy down a peg. They were wild at supper, laughing so hard they couldn't talk! At one point, and I can't remember what we were talking about, I said "sometimes you guys are hard to enjoy when you're being so ridiculous!" Lovey looked at me and immediately responded matter of factly "well, you made us so you'd better enjoy us!" and that just cracked Murray and I up. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em right?

 

One Good Day

is apparently all we're entitled to around here! Yesterday's well behaved, mild mannered children were not here to stay! Lovey had a one hour crying, screaming jag about pants. Then later in the day Sweetie followed suit for just about the same amount of time over a sewing dilemma!

In between mood swings, they worked on a lot of Harry Potter Lego, bopped along to their MP3 players, singing their  hearts out, started their crystal formations, built a robot, made their own gum and read their books.

Bedtime was a gong show as the book they're reading hit a creepy spot right before lights out. Hoping to have them settle more, we let them read for awhile in bed but by 9pm it was time for sleep. or so I thought! Sweetie was too scared. Honey's book was too sad and Lovey probably would have gone to sleep if the other two hadn't been carrying on.

I finally offered to let Sweetie sleep in my bed as that sometimes helps. However the other 2 heard that and were outraged at the injustice of the special privileges being doled out! I told them they could all crawl in if they wanted. What a waste of time! Two more trips up there to tell them to settle down as they fought over who got the middle, who had the most blankets, who was talking too much.... Honey didn't really want to be in there anyway but did NOT want to be alone in her room. On my last trip upstairs, I gave a warning that if they hadn't worked it out and settled down in 5 minutes, the sleepover at my place was cancelled. Almost exactly 5 minutes later, Honey comes tip tapping down the stairs, clutching Baabaa and says "they're still whispering!". So I told her they were all going back to their own beds then. "Good!" she says and happily heads back upstairs. "but this makes you a tattle tale!!!" I tell her. She remains unfazed by this and heads off!

Sweetie was still terrified of sleeping alone, so I told her to crawl in with Lovey but she had to be quiet or she was going to her own bed. Seems to have worked out ok :)

Who Needs Science Camp?

We're not paying for some high falutin' science camp! Not when we've got Dr Gunk's Chemical Warehouse at our disposal! The kids were very excited to try out all the different experiments and Dr Gunk (btw, Andrew made that up Nancy, not me!) had prepared. And was she ever prepared! Worksheets, lab reports and supplies all ready & waiting for them to dig into.

They learned about acids vs bases, how vinegar affects an eggshell overnight, grew crystals and some other stuff that I can't recall (aka explain). They couldn't get enough of Nanny's experiments on their vacation this year. I hope she's researching for next year's labs because they are going to be looking for more and probably telling all their friends!

Crazy Scientists!

Today was science club day at school. They are so enjoying this program! I'm not very sciencey oriented but I'm glad they like it. Last week they decorated and brought home beakers and this week they got to play with litmus paper and got to bring that home to try out on household items. They really wanted to invite Tulip over to "play lab" but she already had plans with her aunt.

They ran around the house finding things to test: soap, vinegar, cleaning solution (Murray did that one), Sweetie's magic potion concoction from her room and I can't remember what else. In no time flat they'd gone through all the test papers and were going wild mixing the different "elements" together, even their own spit. Man, kids are gross!