Science Fair 2019

This year, Nicole participated in a full fledged Science Fair.  After 10 weeks of working through all stages of the scientific method, converting her research plan into a research paper, and creating a display, she and her classmates had one night to present their experiment to two groups of judges.  This is their big project for Challenge A, and one they were all prepared for.

In all honesty, there wasn't much inspiration for an experiment, so she picked something from sciencebuddies.com .  She thought it would be neat to learn about spherification. 

Spherifi- what? haha.  I'm a few months into this, and I'm still not 100% sure what it is exactly.  Basically, spherefication is taking a liquid or watery food item and adding sodium citrate to it to make the food alkaline.  Then you drop it into a bath of sodium...something, I forget...and it stays in little balls.  Maybe I should have had her write this blog! haha!  She was suppose to be testing how the pH affects the food's ability to become spheres.  Chefs use this technique quite often. 

Spherified Coca-Cola

Measuring the width of the spheres

Spherified Gatorade

Nicole shines at public presentations, and Friday was no different.  She loves this.

Giving her presentation to the first set of judges.

They were bold enough to taste her gatorade spheres.

Nathan & Hannah participated in the community's Geo/Science Fair.  Hannah studied sugar in food and learned how to measure out how much sugar is in some of her favorite foods. 

Nathan decided to learn about volcanoes.  Let's me honest....who can say they have graudated school without making a homemade volcano ?!? 

Mere Motherhood

Mere Motherhood: Morning times, nursery rhymes, and my journey toward sanctification by Cindy Rollins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been homeschooling for 10 years now. When a friend recommended that I read this book, I kind of rolled my eyes and said no. I didn't want another book to remind me of all the things I have done wrong, missed, forgotten, or expose even more of my failures than I already know about. My children aren't musical, we don't live on a farm (even though we considered it at one point), we don't make our own food, and..we 'only' have three children. Despite my shortcoming, I feel fairly confident in the path we have taken and the choices we have made along our journey. I've come to understand that I don't have to look or act like the typical homeschool family.

However, I decided to crack this book open, written by a mother of 9, and push past the guilt I already felt at having stopped at three. That guilt was my own doing though, not Cindy's. In fact, I never felt one ounce of guilt while reading her story chronicling her journey as a homeschooling mother. She shared her joys and victories, but also her low points too. I laughed my way through her chapter about the old farm house, envisioning myself in that same situation, in which I would have had quite similar reactions. Is it bad that I was even a little happy that it wasn't picture perfect for her? I don't think so, it simply made her relatable to me, even though I only had 1/3 the amount of children.

I enjoyed the fun stories with her boys, the sweetness of a daughter entering their lives, and appreciated the struggles that she shared in her marriage. Nothing specific is shared, but just enough to know that "I am not alone". Cindy and I still lead very different lives, but we could spend hours chatting because of our common bond of being a homeschooling mother.

I truly enjoyed reading this book. It's not a how to book, but more of a 'how I was". I closed the book inspired to try some ideas during the read aloud time I do with my own children. I may quit my failing rotating chore chart and just stick with assigned tasks. I'm going to read Shakespeare to my children, and try out Plutarch too. We will read more poetry, and I want to look into the skill of narration. Like Cindy, I will never own chickens, and I am quite certain that a 200 year old farm house is the wrong home for me, even though it's what I dream and romanticize about. Also, like Cindy, we are a baseball family. It's in our blood, even if we did the fight the schedule at first.

Mere Motherhood is a sweet story that any homeschooling mother would enjoy. It's an "easy read" that I enjoyed while my children were at baseball and softball practice, something Cindy could relate to :)


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Waterfalls

One thing I learned very quickly about Jeremy is that he will go to great lengths to not only see, but also experience a waterfall.  It's a good thing we were able to find a whole bunch right along our drive from Franklin to Highlands.

It had already been unseasonably wet, so the waterfalls were really flowing.  A few weeks later, some of the ones we have pictured here were over taking the roads. 

This was called "Bust your Butt Falls".  Apparently, it is a popular swimming destination, however the falls were much too strong to swim in.  However, I was nearly unsuccessful in convincing my husband and first born of this.  They were so close to jumping in....eek!

Jeremy and the girls climbed across a dozen rocks to settle on this one, in the middle of the river, with the falls behind them.  I was watching for the shore, because I was afraid.  Afraid someone would slip.  Afraid I would get hurt if I tried.  Afraid a snake out jump out and bite me.  Afraid someone would die.  I had all kinds of fears rushing through my mind.  But then....I looked out and saw Jeremy hold up his phone to take this picture...and it dawned on me that I was allowing my fears to reign and I was missing out.  I was missing out on adventure.  I was missing out on fun.  I was missing out on a story to tell.  And,quite honestly, my thought was this, "They are taking our family Christmas picture....and I'm' not even in it!"

So, despite my fears, I started to crawl my way to them.  My legs were shaking, my eyes were searching for danger, and my heart was pounding...but I was going to make it to my family.  

 I finally made it.  Although I was still a whiny chicken, I think my kids were proud of me.

I made Jeremy retake the picture, so that I could be in it too.  Turns out...it's not a very good Christmas picture :) haha.  

The kids crawled all over the rocks like they grew up there.  They were sure footed, and naturals.  I was still terrified that one would slip, fall into the rapids, and die.  But, no one did.  Everyone was safe.  

I can't remember the name of this falls right now, but it is famous.  It was in the movie, The Last of Mohicans.  This waterfall was from Jeremy's dreams, I'm quite certain.  I had not seen him this happy in a long time.  We spent several hours here, just enjoying the falls.  

There is a neat path that allows you to walk behind the falls

The path continues on the other side.

This looks like a better Christmas card picture, no rock climbing required.

So much fun!!!

More climbing for my adventurers

As we made our way to Highlands, there were two more waterfalls.  This one actually falls over the road.  Cars used to be allowed to drive behind the small falls, but they had it blocked off now, so we just stood behind it ;)

These are the 'falls' as we head into Highlands.  Of course, we pulled over and found a path to follow to get a closer view.  

After an exhausting and trying few days....this day of seeking out waterfalls filled this man up.  It's always fun to see him enjoy the day.