For this week's nature time, following Barb's Winter Weds, we wanted to find out how many cups of snow would eqaul 1 cup of water.

I set out measuring cups the night before, as the snow was falling.

The next day we brought in the 3 cups and allowed them to melt.

That gave us a little less than 1/2 a cup....so we thought another 3 cups of snow, the kids collected them from the back yard, we thought that would give us a full cup...it was a little less than that. So we needed 7 cups of snow to make 1 cup of water.

The kids were fascinated with the fact that the snow was SO LIGHT!

Jayda apparently thought we needed to draw several cups to understand the idea! LOL 

The year of the Ox!

My daughter asks me this morning, after glancing at the calendar, 'Why are the Chinese just starting their year?'  I responded, 'Would you like to learn about the Chinese New Year?!' She replied, 'Yes!' So that'd exactly what we did! 

~ Chinese New Year is the most important of the Chinese holidays, and is a time of feasting with the family, celebration, fireworks, and gift-giving. It is a 15-day holiday, beginning on the first day of a new moon and ending with the full moon on the day of the Lantern Festival

~ The Chinese calendar follows a 12-year pattern with each year named after an animal. There are various stories which explain this. The simplest is that Buddha (or the Jade Emperor) invited all of the animals to join him for a New Year celebration, but only 12 animals turned up. To reward the animals that did come, Buddha named a year after each of them in the order that they arrived, starting with the Rat, followed by the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (or Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.

~ Ancient Chinese legends tell of the Nian, a man-eating beast from the mountains which came out every winter to feast on humans. To scare the Nian away, the people used loud noises such as firecrackers and fireworks, and bright colors, particularly red.

~ Days leading up to Chinese New Year, homes are spring-cleaned thoroughly so that all the bad luck of the previous year is swept away (and on the first day of the new year, brooms and dustpans are put away and never used in case the good luck of the new year is swept away!) Often houses are freshly painted. Traditional Chinese homes sometimes get a new coat of red paint, as red is a particularly lucky color. Homes are decorated with paper-cuts.

~ Also used to decorate homes are Chinese couplets. These are two tall posters, usually consisting of 4 Chinese characters each (as eight is a lucky number), which are hung on either side of the front door. The couplets express traditional good wishes for the year ahead.
 

~ At Chinese New Year parents, family and friends give money to children in red envelopes. The red color symbolizes good luck, and the amount of money can be anything from a small coin to a larger amount. Lucky money envelopes are also known as Red Packets or Red Envelopes.

We made simple Chinese Lanterns. We tried making the more complex ones, but they were a little too much, so went simple!

So we've been watching our mason jars to see how long it takes for the food to mold. The kids were thinking it would never grow. They were doing the growing ~ growing dissapointed by the day.....

Finally day 11/12, we have mold!! Woo Hoo!

What fun it is to look at mold!!!

Next we are going to draw & name various mold types -- oh the possiblities of what could be in this jar!

  Jayda apparently thought it was rainbow looking! LOL

 Kaden's

Barb at Handbook of Nature Study is hosting Winter Weds! So I thought we'd give it a try since I've wated to jump into her nature activities for some time now.

This week was a snow activity, but seeing that we here in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are not getting much in the way of snow, but rather 60 degree weather; we decided to go back to week one and look for colors in winter!

So we used our weekly nature to do so.....

This grass has turned pink......perhaps something in the soil b/c there were other things that were pink as well.

A dried milk weed plant

A lake that is partially frozen

A dead fish from the lake

The scales were neat, they are individually round

A little green amongst the dead brown brush

I think this is wild flower is beautfiul, even in its dried winter state ~ a yellowish color

Bird's Nest, we saw quite a few

A pink rock

Tall reddish bushes

Orangish-red....I think the same wildflower

There were numerous prairie dog holes

~ and of course some came out to see us

The ending to our walk ~  someone chose to break into my van and my freinds van -- and stole her purse.  We drove to this location...and we were greeted with broken glass on our return. Bummer, but it was a beautiful day out!

Van Gogh's ~ 'Bedroom in Arles' ~ 1888

What a cool room, eh?! This is actually Van Gogh's room from his Yellow House, what he called his own home.

The kids and I immediately noticed the strange view. The room is not a rectangular shape, but more a trapezoid. The kids pointed out the frames, how they are slanted.

The bright and bold colors, we all commented on those. Again, using his signature yellow color.

Seems like a joyous person would have painted this -- all the colors and fun, quirkiness of it, but we know that is not the case.

He actually wrote many letters to his family about this particular painting, you can read one of them to his brother here.  This was one of Van Gogh's favorites.

A couple recreations....

Using BORAX, we made a bouncy ball today......

Two cups, borax solution and ball mixture

We mixed borax and warm water for the borax solution

Then added food coloring....

Then a tablespoon of glue to the ball cup

and to the glue we added a little bit of borax solution and cornstarch, and let it sit

Then begin stirring, once you can't stir any longer, take it out and use your hands....

Now its supposed to bounce......however, ours did not.

We are going to try again another time and see what the problem is. Maybe look for a different site for the instructions. Here is the site we used.

Van Gogh's, 'The Chair & the Pipe' ~ 1881

 Looking at the painting, the kids quickly pointed out the 'oldness' of the tile floor. It was actually painted in a kitchen and it was in fact, a tile floor.

They found this to be much simpler than the other paintings Van Gogh has done -- simple brush strokes, straighter lines.

The main color used is yellow; did you know that yellow became Van Gogh's signature color?

Also, the pipe and bag of tobacco on the chair -- that was Van Gogh's. He actually began smoking b/c Charles Dickens said that it was a cure for melancholy.

Here are our recreations.

Jayda

 Kaden

Taylor

We started a study on mold yesterday.

We talked about what mold is & where we find it.  We talked about the fact that it grows but is not a plant, but a fungus. And unlike plants which use seeds, mold uses spores.

  Spores from fungus grow by living on something else.  The air is filled with mold spores, but we can’t see or smell them.  Spores travel through the air until they find the right conditions to grow in. 

We then took two jars and placed various food items inside each, some the same, some different. We also moistened some and not others. We placed them in different locations and will continue to check on them for the next week or two.

We want to find out the right conditions for growing mold, does it need to be dark, light, dry, moist, etc.

Here are a couple sites with great info Granny's Garden and How Food Gets Rotten

We finished 'Mrs Frisby' today. We very much enjoyed this book. The kids and I found ourselves wondering what it would be like to have a rat clan of our very own living in our yard. We talked about what the world would be like if rodents, or any animal, were as smart as humans. Interesting thought, huh?!

 I read it years ago, but to read it again with 'adult ears,' well, I thoroughly enjoyed it! 

Here are a couple drawings of scenes from the book.

Our next read-aloud, as suggested by my sister and continuing on with our Newberry & Honor Award books...

Can't wait to begin!!! I've never read it, surprisingly.

We started this last week but the kids just journaled about them today. We actually made them twice b/c the first time we did not add enough Borax!!

Thank you, Melissa, for the idea!

Click here for the link to make them.