I haven't written here much lately due to sickness in the family, but had to tell you about one school day last week.....

I came out of my bedroom/office with a pile of printouts all ready for our school work that day. When I got to the living room, I found all the kids busily engaged in an activity of their own. Rebekah (7)  was making turtles out of card and paper (the mummy ones had a secret compartment underneath full of babies!). Sarah (9) had joined her and was trying to make some too. Sam (13) was curled up with her notebook and math. Ben (11) was building and experimenting with various materials, and Chris (15) was reading a historical book.

As I walked through the door, Sam asked me a complicated math question, so I put down the printouts, picked up a whiteboard marker and worked it out. She told me I was right  and promptly asked me another. After the third, I said, so what am I doing, checking your math?? She said, no, I'm trying to work out how big to make a scale model/drawing of Noah's Ark. Ah-hah!  A "teachable moment!"

So, we spend some time together talking about scale, and doing various calculations on the board. Finally we concluded that if she wanted to draw it to scale so it fit on a page (which is 30 cm/12 inches long), it would be 1/450th of the original, and 30cm long and 3 cm high. Then I suggested that she go outside and find out how big Noah's Ark really was. We talked about how she could measure that distance with a tape measure, and concluded it was easier with two people. So she and Sarah went out to our field, stood at one end of the property, marked it with a flag, then measured down the field until they got to the 450 feet specified in the Bible. It turned out to be almost the exact length of our property! They were so excited - one of them came running in to tell me they'd done it and come look. Then we measured the width and height of the ark down a side fence. And took lots of photos. We also calculated that the floor area of the ark would have been .77 of an acre - good thing we have over an acre of land! Then Samantha and Sarah spent most of the rest of the morning working on writing up their findings. Here they are in their own words:

The Size of the Ark