Mini Me

We had a mediocre last day for our Summer Camp at Home wrap up. It was fine don't get me wrong, but I'd hoped for a really special memorable last day. We lost momentum and didn't to our "Summer Memories" activity, but we had a few causal discussions about what we learned and liked best this summer. Besides, the art board was looking a little full already.

Here's Mr. Isaac's last Lego Challenge for the summer. I asked him to pick any U.S. landmark. After a lengthy discussion of them (I guess some of it sunk in) he chose to make his interpretation of Lady Liberty.

When our day was winding down Miss Roo went over to the white board and picked up a marker. She draws on my board all the time, but this time she said "Ok, Momma. I'm gonna be the Momma and you be the Isaac." When I agreed she scribbled with purpose on the board. Even making some thoughtful "hmms" here and there.

She said, "This is what candy looks like from space. (pointing to her drawing on the board). Ok, I need you to do all your chores my Isaac. Very good now we'll paint! I want you to paint a butterfly! I'll get you an apron my Isaac, painting's messy."

She did a great impression of me, silly girl. Toddlers can also "hold the mirror up to nature" as 'twere. Now to disassemble our "classroom".

Electric & Inventive!

First thing's first, Isaac had an awesome answer to a Lego Challenge on Friday. The challenge from Lego Quest:
Design a vessel. Here is the definition of the word vessel.
Vessel
-noun
1. a craft for traveling on water, now usually one larger than an ordinary rowboat; a ship or boat.
2. an airship.
3. a hollow or concave utensil, as a cup, bowl, pitcher, or vase, used for holding liquids or other contents.
4. Anatomy, Zoology. a tube or duct, as an artery or vein, containing or conveying blood or some other body fluid.
5. Botany. a duct formed in the xylem, composed of connected cells that have lost their intervening partitions, that conducts water and mineral nutrients. Compare tracheid.
6.a person regarded as a holder or receiver of something, esp. something nonmaterial: a vessel of grace; a vessel of wrath.
The Front

The Back

In His Words:
Blood vessel in a wound. The gray piece is a platelet, the white piece is a white blood cell and the red one is a regular red blood cell. The green piece is a germ. It's in a wound so there's a germ and a white blood cell. It's a 3-d model. The pieces are upward and outward. It's 2x2 bricks. I got the idea from the anatomy definition for vessel. It reminded me of the human body movie.

For Molecular Monday we are discussing inventors who worked with electricity. As a follow up to static electricity experiments last week. Mainly, Michael Faraday, but we'll also get into Volta and some others. After reading about all the neat stuff they did. We're creating closed circuits with Isaac's snap circuits set.

Today's Lego Challenge was to create something two dimensional.

In the artist's words:
It's a picture of a Tsunami going to a big brick and stone house on a beach. The palette blue is sky. I used it to make it portable. The colorful pieces are the house. Smoke is coming out of the chimney! The blue over there is the window. It opens so you can escape. The long blue bricks are tsunami the white and red are boats! The white part touching it is the crown of the tsunami.

Worldly Wednesday Kick Off

We did some reading, cleaning, writing and workbooking in the morning. Then after lunch we checked to see if Isaac's penpal in China (studentsoftheworld.info) had written back. He hadn't so we read all about China and discussed their population, abundance of natural disasters, their currency, how rice is grown, the various kinds of landscape and some of their history.

Then we skipped off to see Razzmatazz, magician and ventriloquist. All the way to the library we discussed inventors. The show is part of the library's summer program for elementary school children called Dream Big Read!. The first topic of the show was inventors! Funny. Speaking of firsts Isaac was the first volunteer from the audience and he assisted with a card trick. He even got to bring the card home as a souvenir!

This guy wasn't the best entertainer I ever saw, but the kids were pleased. I think I'm a bit of a snob about these things. Isaac remarked as we were leaving "Shows in person are more fun than TV." Which made me laugh out loud and cry inside. All the way home I told him all about ventriloquism and vaudeville.

Lego Challenge #2: Monochromatic

It's a tornado. Not fuctional just sculpture. Made out of tire pieces and wheels of a thunder driller from power miners. The trail of tires is its dust trail. It's stable so you can actually move it and spin it.

After Lego Challenge #2 Riley was home. We ate Chinese take out and watched Karate Kid II. Riley can pronounce Mr. Miyagi and Okinawa perfectly! Isaac was largely uninterested in the movie until the natural disaster scenes. If he wasn't having so much trouble with geography I might change it to Weather Wednesdays!

Our First Molecular Monday

Summer camp at home officially started today. It was the regularly scheduled program for Miss Roo and Mike was bedridden again. Isaac and I started the day by making a "bucket list" for the summer. Places to go, things to do and read by the end of summer. We had a full schedule. Breakfast, Clear Table, Lego Challenge, Summer Bridge Workbook, Lunch, Free Time, Science!, Writing, Chores, Dinner, Free Time, Shower and Bed. Most of that is self explanatory, except Lego Challenge.

I discovered this awesome blog called Lego Quest. I'm pretty sure she's taking a break for the summer, but I went back to the beginning of her blog and am giving Isaac one challenge at a time. He earns these with good behavior. I'll photograph each one and take careful notes on his descriptions. I'm going to post them in my blog as he does them. By the end of summer we'll make a book of them. After he does each one we look at what the other kids submitted. It's fun.

LEGO CHALLENGE #1 -Build A Car

In Isaac's Words: It's called the ST6. Driven by imperial guard. Super tran 6. I don't know what super tran means. It's good. Fast. Sometimes it needs good handling. I got the idea from Monster Truck in the Lego idea book,but this one is very different. It didn't have any weapons! Sometimes you drive in on regular roads, but I put on the light so you could drive in the woods. So your guns would come in handy for hunting.

Here's the engine. It is called: Hybrid motor STX, gas & electric. It's all hand pieces! One alien mini figure from space police, both hands from a skeleton from Nijango, three robot hands, and two mini figure hands.

I'm expecting 90mph since of the size. The guns have triple laser fusion cores. They also have 250 energy supplement. It might (or not!) be seaworthy. These are all my best guess without further tests on the vehicle.

We read about atoms loosing and gaining electrons to become positively or negatively charged. Yup, static electricity. We stuck balloons to walls, made hair stand up, repelled the balloons from one another and Isaac's personal favorite we bent water. Side note dispose of balloons promptly after your experiment if you have a puppy (oops!). It was a good day, we both learned something.