March's Hale Happenings

March has been full of snow and cold!!  The lion of March has just not wanted to leave and let the lamb of April come in....plus I'm tired of paying $450-$550. electric bills!  I've heard of others that have ones that are higher...so I just should be thankful it's not higher.  I am glad that soon we'll have the money to get our gas furnace put in so next year we should actually be warm and not have to pay such high bills!!

Recently I was re -acquainted with the Latter-day Learning and after many days and nights of driving Barry crazy about the pro's and con's of this program I decided that we will buy the first year and give it a try!

Delaney has greatly enjoyed the first free lessons that are available.  I like how our school gatherings are more "together"  it's like FHE for school...we get to combine a gospel principle with academics.  I love that the whole thing is planned for me. I've been looking for this for quite a while.

These pictures show an activity we did on the virtues of organization....how it helps save time and that the Lord is a God of order.

History group gathering was on the Cold War.  Each of this kids were a country...with paper towel missals.  With these props we walked them through the basics of 'Who's who" for the cold war.

We also learned a bit about art.  The art of the late 1940's showed the emotions of fear of the cold war...while things became more colorful and peppy in the 60's.  The kids are working on making art using a tessellation.  They are shapes that interlock and continue throughout the page.

The space race played a big part in the history of this time period.  So the kids had fun making "astronaut food"   pudding in a bag and eaten by sucking it through a straw.

For other school news.....  The cards on the cabinets are from our CC timeline song that we listen to quite often. Brianne has come to enjoy dancing to it so  much that she asks for it each morning.
I like hearing Liam and Delaney sing the song softly under their breath.  Even Brianne will "sing" some of the words too.  While the others claim to hate it...and I think they probably really do hate it, I believe they are getting the facts down in their brains too.  Connor and I, from time to time, have thoughtful discussions based of one of the events mentioned in the song.

Connor's been gun-ho in trying to bring his Chemistry grade up from a B+ to a solid A...he's struggled with the___________concepts but he still loves learning about chemistry and all things science.  He's currently finished his Life of Fred Algebra II book and is working to finish his geometry so he can get started on trigonometry.  His goal is to test into calculus for his fist class at NRCC in the fall.

Cailin's been working on her Mock Trail preparations.....along with "Latin, math and stuff".  She still loves her school time with CC, but clearly could do without the "Latin, math, and stuff."

Brianne has started physical therapy.  Most of the time she likes it....but sometimes she's not thrilled with having to do things that she doesn't want to, like "bridges and sit-ups"  However, the therapy is helping.  The other day while walking up two or three stairs she did it quite well on her own.  She's definitely getting more centered core strength.

Plays, plays, plays!  We have begun the play season.  This year the kids are in two plays--Suessicfication of Romeo and Juliet, which will be performed in at the end of April with a homeschool group.    While at the high school, they are in Willy Wonka and and the Chocolate Factory.
Cailin has decided that three plays (these two, just mentioned, plus for youth group at church they are writing and acting out one based on Dr. Who meets the missionaries.)  she felt there was more creative juices flowing through her acting loving veins that she's also auditioned for the high school's production of Footloose. 

.....and because that's just not enough running around time, Liam's in soccer and Delaney's dance class are still going strong.

Ryan did the amazing and has earned his student driver's license.  He's eager, yet apprehensive to learn...and so are we!  He's also been hired by us to help with Brianne's EDCD waiver.  Due to Beulah's health problems she can no longer work and we need the Medicaid waiver to keep going for her various therapy s and surgery s (two more in the works).  So now he takes her for walks, plays more with her, reads to her and helps with house work....all for pay!

Barry's still plugging away with his Covenant Leadership class for Liberty.  He peppers his papers full of quotes from the prophets and other church leaders.  He's getting good grades....I wonder what those Liberty University professors would do if they realized who they were reading quotes of!

Happy 10th Birthday Delaney!!

"I'm finally in double digits!!"   Delaney has been so excited for her birthday this year.  She's been planning for her party (she's been super excited that it's a party year!), but she's been planning for her party since the beginning of February.

She wanted to have a sleepover.  Her desire came about!

Her itinerary included:
--play outside
--make personal pizzas
--eat dinner
--watch the new Disney movie  Frozen
--making pajama pants for everyone to wear
--have a mini spa with pedicures and manicures
--cake with chocolate milkshakes that have lots of yummy candy bar chunks

 

 

Here the four beauties are....in their matching pajama pants!

It's quite late by the time they finally got to bed.....around 11-ish.

Up bright and early in the morning (I had to take Cailin in for a science day at RU and took them home while I was out.)  a breakfast of monkey bread, strawberries and milk....Mmmmmm.

"My most favorite time was doing our nails, watching Frozen and helping mom make the personal pizzas." says the birthday girl!

Book Group-- The Rickshaw Girl and The Giver

 We've gathered with our friends once again to discuss great literature.
This month we read  The Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins.
It was set in modern day Bangladesh.  The back jacket of the book says:

 Namia loves to create the traditional alpana patterns Bangladeshi women and girls paint

 in their home for special celebrations.  Her designs are always the best in the village.

 But Naima wishes she could help earn money for her family. Her friend Saleem an 

drive his father's rickshaw.  If only I had been born a boy, Namia thinks.

The book goes on to show that Namia found a way to help her family using her talents in painting. I think we all enjoyed exploring another culture.
Bro. Mattson, while in India a year or so ago brought back clothing that the kids dressed up in. I brought out the scarfs that Barry got while in Afghanistan  These cultures are much the same.

The "skittles" group read  the Runaway Pancake.

 
For our crafting activities I made colored salt and they used it along with glue to make their own alpanas.

For the cooking craft we made Naan.  Jen made some yummy sauce from a spice package that Br. M brought from India.  It was all so yummy.

 The youthels group discussed the book-- The Giver by Lois Lowery.
Here's Cailin..... one of the three "youthels" (Jared, Beryl and Cailin. Connor was out working with Dad- yard season is beginning.)
We read The Giver for our book. Sister Mattson led our discussion and she brought four reviews from Amazon on the book. One was 5 star, one 3, and two were one star. It was surprising how much the people that wrote the one stars focused on the bad elements presented in The Giver and didn't see what it was saying about them and how to avoid them.
Overall, I really liked the book. It was a good story and had equally good morals to it. My favorite character in the book was Jonas's best friend, Asher. I don't know why he's my favorite. Sometimes I'll just really like a random side character.
I think when people read The Giver, they need to look for the good elements they see and not the bad, or if they do look for the bad, also look for how the book says to avoid or change that stuff.
Yeah.

As a side note, this is one of Connor's favorite books.  I believe he's read it three times, so maybe it's in his cannon.  I'm sure he was sad to miss this discussion.

Science Fair

Me. I was honorably mentioned. But it's not really very bad because there were 11 other people in my category. What my project was about was whether or not the amount of magnets in a Gauss rifle would affect its launch distance. A Gauss rifle is a series of magnets and steel ball bearings that work together through magnetic attraction and kinetic energy to shoot the last steel ball bearing out about one or two feet. It's not what you would think of a traditional gun at all. After researching, I found that the amount of magnets in a Gauss rifle did affect the launch distance and that the more magnets you had, the farther it would shoot. 

 Science fair wasn't as bad as I originally thought it was going to be, but it still wasn't fun. Mom wants me to do it next year but I'm not going to give a definite yes...
Basically what we did was came in the morning and waited in a room for the time that we would go and stand by our projects to be judged. The judging wasn't how I expected it and a whole lot less stressful--I had originally thought that all the judges judged you at once, but it wasn't that way, they came individually.
I got really tired of standing, though. About three hours I stood beside my board and then about two hours later, after lunch, when it was open to the public.
The awards ceremony took forever though. TWO HOURS. Two hours of giving awards.
It was a long day, but it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. I'm not exactly wanting to go back, though.

 From left to right: Greta, Emma, Emily, Celia, and ME!

 Greta! She got third place.

 Emily's was Calming the Stormwater and she also got first place.

 Celia. Her project was: Coccidiosis: Can You Ci Me? 

She got first place in her category.

 This was Terrance Lo. I don't really know him very 

well because he's in the higher Challenge programs,

but he does the Science Fair a lot.  He placed 1st overall in the senior

 division and will be going to State.

 This is Emma. Her project was titled: Got Electrolytes? And then some other

stuff that I don't exactly remember. :p But she got 2nd place in the Chemistry Category.

 This was me with my category: Physics and Astronomy. See, A LOT OF PEOPLE.

 Our awards.