Who's A Scaredy Cat?

Ok, here's some background information before you continue......

You may recall from Daxter's Post that Precious is one of our kitties. She loves to torment our poor bird (who has finally, after 3 years, been named Toasty!) when he is in his cage.

Well, today Ratchet and I cleaned Toasty's cage. He managed to sneek out one of the food container slots and well, the rest needs to be told through pictures......



We notice Toasty has escaped.... I am a little worried at this point as Precious is a hunter with several trophies under her belt.





I am no longer worried as Precious seems to be curious, not hungry.



Where's Precious?



Ooh, found her!



She's gone again! Here Kitty, Kitty.....



Ahhh, there you are..... hiding in a corner.... from a teeny, tiny bird.



Well, after this shot, Precious jumped through the gap onto the other side of the desk and of course Toasty followed..... this went on for a few minutes until Precious took off under my desk amongst my computer wires and well, I wanted Toasty back in is cage.

Not sure they will ever be best of friend's but hey, at least we know Toasty is willing!

Inside Our Ear Accordian Book

We did these a while back but I don't think I posted them here. They go perfectly with the Ear Model we made to day so we reviewed them after we finished making the model.







Will post more as we continue our travels through the Human Body.

What's Inside Our Ear? (or how do we hear?)

Well, we have finally started with our Human Body Project again. We do not take a summer break from school but we do change our focus to outdoor time, nature and field trips etc. So now that fall is in full swing we have been doing more indoor activities.

Today we worked on the human ear. We made a model of the ear while I talked to the boys about how our ears work.











The Outer Ear, which the boys can feel on their own body, gathers and funnels sound into the.......



Ear Canal.... stretched across the end of the canal is the Eardrum, a thin sheet of tissue. When sound waves hit the eardrum it vibrates. The vibrating eardrun passes the vibrations to the.....



Hammer, which causes the Anvil to vibrate. The Anvil, in turn, causes the Stirrup to vibrate.
The Stirrup rests on a thin sheet of tissue called the Oval Window that covers an opening in the Cochlea. The vibrating Stirrup passes the vibrations to the Oval Window, which starts a fluid inside the Cochlea moving. This moving fluid pushes and pulls on the cells in the Cochlea that change the energy in the movements into electrical energy signals sent to the nerves. All of these nerves join up to form the main Hearing, or Auditory Nerve that carries the signals to the hearing center in the brain. The brain tells us what we hear and decides if we should do anything in response.

We will be doing a couple more activities on the ear later this week as well. Hope this helped you learn a little bit about what is inside your ear. I know it helped us!

Name That Homeschool!

There has been a thread going through one of my email groups about naming your homeschool. I am stumped..... I want to name ours something REALLY cool (well we do have a name already and quite frankly it sucks). We don't need a name right now but I am sure come college time (oh my how it flies!) I'll be kicking myself in the pants because I didn't come up with something sooner.

Any ideas? I want to have Boys Academy in the name but not sure what to add. Send me some ideas in the comments section.

It's A Bird....It's A Plane......It's a Montage!

Well, apparently I am harboring some sort of guilt for not posting all summer... I cannot possibly put into words EVERYTHING we have done this summer, so I have decided to do a montage Giggles, Grins and Grades style. This montage will include, but is not limited to, our outings, our trips, our pets, our goofy kids, our learning experiences...some candid shots, some attention grabbers and some just plain, nice pictures. Enjoy!



This is our newest kitty.... Smudge.



Smudge likes to swim.....



alot.....



the kids love having her in the pool and well, it saves me from having to get a dog!



Smudge likes to sleep in grocery bags....silly cat.



Smudge torments the bird.....



This is Smudge the day she came home from getting fixed and declawed.



She likes to sleep in baskets too.



Baskets that have clothes in them.



In Daxter's room.... don't mind the mess.



Smudge comes with us on car trips... and walks and to soccer.....



Pretty girl....



Smudge, the wild cat.....



This is the tree that the town hacked off half the roots from (it's on our property).... the architect inspector said it would fall on the house and not to stand under it....



This is the mound of wood chips that lay where my tree once stood. The town paid to have it removed so that my kids could sleep in their beds once more. The spent the summer sleeping in the playroom for fear of the tree falling on our house.




Halo has some yummy math time.



Who knew math could be so tasty :)





I never have to ask him to do math twice LOL! Always a willing participant.



This is Niagara Falls from the top of the Sky Wheel



We went up a couple of times, once at night during some fireworks... it was amazing!



We went to one of our local museums when they had the Lego Secrets of the Pharoah Exibit.



There were some amazing creations.



We went with a homeschool group so the kids got to dress a mummy.







Can you imagine how much Lego this took to make?????



These are the baby birds that were hatched on the side of our fence.



Hungry little birds.





Two made it out of the nest.... the other was not quite so lucky.



Our neighbors gave the boys some paintable t-shirts.







All three boys had a blast painting them and it kept them busy for over an hour! (that's a record around here!)



We got a season's pass to Marineland



This is a mama and baby whale... they were so sweet to watch.



Thought this was a cool shot with the beluga whale.



They are amazing creatures.



Look at the mouths on these fish! Can you say mutant?




Yes, I was teasing the fish with a twig to get them to open those massive mouths.
Shameless, I know.



This bear has the life... looks comfortable huh?



Halo at the bear enclosure..... it's those unintentional pictures that turn out wonderfully.





Halo and Ratchet loved the deer. Daxter had some hygiene issues. Apparently deer slobber is a yucky thing. Who knew?





Some rides at Marineland.



The shows were neat to watch too.



Rides and shows and deer wear little ones out.



The next Tiger Woods?



Dad helping Halo out.





We made a model of human blood.



Corn Syrop = Plasma, Mini Marshmallows = white blood cells, Cinnamon Hearts = red blood cells, Sprinkles = platelets.



We also made edible blood (cocoa, food coloring & water).... no one ate it though as it was too "gross"



Time (and pictures) fly when you are having fun!





Halo at the water park... it's nice because there are lots of slides that he can go on too.



Daxter getting ready to get soaked.





Some dry fun.





Some wet fun.



The kids leave these pictures every now and then. This is Halo's guy.



The boys assembled a life size skeleton.





Daxter puts together a puzzle cube from a book I got a yard sale for $1.



Too tired to play video games?????



Our garden.



Ratchet learned to swim this year! 3 sets of swimming lessons couldn't do it, but a week in the pool can.



Way to go Ratchet!







Would you believe me if I told you that we have a no jumping in the pool rule?




We had 4 nights of soccer a week this summer. This is Daxter on the field.



This is Daxter with his medals after his tournament.



Ratchet on the field.



Ratchet with his medal.



Ratchet being.... wll, being Ratchet.



Halo on the field. His picture with him and his medal also had the whole team and I did not have permission to show them on here.



Hmm... what can a 4 year old do 3 nights a week while his brothers play soccer?



He can have a snack!



Tasty!



All done!



This is what my boys do to entertain themselves. That's Daxter and Halo rolled up in pretzel together.



Halo found a monarch.



He's gonna be a rockstar.



Those bears crack me up.





Another park we went to had a petting zoo. More like a feeding zoo.. the animals were starving!







Just hanging around.



Daxter is actually pretty good at softball.... it even surprised him!

Well, I think that about does it...... our summer in a nutshell. All guilt is absolved... for now.

Keep giggling!