Plywood, Paper, Pumpkins

PAINTING PUMPKINS: This morning, I struck upon the idea of making three-dimensional paper jack-o-lanterns out of paper plates. Our first step was cutting out a stem for them. Next, I had the kids trace and cut out yellow circles, which would be glued on the concave of one plate to later provide the "illumination" of the jack-o-lantern's inside. Then they each painted the bottom of one plate, solid orange.

While painting his paper pumpkin, CJ became frustrated. He expressed that by declaring, "This is becoming harder than pulling a rabbit out of my ace." (And yes, he said 'ace,' knowing that ass is a 'bad' word.) I have no doubt he gleaned the phrase from one of the video game reviews he has watched on YouTube.
Anyway, I told him I thought the rabbit trick would be a LOT harder than painting the pumpkin. Somehow he managed to get the plate painted.

After they dried, I had the kids flip them over so that they were orange side down, and draw a face on the plate. Then they cut out the features, and we flipped it back over, orange side up and out. We glued the plates together and voila! a painted paper plate pumpkin! (In case you're wondering, CJ's is up top, and Bee's is the one with the heart shaped nose.)

TALKIN' BASEBALL: With the World Series just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to find out a bit more about baseball, or, should I say baseballs?

Today we took a virtual trip to a baseball making factory and learned a lot (thanks to a Discovery Channel "How It's Made - Baseballs" video on YouTube). We found out that baseballs have a cork core surrounded by a rubber casing. This is called the "pill," and it's about 4.5 inches in circumference. The pills are coated with a latex adhesive, and then covered in three layers of wool yarn. Then the yarn covered ball (called 'the center') is coated in glue. Next, two figure-8 or hourglass-shaped pieces of leather are wrapped around it. Then they are hand-sewn together in sweat shops. Er, I mean factories.

The kids were rapt during the whole process, and I have a new appreciation for just how much work goes into making each baseball.

GAME ON: Even though they've beat them game, the kids are still interested in "Kirby's Epic Yarn" and played for about 15 minutes this morning.

Annabelle was having trouble getting the hang of one level and said, "Go ahead without me. I'll catch up."

"How do you know you'll catch up? Don't make promises you can't forgive," advised CJ (rather hysterically). While he was at it, he added, "And stop saying 'Go without me CJ.' I also think it's pretty lame."

Clearly if Annabelle is going to play two player games with CJ, she's going to have to step it up. ;)

While his words might sound harsh, in actuality she does give up too easily, and the way you get better at a game is by playing with or against people who are better than you (I saw this over and over and over when I coached scholastic chess many moons ago).

FOLLOW THROUGH: This afternoon we worked on science homework. The kids answered comprehension questions after reading a story about garbage and recycling from their south science class. For the northern science class, the homework asked them to replicate their lab work of Wednesday, finding different kinds of paper around the house and using various instruments to write on them, then recording their thoughts about which paper they liked writing on best and why.


We also took another look at the completed plywood-related projects they brought home. In class they had each easily snapped a craft (Popsicle) stick in half. The instructor had them glue three sticks together, and today I had them try to snap the 'plywood' they'd made.

"Mom, it's so hard," Annabelle whined.

"Ow, my hands," CJ complained.

Lesson learned - plywood can be really strong.

While on the subject of science, I recalled that in the afternoon class Wednesday, their instructor had tried to show us a YouTube video of a squirrel named Triscuit that visits her house looking for food. We couldn't see it in class because the site was blocked (a lot of schools block YouTube). Be did find it on our own, though. In fact there are two videos of Triscuit the hungry squirrel, here and here.

TECH TIME: We read a couple more chapters of Bill Gates Computer Legend today. In doing so, we learned about the ALTAIR 8800. When Paul Allen saw it on the cover of Popular Electronics in 1974, he knew he and Gates had to hop to it. ALTAIR's maker was still in search of a program to make it work, and Gates and Allen said they had one - though it wasn't true at the time. They did, however, create one over the course of eight weeks, and when they flew to MITS' headquarters in Albuquerque, it ran the first time through.

In April of 1975, Gates and Allen formed Micro-Soft (sic). Allen went to work for MITS full time and Gates dropped out of Harvard to work full time on his new business. To be continued ...

COMMUNITY CARNIVAL: Tonight was an event the kids have been looking forward to for weeks - a little the Halloween carnival at the Magnolia Community Center. Christian took them while I stayed home feeling crappy.

They played a few games, Annabelle decorated a pumpkin and the highlight was their trip through a haunted house, where middle schoolers jumped out from dark corners and startled them. "Oh was that scary. It scared the crap out of me!" CJ reported to me.

REST ASSURED: I realize Annabelle has her PJs on in every photo here. I swear, she did get dressed at some point today - maybe 11 ish?