Fishing for Fun

The weather here is absolutely perfect so despite all of the projects that needed to be done around the house, we spent the day outside fishing with the kids.

We got to our local fishing spot. As we were getting out of the car, Rachel spotted this little caterpillar and immediately picked it up. No fear in this one!

It's been a while since we've been to this spot but it is just as beautiful as ever. Pond, trees, picnic tables, gazebo, trails, nature educational signs. Perfect!

In less than 5 minutes of having their hooks in the water, both kids caught a fish! Here's a video of Rachel catching her very first fish. Of course, Stuart helped a little with casting and setting the hook.



Rachel's first fish!

Nicholas is a good fisherman on his own and he wandered away from time to time to try to find just the right fishing spot.

We didn't have fancy bait, just little pieces of hot dog on the hooks. But the blue gill were biting and Rachel soon caught her second fish.

She liked touching them before throwing them back in the water.

Nicholas did great too. It was challenging at times because two little red-eared slider turtles kept trying to take our bait. We didn't want to catch one of those guys though because we wouldn't be able to fish the hook out of their mouths.

It was hard to keep up with all the fish catching going on between the two kids. That's a good problem to have!

Rachel reeled this one in then wasn't quite sure what to do with him next...



Look at this big one Nicholas caught!

He threw him back, baited his hook, and dropped his line in the water again. Next thing you know - bam! Another fish! I truly lost count of all the fish these kids were catching!

Rachel must have gotten the munchies because she was caught eating our bait!

After her little snack she was back at the edge of the pond with her fishing pole!

We had been helping her get the line cast but she wanted to show me how she could do it all by herself. She's VERY independent!



Rachel started wandering a little and as I was on the other side of the pond with her, I couldn't help but admire this view. Stuart is such a great teacher and father.

Rachel and I eventually made it back to the fishing spot. Stuart helped her catch a little fish. It's a little hard to hear her but Rachel was talking baby talk to it!



Stuart taught her a little more about casting her line.

Hold down the button.

Then swing it forward and let go of the button to release the line.

They are just so cute together!



A friend of mine was at the pond too and she stopped by to tell us Hi. She mentioned that her dad had caught a 5 pound bass in this pond. Nicholas got excited and wanted to catch a bass too.

This seemed like a good spot.

Yep, caught another one!

We're studying the character trait of Patience right now. We hadn't planned our fishing trip to coincide with our Konos work but it certainly did. The kids learned that patience is needed when you are fishing as you have to wait for the fish to bite or be calm and patient as you untangle a knotted line.

I've thought of taking the kids fishing here by myself but I was so grateful to be there with Stuart. It was more fun having him there but also he just knows so much more about fishing than I do. He was really a great teacher for the kids.

And he is very good at getting hooks out with his needle-nose pliers!

Rachel wanted to fish where Nicholas was.

And she caught a fish too!

That's a big one!

What an amazing day! Beautiful weather, time outdoors with my wonderful family, watching the kids fish and seeing their joy about their accomplishments, and watching my husband patiently help them learn how to improve their fishing skills. A blessed day indeed!

Konos: Patience - Bakery Tour

Konos Character Trait: Patience
Theme: Wheat/Bread

As part of our study on wheat, we took a field trip to the Mrs. Baird's Bakery in Fort Worth.  They offer free tours to the public but unfortunately the do have age restrictions so Rachel wasn't able to come with us.

We have a Mrs. Baird's Bakery Outlet near our home so I took Nicholas by there before we left for Fort Worth.  It was a great way to show Nicholas some of the products made at the bakery. 

It's about an hour drive to the bakery so we decided to pick up some snacks for the trip.   Yum, chocolate covered donuts!

Our tour was scheduled for 11:00.  There is a special parking area for tours. 

We waited in a little room for the rest of the tour participants to show up.  There was a small group of adults and a small group of older school kids but we were most excited to get to know the other homeschool family that had come for the tour.

This is the real Mrs. Baird's workign bakery so we had a little talk about safety.  Everyone had to wear a hair net and a helmet with an attached speaker so we could easily hear our tour guide.

We were not allowed to take pictures during the tour but trust me, it was really cool!  It was neat to see the really big equipment for making big batches of dough, the giant ovens, and the amazing conveyor belt systems.

After the tour, we returned to the little room where our tour guide sliced up several loaves of hot fresh bread for us to sample.

The sample pieces were huge - about as thick as 2-3 regular slices of bread....and covered in butter.  Um um good!

As we were leaving, our tour guide gave us free back packs and powdered donuts!  Oh how did she know my weakness for powdered donuts?

Because we didn't feel like we had already had enough carbs for the day, we stopped at the Mrs. Baird's Bakery Outlet outside the bakery.  Yes, they actually had more choices than the one we had been to earlier in the day so I'm glad we went.

The products at the outlets are fine but they are close to their expiration dates so the company wants to move them quickly at discounted prices.  Not only do you get great deals on bread products but the outlet stores also offer other special deals like this one....spend $6.00 in the store and you get to pick a free item from this rack.

What a fun (and carb-rich) day!

The Mrs. Baird's Bakery is located at 7301 South Freeway,Fort Worth, TX 76134. Tours are free to the public but must be scheduled in advance. For more information, please call the bakery at (817) 615-3050 or visit the Mrs. Baird's Bakery website.

Konos: Patience - Bread Comes To Life

Konos Character Trait: Patience
Theme: Wheat/Bread

One of the books we read to learn about wheat is, Bread Comes To Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat by George Levenson.

It is a great book for explaining to children about the process of making bread because it cover threshing wheat, grinding, making dough and baking. I thought Stuart would especially appreciate the beautiful photographs in the book so I asked him to read it to the kids after dinner.

I love listening to him read to my babies.

After reading, a ticklefest ensued which was possibly a stall tactic from the kids to avoid having to go to bed.

The book, Bread Comes To Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat is a simple book about the process of wheat to bread. It is a great book for kids but adults will enjoy it as well. It is available at Amazon.

Konos: Trust - Surface Tension

Konos Unit: Trust
Theme: Surface Tension

We have studied surface tension which is kind of like an invisible skin on the water's surface. When I was planning the lessons, I got excited about building water molecules out of Tinker Toys to demonstrate Hydrogen bonding and a detailed explanation of how surface tension works. However, we haven't done anything with the periodic table or molecules or bonding. As I tried to create a lesson plan, I realized that there would be a whole unit of study that I would need to cover to really make hydrogen bonding make sense.

But as I was sitting on the playroom floor surrounded by Tinker Toys and nearing a meltdown, my dear husband, the voice of reason, reminded me that the boy is only in 2nd grade!

I get so excited about teaching him about the world around him that I easily get stuck thinking that I need to cover everything about each subject right now. But he's got years and years to get all the details. At this age, I just need introduce the concept of surface tension with some brief explanations and lots of demonstrations.

So that's what we've done.

We talked about surface tensions briefly and drew some pictures. Water molecules like to hold on to each other and they stick to each other in every direction. But the water on the surface only has water holding it from below so the pull down is stronger than the pull upwards. This makes them more tightly bonded to each other right at the surface which creates that harder to break "skin". And of course, soap breaks this bond by making the water want to stick to it instead of each other. Simple explanation but perfect for a 2nd grader.

This video talks briefly about surface tension but it is really just cool because it shows water droplets at 5000 frames per second!

Then we did lots of demonstrations of what surface tension looks like.

We got a small squirt bottle and filled it with water. Nicholas slowly squirted a few drops of water on the top of a penny.

His hypothesis was that a little bit of water would go on the penny but most of it would just end up on the table. He was amazed to see that the water held itself together and formed a small dome of water.

Rachel did the experiment too although she just liked keeping her finger on the penny so the surface tension couldn't form. Why is three such a defiant age?

Next Nicholas the cowboy drew an outline for a paper boat. He drew several before he made one that he liked.

He decided on this larger boat and it really worked well.

Take a look at this video and see what happened when they added drops of liquid soap behind the boat. I'll give you a hint...ZOOM!!!



We cleaned out the plastic tub and put in fresh water. Then we dirtied it up by covering the top of the surface with pepper.

It was enough to make you sneeze!

Take a look at this video to see what happened next...



Here's another experiment we love. Nicholas has done the exploding milk experiment in the past and asked to do it again since some of the previous surface tension experiments reminded him of it. However, this one isn't really a demonstration of surface tension. There is a different thing happening here with fat molecules and soap but it's still a fun experiment.

You need a pan, whole milk, squirt bottle with liquid soap, and some food coloring. The silly boy is optional.

Pour the milk in the pan and add a few drops of food coloring to the center. Then watch what happens when a little soap is added...



This experiment is so cool that we did it several times. Here was our best exploded milk picture.

My kids are mad scientists and love to mix things up. Check out the fun they have with the leftover milk.



And still other things were added to the milk such as pepper and ketchup!

I love to watch them have so much fun as they explore the different sights and textures of their creations.

Konos: Trust - Boats

We really enjoyed our books on boats. We learned about history of boats, materials that are used to make boats, how to sail, and more. We covered a wealth of information on boats but still so much we didn't get to touch on.

Nicholas particularly liked all of the details in this book of cross sections of ships.

I have a book collection called Cornerstones of Freedom. These are great historical books and easy for elementary aged kids to read and understand. I was able to pull out my copy of "The Story of Old Ironsides" by Norman Richards for Nicholas to read during quiet time. He was really impressed to learn about this important ship and the role it played in the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

We learned about the boat Kon Tiki and its captain Thor Heyerdahl. Heyerdahl studied the historical artifacts of the Pacific Islands and South America then recreated an historical accurate boat that would have been made long ago in South America. It was named Kon Tiki for the Sun God. He and his crew sailed the Kon Tiki from South America to the Pacific Islands in an attempt to prove that the settlements of the Pacific Islands could have come from the east and not just the west, the Asia mainland, as was typically assumed.

We talked about the phrase "form follows function" and how God created ducks in just the perfect way to help them float and swim. They have oily feathers, flat bellies, and webbed feet for this purpose.

There were also several library books for Rachel. As usual, Nicholas read these to Rachel.

We had some fun with our study on boats and learned how to play Battleship. I found the game online HERE and it was easy to play.

I loved this game when I was young so it was really fun for both of us.

We also sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in a round as a family. I was too busy laughing to bother trying to capture it on video!

We took at field trip to a local marina so the kids could see boats in person.

This marina is really close to our house but I really just stumbled upon it.

It is rather small but perfect for our little outing.

There were a lot of ducks in the marina this day. This was perfect since we had just recently talked about ducks and how God formed their bodies in the perfect way to help them float in the water and fly in the sky.

The kids were really fascinated with watching the ducks fly around or pop their heads under the water looking for food.

My students in their classroom.

Nicholas sat down and sketched some drawings of the ducks.

Nicholas pointed out some glass floats that he had learned about in one of our library books. They are really just collector items today but they were once used by fishermen around the world to keep their fishing nets afloat. Today everyone uses styrofoam so these old glass floats were a neat find and I'm proud of him for recognizing them on his own.

A boat owner came in to the docks for supplies and he talked with us some while he was there. He talked with us about his boat and even showed us around.

Nicholas sketched a picture of the man's boat before he left.

He stopped at several other boats while we were there so he could sketch them in his journal.

Rachel just wanted to keep looking at the ducks and seagulls.

It was so peaceful out at the marina.

There was just the sound of ducks and the water lapping against the walls.

Of course, I couldn't relax too much because Rachel also liked to just run, run, run along the boardwalk so I had to run, run, run after her.

As we were leaving, there were several seagulls lined up on the handrail. My kids kept trying to sneak up close to them and then scare them off!

Thank you Twin Coves Marina for a wonderful afternoon learning about boats.

I found a great book at the library, Draw 50 Boats, Ships, Trucks, and Trains by Lee Ames. It gives step-by-step instructions on how to draw some really cool boats and ships.

Nicholas loves drawing and art work so he was excited to give it a try.

He did really well but next time he said he'll use a straight edge to help him make neater lines.

Not only is he learning how to draw but he is also learning details about how these different ships look.

We did a brief study on submarines. We used the dictionary to figure out the real meaning of the word - "sub" means under and "marine" means water.

Nicholas read two books about submarines. He learned about the early attempts at making submarines, some of the problems that had to be overcome such as buoyancy, fresh air supply, and dealing with carbon dioxide build up. He learned that the first submarine was built by Cornelius Drebbel in 1620 and it moved by human rowing.

Of course, you'll notice that there is a cool submarine LEGO creation here too. Nicholas designed this on his own after reading all about subs.

And we had a fun snack of Twinkie Submarines. Click HERE to see how we made these.

Next we'll be moving on to trusting the laws of God as they relate to flying, planes, hot air balloons, etc.