Fly Time

FLYING HIGH: Midday, we accompanied Kennedy on a trip to iFly, an indoor ''skydiving" facility. CJ and Annabelle have both enjoyed the thrilling experience before. Today, it was Ken's turn.

We got there about noon, and while Ken was going through orientation and suiting up, the kids and I watched the antics in the wind tunnel. At first, some customers were having varying levels of success floating on air. When they were done, three of the 'flight instructors' went into the tunnel and conducted some physics experiences.

They turned the wind speed way down - to under 20 mph. One of them had a cup of water and he poured some of it out into thin air. Instead of dropping down, as you would expect, the blob of water broke into hundreds of tiny droplets, which danced around on the air. This photo doesn't capture the phenomenon very well, but look closely and you'll see them. ... They kind of look like rice.

Next, the guys brought out a bunch of different sized balls. It was interesting watching them float on air, and how they could manipulate the balls by blocking or redirecting the air flow underneath them. Then, they brought out a stuffed moose the size of an 8-year-old and had all sorts of fun with him. It was pretty entertaining - we'd never seen a moose fly before.

Before long, it was time for Kennedy's 'flight.'

He did well, and judging by the look on his face, I think he enjoyed himself. :)

THROWING OUR BONNET IN THE RING: Today, I put in for the White House Tweetup for the Easter Egg roll on April 9. This year's theme is “Let's Go, Let's Play, Let's Move." The online submission form took just seconds to fill out - except for one part. Entrants were to state in 140 characters (the Twitter tweet limit) why they wanted to participate. That was hard Hard HARD. I wrote a dozen or so different versions of our reasons and after spending way more time than I had to spare on it, finally chose one. I'd say our chances are infinitesimal, but we had to at least try! One way or another, one day we WILL get to D.C. We just have to see our nation's capital and all its treasures.

NEW TOOLS : Over the past couple of days we've experimented with new types of writing tools. Yesterday, I introduced them to the thought bubble/brainstorm/mind map concept that can be so helpful in pre-writing.

I showed them an example from a book where a little girl is preparing to write a story about her mother. She puts her mom in the middle bubble and then all around it writes words and phrases  about her mom.

I asked the kids to pick a person or character to write about. Bee chose Spongebob; CJ chose Mario. Here's a pic of their bubbles. 

With their bubbles done, I suggested they look 'em over and then number them in the order they thought they should appear in their short essay. After they numbered them, they wrote their paragraphs. Their writing went really quickly, which demonstrated the value of the pre-writing.

Annabelle wrote:

Spongebob is a cartoon character and is silly. He also loves dancing and catching jellies. Spongebob has buck teeth and holes. He also has a friend named Patrick Star and loves his job at the Krusty Krab. The Krusty Krab is a cartoon restaurant. He is very happy almost all the time. Only in a few episodes he would cry. He is also square. And that is my story about Spongebob.

CJ wrote:

Mario is a fictional character in a video game who stomps creatures known as Goombas. He rides a pet dinosaur called Yoshi. He wears red and blue. He has a mustache that looks curvy. He throws Fireballs at enemies. He loves a damsel named Princess Peach. He has a opposite named Wario.

Today, I introduced them to the idea of doing a research paper. I asked them to pick an animal that they liked during our zoo trip yesterday, and then write a report about that animal. I told them that I wanted them not to just talk about what they saw, but that they needed to include facts they'd researched. I told them they could use the Internet, but they could NOT use Wikipedia. You should have seen their jaws hit the floor at that, ha ha.

And so, they used The Google to generate a list of potential resources. We talked a bit about assessing hits returned via an Internet search, and how some are much better than others.

We also talked about how it's just fine to copy and paste facts from a resource into your pre-writing, but that you can't just copy words verbatim without attributing them. That's plagiarism - a new word for them.

Here's what CJ wrote:

Siamangs are a species of animals that are related to us humans. According to Point Defiant Zoo, Siamangs are found in tree tops of tropical rain forests and monsoon forests on the island of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. According to the Honolulu Zoo, the Siamang is a gibbon and like the latter, it is an ape, not a monkey. Siamangs can sing, (sort of) and swing. according to Woodland Park Zoo, Siamangs are 30-37 inches long (75-88 centimeters long).

And Annabelle:

This is my report about Humboldt penguins. Here is what the Woodland Park Zoo said about them, for they were right in front of the entrance: The Humboldt penguin lives on rocky mainland shores, especially near cliffs, or on coastal islands. So these types of penguins love rocks, i guess. Humboldt penguins are very small looking, and you can barley tell the adults from the children. here is a picture from the zoo

They eat tiny fish. That is because they are so small. Here is another fact from a website that is all about penguins, "An average sized penguin with a full grown weight of no more than 13 pounds. When they mature they will develop a black breast band. It will extend all the way down to the thigh region. They only have one band around their neck which is an easy way to tell them from the Magellanic Penguins that live in close proximity to them."

And that is my report on Humboldt penguins.

Obviously, I need to talk to Bee about the format of a report. (No need for the "this is my report" "that is my report," for instance. That, and she needs to name her second resource. She reports it's "penguin's world something." By pasting the quote above into a browser, I found it to be Penguins-World.com

ETC.: We also tackled math and CJ had acting class today. Good times. :)