Sledding

Last wednesday we headed to the mountains for some sledding.  We haven't had much snow down in the valley this year, but once the mountains get a few feet, it stays until late spring/early summer:)

:)

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Color

Kyan decided that the toolbox that Lee built him a few years ago needed some color:)

mixing yellow and red to make orange, the color he wanted for the inside

Damek offered to help paint the inside

A job well done:)

        

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Inventions From China

Lots of great inventions have come out of China we've been finding out recently.  First by reading Virginia Walton Pilegard 'Warlord's series of books,

and then by finding out more information on the internet.

The books we started out with were 'The Warlord's Messengers' and 'The Warlord's Beads', not realizing that they were part of a series.  After finding out there were more books and that they were all part of one series, we checked out the remaining books from our library and read them in order.

Both boys liked the books and were intrigued to read each one to find out what happens to the main character Chuan in each.

There is a project at the end of each book that explains how to recreate a similar invention to the one that was described in the book itself.

'The Warlord's Puzzle' is about the tangram

'The Warlord's Beads' is about the abacus

'The Warlord's Fish' is about a floating fish compass

'The Warlord's Puppeteer's is about puppets and puppeteers

'The Warlord's Kite's is about kites using the finest Tang Dynasty paper

'The Warlord's Messengers' is about a wind sock

'The Warlord's Alarm' is about a water clock

After reading the books, I noticed a friend had posted on facebook about watching a show titled 'Where Did It Come From:  Ancient China' on the history channel about farming inventions that had come from China (hoe, wheelbarrow, cast iron guan plow and a seed planting drill).  Some other inventions we also found out came from China by doing a bit of research on the internet were:  dominoes, ice cream, laquer paint, pottery wheel, seismograph, jump rope, wallpaper, sundial, fireworks, and waterwheel among other things.

The "4 great inventions" that came from ancient China are the compass, gunpowder, paper making and printing.

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Computer Literacy

"If students aren't taught the language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read or write?"

George Lucas
I think the above quote also applies to computers.

On that note, I'm feeling rather computer literate today after Kyan came to me needing help downloading and installing a Minecraft Mod, and I was actually able to help him:)  We've spent a lot of time and been unsuccessful trying to get a Minecraft server setup.  The boys were playing on a server someone on the Always Learning list set up, but it crashed and hasn't been accessible since.  Thankfully our friends set one up also and the boys can play on theirs, but they still would like their own.  Damek and I have spent lots of time, watched different youtube "how to" videos, and downloaded what was required all to no avail.

So today when Kyan approached me about installing a mod I thought "here we go again".  I downloaded the mod and watched a youtube video explaining how to install it.  We had to download a file manager software in order to open up the required minecraft folder to put the mod in, and that was what took the most time.  I downloaded a free one called 7-Zip, but when trying to open the minecraft folder it wasn't recognizing it as being installed on our computer.  I tried to download another suggested one called WinZip, and it ended up installing a toolbar as well as messing up the mod we had downloaded.  I was able to uninstall it thankfully and went back to square one.  I'm computer literate enough that I was able to find the 7-Zip by going into different folders on our hard drive to find it and open up the minecraft folder.  The second stumbling block came when trying to drag and drop the mod files into the minecraft folder.  It would not let us do it.  I tried to drag and drop & copy and paste to no avail.  Finally I just dragged each individual file onto the desktop and then was able to drag them into the minecraft folder.  It worked!

End result Kyan was happy:)

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Birds & a building

Our local aviary, Tracy Aviary, has been going through some major upgrades in the past few years, we have been pleasantly surprised watching it all happen.  We got to go yesterday to see the new building they have been working on and that is finally finished.  It houses the gift shop, offices and educational center.

My mom came with us, and upon exiting the car and grabbing my camera to take a picture, I realized I hadn't put my camera battery back in my camera after charging it;(  My mom graciously let me borrow her camera to take pictures:)

We got to hear a "Keeper Talk" about Toucans in the South American exhibit.  They have a pair of Keel Billed Toucans as well as a family (mom, dad and 3 young) of Aracari that look like mini toucans and are a close relative.  Was very interested to hear that Flickers, birds that we have around here and that live in North American are related to Toucans.  They are in the Piciforme class.

Angry Birds:)

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