Ramblings of an Unschooling Family Part 2

Sunday, September 22, 2013

It's Official!

It's official! They are engaged! He put a ring on her finger! Darnell proposed to Hannah on Sunday September 22, 2013! No date has been set yet, but I can't wait! Hannah is a pretty independent young woman, but I am sure she will indulge her momma with allowing me to help with some of the details! Darnell will join the ranks of this family as my first son-in-law (unless Emily does something CRAZY and runs off to Vegas or something! Don't get any ideas Emily.)! One thing I am sure of, this will be one heck of a PARTY!

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Preschool: Week 2

Tori seemed to really enjoy the book that the class read this week: The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood.

There is even a video of it on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apvgbUckC-k

And the project they created to go with it:

I love the adorable butterfly they made to go with the letter "B"!

But my favorite part of week 2 of preschool was capturing a picture of Tori with 2 of her friends when everyone was actually looking at the camera and SMILING! I don't know how many pictures we have taken over the last couple of years where one child looks adorable and the other child is doing something that makes the picture not so cute!

Egg Drop

One of our favorite hands on science experiences through the years has been an egg drop. You collect packing materials, construct a container for your egg and then drop it from a given height to see if your egg will survive! This time we were lucky to have a location that offered 3 different heights for increasingly more dramatic drops. In order to proceed to the next drop, your egg needed to survive the previous drop.....

Here is a website with some great information: http://montshire.org/programs/special-events/egg-drop/

First we started off by making our containers! We had lots of materials to choose from like plastic containers, bubble wrap, tape, toilet paper rolls, material, balloons, garbage bags, egg cartons and lots more:

Once everyone was finished with their containers we headed outside and took a group photo:

Then we proceeded to drop the eggs from the first landing on the fire escape. I am guessing it was about 18 fee. Even I got involved and dropped my container:

Some of our eggs survived:

And some of them didn't:

Anyone whose egg survived went on to the second landing, around 28 to 30 feet:

Anyone whose egg survived that drop went on to the top of the landing (roof level) which was probably about 40 feet. I REALLY hate heights so Luke took my container up for me and tossed it off!

William's egg survived the final drop:

We had quite a group of kids whose eggs survived all 3 drops:

The funniest thing was after the last drop a few of the boys whose eggs had survived asked if they could just drop their eggs to the ground with no container and I told them that was fine, as long as they picked up the shell! William went and CHUCKED his egg and it BOUNCED 4 times and DID NOT BREAK! We couldn't believe it! He then threw it straight down onto the group (to prove to everyone that it wasn't some kind of trick egg) and it splattered everywhere!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Pizza Box Solar Cookers

For some reason each and every time I try to make solar cookers with a group of kids, the weather doesn't seem to cooperate! This attempt was no different! Fortunately I made a cooker the day before and it was sunny and it got HOT and cooked our treat up perfectly!

Cooker we made: http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculum/4_6/pizza_box_oven/pizza_box_ovens.htm and also at this website: http://kitchenpantryscientist.com/?p=313 We did find that adding the newspaper for insulation worked much better than our previous attempts at solar cooking!

Recipe we cooked:
1 flour tortilla
creamy peanut butter (although crunchy would probably work as well)
handful of chocolate chips (we used semi sweet ones)
handful of mini marshmallows

Spread the tortilla with peanut butter then sprinkle the peanut butter with chocolate chips and marshmallows, roll up (remember to bend in the ends so the insides don't come oozing out!). Place in your solar cooker and heat for about 30 minutes!

Edited to add pictures of the solar cooker in action that were on the other camera!

Guess who is ready for preschool???

OK, so it isn't a typical preschool but a class created for the younger siblings of the kids participating in the weekly art and science co-op we are attending this year! Tori is having an absolutely GREAT time, hanging out with her friends. listening to books, creating art projects and let us not forget her favorite part, eating snack! For art the kids all traced their hands to make a tree and then added apples to the tree. Tori is very proud of her work!

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Paper Moon Photo Booth

At Brett's wedding, there was a photo booth set up. I had never heard of the "paper moon" photo booth concept before but the idea was a really cute one! They bought some kind of polaroid type film that was supposed to give an aged photo effect but it didn't seem to work so well because you really couldn't see the images at all, so I captured a few shots with my camera and then added the effect once I loaded them onto the computer. I wish I had known the polaroid photos weren't going to turn out when we first took pictures because I didn't end up getting a second photo of me!

Brett's Wedding

Well, the first wedding of the Riesenberg children is finally here. We weren't including in any of the planning or preparation, so all we had to do was show up! OK, not going to lie, getting 10 people dressed in somewhat coordinating outfits and anyplace ON TIME really isn't a small feat, but it wasn't that stressful! Here are a few pictures that I took that afternoon......I never did get any after the ceremony of the bride and groom together, hopefully I will get to see the family shots that the photographer took of all of us with Brett before the ceremony and with everyone after the ceremony!

One child married off and only nine more to go......so even though we are no longer growing our families by birth...we are expanding in a new way....becoming IN-LAWS!