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.

Hale's Happenings in February

We had fun making frozen bananas in honor of our FIAR-rowing of  Caps for Sale.    Mmm, those things are really good!  Plus we (Brianne, Liam and I) had fun reading, acting out, and doing other fun activities based off this whimsical book.

Arrggghhh.......

It's happened again....two years ago our dishwasher died...and now it's died again.   I suppose that after washing 2 to 3 loads per day for 2 years a low grade quality machine will just wear out.    We didn't get the lowest priced one....but 2nd lowest isn't so great either.  So now we're back to hand washing and nobody is liking it!  Can't wait till we can get a new one :)

Science with Delaney and Liam....  We're continuing our learning of fossils and dinosaurs.
These cookies are "fossil cookies".  The fork imprint on shortbread cookies.

Liam continues to love his "Skittles School"--funny kid :)
Since he can't seem to learn the letters at home, we'll just go over what is being taught in his class with Amber, Marshall and Sister Mattson.

Cailin--  The pictures show her pulling together the last bits of her science fair presentation.

"Um...February was...February. It was cold and boring. That pretty much sums of winter in general. I finalized my science fair project (gag) but the science fair itself was in March...I'm going on the Trek because of my grade. I'm going into 9th but I'm 13. I don't know, what else happened? Play auditions for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I got Mrs. Gloop. Yeah, I know, don't laugh, but it is a step up from my pathetic past roles. That's all I can think of right now...yeah. That was February. "


Connor--  For the month of February, I have, of course, been doing schoolwork. There isn't much to tell about that though. For scouts, we have had a court of honor. It was at this time that I was awarded several required merit badges (my sash now holds thirty merit badges). Once I obtain my eagle( which is not far off) I will only need three more merit badges and I'll have all three eagle palms. I have also begun playing the role-playing game Pathfinder (I believe Ryan described it a while ago). Those are this month's highlights.

Beulah's been battleing various illness which all seem to converge together and knock her our flat in the hospital.  She's doing better and is now in a short term care facility.  We hope she'll be home soon.

Cotton Jr. the III (considering Liam looks just like his Daddy as a child too)

Saturday, February 22nd was one exceptionally nice day.
 It was sandwiched by two snow days...but we took advantage of the warm spring like weather and had an impromptu pizza picnic.  Oh how we long for more days like this.

 While we picnicked on pizza, Cailin and Connor were spending the afternoon at a youth stake activity preparing for the pioneer trek they will be attending in July.

Connor is teaching Liam how to play chess....another budding logic minded soul!

For History group this month Delaney gave a presentation on the Berlin Candy Bombers.  She loved the story about Mercedes that was read to her during writer's workshop.  While working on Easy Peasy for history she and I read again about the Berlin Airlift and she recalled the story of the candy bombers so we just had to find out some more.
Come to find out it was Brother Gail Halverson....a Mormon who started it all.  We loved that his favorite saying was "From small things come big things".....humm, I wonder where he got that.  We loved looking for those scriptures in the Book of Mormon that talked about   Out of small things come that which is great.

Although I was sick and didn't go...so was Brianne for that matter, Connor who met up with his siblings after his Latin class at the Brame's home decided to give an impromptu presentation on solubility and the chemical explanation of solutions.

Delaney couldn't talk about a Candy Bomber without simulating one....so we made lots of little parachutes with candy attached and she threw them into the air for all the kids to find.



Ryan-- The great month of February. A month full of work and fun. I was able to play so many things of pathfinder and my brother Connor got into it. Things are great. I also went to institute and learned more about the Word of Wisdom and other Church history events. Unfortunately it seems that my family got hit by sickness or at least my Mother did for a week. And it seemed to coincide with one of my forum friends getting sick who hasn't been on in the past two weeks. I've also had many tests within the month and I still have many more to come. I've diligently been working at my schoolwork and I haven't fallen behind once yet. Me and Connor do your Cardfights every day even though he has to push me to do them. He wants to train to be able to participate in a card shop tournament.

Westward Ho!! in 2013 style

On December 17, 2013 at about 7:30 pm we started out on our quest to see the west. We left amid a wind and rain storm, but we really had no idea about what "Cold" meant in western terms. Traveling across the flat lands of mid west, we came to the conclusion that we have it pretty good in the Old Dominion.

We stopped at a rest stop in Minnesota. This area is fairly close to where the Mayo clinic is. We had been on the road for almost 15 hours and it was nice to take a break in this small play ground. I should point out though, that the subfreezing temperatures made the play date rather short. The temperatures were below zero, I believe around -5*.

I have to say that all the kids did great on the trip. But Brianne really did great. For her to be so little, she kept her self entertained most of the time. She was a real trooper.

This windy land is a really great place for a windmill farm....guess someone else thought of that too.

We had two  portable DVD players that became worth their weight in gold. Travelling across the prairie can be pretty boring. It makes me wonder what the children in the covered wagons did for a laugh.

These picture's blue appearance is due I think to the fact that Vicki took them through the wind shield.

V-  These signs remind me fondly of my dear Grandpa Grant.  He use to drive for Cenex.  I sure miss that guy!
Loved the sayings of the signs.....Next Rest Stop, Anyone Guess.    and    Gas now.  Or gas can later.

Roadside signs were the only thing that kept the drive through South Dakota amusing or interesting...there were soooo many of them!

Our first leg of the trip was about 22 hours in the car.  We found a place to stay in Chamberlain, South Dakota.  finding a hotel  with a swimming pool was our biggest desire...and we did.  It was a great way to relax and gear up for the next few days of traveling.