7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Such excitement at 9 am Thursday morning!

— 2 —

….but then it was noon.

Oh.

— 3 —

Don’t worry.  The poor oppressed homeschooled boys (aka “Do we get a snow day?”) had plenty of time to enjoy it.

— 4 —

Of course, soup and potato rolls must be made.

— 5 —

This is one of those weeks that’s been a bit of a blur, school wise.  Maybe it was the owl pellets that took it out of me.  I don’t know.  I mean, things happened and there was learning, I guess, but I’m sort of fuzzy about the content at the moment.  Well, I can say that Joseph finished this mini course on the atom – it was very good and led to many, many rabbit holes. 

(I’ll repeat that some of our favorite element-related rabbit holes are the videos from the University of Nottingham.)

— 6 —

Aside from the pellets, a couple of small demonstrations were attempted.  Oh, we have crystals growing all over the house, and they’re coming along nicely.  But we also took a few minutes to perform this demonstration from what is probably going to be one of my new favorite rabbit holes science websites – the Happy Scientist.  This one was great and worked perfectly, and concerned one of my favorite topics to tediously drone on about discuss: that air is not “nothing.”  In fact, it’s the opposite, which leads to reflections on what can be seen and what can’t be seen, and the riot that is reality that is going on all around us, whether we notice it or not.

(I can’t seem to embed the videos from that site – no matter. Head over that watch a few.  I really like his approach.)

Call of the Wild is almost finished.  We finally watched The Gold Rush this evening.  I had never seen it, and found it delightful and fascinating – and, like a true classic, rather contemporary in feel, even though it was silent and 90 years old.  The DVD had two version – the original, with piano accompaniment, and a 1942 version that had been released in theater with Chaplin narrating – we had the latter in for two minutes, and I found it unwatchable.

More about the making of the film here – of particular interest to me was the recreation of the  trek up the Chilkoot Pass:

For two weeks the unit shot on location at Truckee in the snow country of the Sierra Nevada. Here Chaplin faithfully recreated the historic image of the prospectors struggling up the Chilkoot Pass. Six hundred extras, many drawn from the vagrants and derelicts of Sacramento, were brought by train, to clamber up the 2300-feet pass dug through the mountain snow.

There should have been a science center class for the 12 year old this week, but it was cancelled because of the weather, darn it.  Those are always good.  At least the 9-year old’s art class finally met again after a three-week break (the weather always seemed to go to hell – or people thought it was going to – on Thursdays).  I think next week, in addition to other things, we’re going to watch the Nova program on the Florence duomo  – I recorded it – and this month’s National Geographic has a very conveniently timed article on the same.

Oh, there was some art started.  This project.  They’ll finish tomorrow.

— 7 —

Busy weekend. Two basketball games; piano festival performance, Pinewood Derby. Mass. Gators-Kentucky basketball.

Reminders:

Books for sale here.

And a free download of a youth stations of the cross here. 

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