Find a Turtle, Get a Field Trip!!

a post by Rooster

 The other day our dog was barking a whole lot. It looked like she was barking at something. Dad told me it was a turtle that she was barking at. He was crawling in our yard. I picked him up so I could study him and see what kind of turtle he was.

My brother Bird and I put him in a box. We named him Fudge.

We looked him up in our reptile book and we found out that he was a Southern Painted Turtle. They normally live in calm water like ponds. There are not any ponds by our house. I don't know how he got here. We decided to take him to our grandparent's farm and put him in the pond there.

At the pond we saw a LOT of turtles! I think one was an Eastern Painted Turtle. Or maybe a Southern Painted Turtle like Fudge. You can't see the turtles in this picture because when we walked over to the pond they all dove into the water to hide.

We took Fudge carefully out of the box and him put him on the ground near the pond.

At first, he was scared. He tried to go towards the grass, but Dad moved him closer to the pond and then he noticed the pond.

Fudge went toward the water...

...and he jumped right in.

After we put Fudge at his new home, we explored around the pond. We saw more turtles. Bird and I had fun looking around. It was a nice break from school that day.

Our Jesse Tree

a post by Rooster

Today we made ornaments for our Jesse tree. A Jesse tree is a Christmas tree that you hang one special ornament on each day. You start on December 1st and finish on Christmas. Each ornament stands for an important part of the history in the Bible coming up to when Jesus was born. I wanted to show you pictures of the ornaments that we made.

Feeding cheetahs!!!!!!

a post by Rooster

My mom's friend from when she was in high school is a missionary to Namibia. Her name is Hannah. She has a blog so that her friends can see what she is doing in Africa.

Well, on her blog today, there sure was something exciting! Pictures and videos of leopards and cheetahs and other African animals. Hannah and her friend went on a safari, and they even got to watch a man feed the leopards and cheetahs! The video is really cool. That man could have been eaten! He is just sitting down real low throwing meat out for the cheetahs. Of course I had to show it to you.

Here it is:



You can read her blog and see all of her pictures if you want: hannahsterling.blogspot.com

Hope you have a great day!

Air Pressure & Flying Machines

One cool thing about homeschool is that if we get interested in something that is just talked about a little bit in one of our books, we can take the time to stop and study that area more. That is what we did in science class. 

You see, we have been studying birds, in our Zoology book, and there was a little part about how air pressure helps them to fly. So we decided to experiment and find out how that works. My mom always has lots of extra science experiments on hand, that she got from Super Charged Science, so we are always ready to really see how things work! (That's my favorite, because then sometimes we can skip more boring stuff for a couple days!)

What do you think will happen when Bird blows in between these two cans? We thought they would blow apart...and maybe fall off the counter! 

But actually, the cans pushed together! How did that happen? Because when air moves, it makes the air pressure go low. So when Bird blows in the middle, the air pressure in the middle goes lower, so the air pressure around the outside of the cans stays higher, and pushes the cans together. Higher pressure always pushes! 

Here is another example: We poked holes in the bottom of a water bottle, then we filled it with water. The water came out of the holes fast! 

But when we put the top on, the water did not come out the holes!! What in the world??? Why doesn't the water keep coming out fast??? Well, when we put the top on the bottle, no more air can get in that way, and that makes the air pressure in there a little bit lower. So then the air pressure outside the bottle is higher, and it pushes the water to hold it up in the bottle. That's the same thing that happens when you get a soda at McDonalds and put your thumb on top of the straw and take the straw out and the soda stays in the straw. Very cool!

We wanted to learn more about air pressure and flying, so we decided to go visit the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. 

This is me and my dad. We were looking at rockets. And I was nervous - when I looked down, I was scared, because we were up so high and we were beside just a glass wall! 

At the museum we went to the discovery area to do more experiments and learn more about air pressure. At this part we had to try and see if we were stronger than air pressure. You pushed a button to let out the air inside, and that made all the air pressure on the outside go a lot higher. Then you had to pull the knob and see if you could open the door. 

Bo pulled and pulled, but he was not strong enough. People think that a vacuum is when the lower air pressure inside is sucking the door down, but really, it's the higher pressure outside the door that's pushing the door down - Higher pressure pushes! 

In this experiment it uses water instead of air - so we can see it better - and it shows how air moves around a wing. The way you move the wing changes the air pressure and can make the plane or bird go up or down or crash! If the air moves around the wing the right way, it will make the air pressure under the wing higher, and since higher pressure pushes, the plane or bird will be pushed up, up, UP...that's called "lift," by the way. In this picture I had the wing turned around the wrong way, so they were going to crash!

We did lots of other experiments while we were there. 

We also got to meet the Wright Brothers there! Well, not really, it was just a big picture of them. I'm wearing my Stonewall Jackson shirt in this picture. I love Stonewall Jackson because he's my favorite general. But he was for the Confederates, and I like the Union. But he was still a good man. I like Abraham Lincoln, too. Anyway, the Wright brothers invented the first airplane. They were from the United States of America - our country is awesome! There have been some great inventors from Europe, but the USA has had some great inventors, too. 

This is a model of the Wright Brother's airplane. It's pretty different from the airplanes we have now. But they all have to follow the rules of air pressure, or they will crash. Anything that's going to fly needs higher air pressure to push them up! Now I guess we can get back into the regular science book...until we decide to experiment more with something else! 

**Just a note from Mamma - we got a little mixed up with logins when this was posted, so it was posted from Mamma's login, and you can see below it says that it was posted by Mamma Bear. However, it was actually posted by Rooster Boy, we just put it in the wrong place. Wanted to be sure credit was given where credit was due!**

What I've Learned About Horseback Riding So Far

About 6 weeks ago, my brothers and I started taking horseback riding lessons. Before that I had never really ridden a horse. I had been around them at my grandparents' farm, but it was boring. Riding lessons are not boring. My brothers might blog about what they are learning at riding lessons some time. We are all doing really well. For this blog, I will tell you how I am doing.










Here are some things that I have learned so far about horses and horseback riding:

1. The horse's tailbone is longer than ours. Our tailbone stops by our hip bones, but a horse's tailbone goes past the hip bones down into the tail.
2. When you groom a horse, you have to use the right brushes in the right order. The rubber curry is first, second is the hard brush, and the soft brush is third. You rub the rubber curry around in small circles. This loosens up dirt and shedding hair, and it gets the blood in the muscles circulating to help warm them up so the horses don't get stiff. You brush with the hard brush the way that the hair grows. This sweeps off the dirt and loose hair, kindof like a broom. You brush with the soft brush the way the hair grows, too, and this makes the hair smooth and shiny. Those are the brushes for the horse's body. There are other brushes for the mane, tail, and face. There is also a hoofpick to clean the hooves.
3. When I pick up the horse's foot to clean its hoof I am safer when I am closer to the horse. That way it can only push me, not kick me.
4. When I am putting the horse's foot back down after I clean it, I need to step away from the horse so it won't step on me. Trust me on this.
5. You have to sit right so that you can be safe and so that the judges will give you points. If you are not in jumping position, you need to sit up straight. You always need to press your heels down.
6. Posting is when you push into your heels and make your seat move up and down while the horse is trotting. You have to do this at the right time, with the correct leg of the horse, so the horse does not lose its balance. That's called posting on the diagonals.

Here are some things I've gotten to do at riding lessons, and goals I'm working on:

1. I got to ride Black Beauty. She is a large pony. Her trotting is very smooth. I like her very much.
2. I did 5 minutes in jumping position. That means I stay in jumping position that whole time. I have to do it for 10 minutes before I am allowed to canter. We have to wait to canter until we can do 10 minutes so we can be sure that our muscles are strong enough so that when the horse starts to canter we won't fall off. Jumping position is when you are kindof halfway standing up, leaning towards the horse's neck, but not all the way.
3. I've gotten to ride without stirrup irons when I am walking and when I am trotting! This helps me to get good at keeping my balance, and that's good so if one day I am in a show and I lose one of my irons I can just keep on riding anyway.
4. I've learned to guide my horse, which means I can tell it which way to go, or to halt or to go again, using my legs and the reigns. I'm still practicing this. When me and my brothers can all guide really good then we can all ride in the ring together at the same time.

Camping - According to Rooster

Our camping trip was so fun! We got to see an ant trail. At first we didn't even notice it, because it looked like part of a regular trail. But at night a whole bunch of ants were on that little trail, going back and forth, all night long, working so hard. They went all the way to a tree stump. It was neat.

The lake was so fun. We got to swim in it, and we went fishing, but fishing was no fun. Only Bo caught a fish, and we had to wait a long, long time...which is "Boo-Hoo!"

The hike was fun, but it was long. I found my own walking stick. We saw different kinds of trees. Some of them were really tall, and some were only baby trees.

Also, we caught fireflies. A whole bunch of them! Dad cut holes in a plastic bottle, and we put the fireflies in there. During the day, fireflies just look black and orange, but at night we can see them flying around and glowing green.