Snow Day

We have had a rare snowstorm this week, and are enjoying being home in the snow. Our area will often get a bit of snow each winter, but we usually only get an inch or two before it melts and goes away. In our yard we have over 7 inches, and it is supposed to stick around for another day or two. We continue with some of our book work, but we also took some time out to learn about snow and have some fun.

5 1/2 inches above the 2 we had from earlier

We've really been enjoying watching the birds at our feeders. We enjoy them from inside the warmth of our home but also sitting quietly outside in the snow and watching them fly over and around us. We can hear the whoosh of feathers and the calls and chirps they make.

We've had a Townsend's Warbler around, which we don't see very often. We like their bright yellow colors and their black masks.

Lots of little footprints in the snow on the porch.

Snow science

We found a neat website that explains how snowflakes form, and all kinds of information about their shapes. We read about how they are usually 6-sided, because of the bonds of hydrogen and oxygen in water. We tried to interpret the chart explaining which snowflakes form at which concentrations of moisture and temperature. Then we took our printed snowflake chart outside to catch snowflakes on black card stock, to try to see what we were getting. Our snow was tiny needles.

Tiny needles of snow on black paper

The kids pulled Daddy on the sled

Finally, we made maple syrup candy, just like they did in the pioneer days (such as in the Little House series). We boiled the maple syrup to the soft ball stage, then poured it into waiting pans of snow. It hardened into candy! Not that great for fillings or braces, but oh, so yummy. I used quakerfarm.com for the recipe, since it seemed to be the most basic.

Boiling maple syrup

Poured onto cake pans full of snow

Our finished candy, on paper towels to soak up the snow bits

We've had a great day! Now I need to stoke the wood stove again, and get some warm stew cooking for dinner.

Lego Success and Bird Feeder Fail

One of the great delights of our hybrid homsechooling program is the Lego Lab. Gabriel has a 2-hour Challenge class once a week, and Annika gets to stay and participate. This term I am also taking Annika to Open Lab for an hour during Gabriel's Thursday Clay Animation class. I am so impressed by her creativity and by how much she has grown in her ability to build what she wants since last spring. I thought it would be fun to post some of her recent creations. Here you go!

House with dinosaurs, dragon, and lots of doors and windows

Here is a car that she made. I helped her figure out how to put the wheels on, but she embellished it.

Annika was talking all weekend about making a unicorn for the next class. I helped talk her through the building of it. I have as much to learn as she does!

Today she built a dog on her own, with a little home to go into. The tail is the big long part. It is complete with body, head, tail, and four legs.

And here's the cat from today. I brought out some hinged pieces to experiment with, and she used them for the tail.

This is what Gabriel built on Tuesday. The challenge was to build terrain with dimension. He made a forest scene, with rocks, snow, water and trees.

Here's a closeup of part of the forest. See those white things? Those represent Indian Pipe, an epiphytic plant that grows in our forests. The red and orange single squares are Indian Paintbrush, a striking flower of the mountains.

A few weeks ago we went to Bird Fest in Edmonds, and the kids made bird feeders from pine cones, peanut butter and bird seed. We finally hung them up in the front yard today, and waited anxiously to see who would visit. Well, things didn't go as planned. A wily squirrel found Annika's feeder, and hung by its back legs to grab it and eat off it. The pine cone came off the string, and that sneaky squirrel nabbed it and high-tailed up the tree to its nest to eat it. Annika was distraught - oh, the tears! And, of course, Mama was the bad guy, because I should have hung it farther up so the squirrels couldn't reach it. Sigh. I guess I should have known better.

The lovely feeder that Annika made especially for the birds.

Bad Squirrel!!

There it goes, up the tree! Better luck next time for us, I guess.