Mixed Bag

HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: We have a massive grape vine on our property. Based on its trunk (yes, it looks like a tree), it's probably as old as the house - which dates back to 1907.

In years past we've pretty much ignored the grapes, but this summer has been so relatively sunny and dry, the grapes are actually tasty right off the vine this year. Yummy!

SELF PORTRAIT: Here's a pixel pic Annabelle created today. She used a program found on the Disney Web site called Pixel Art Digital Painter.

GIVING THANKS: This afternoon we spent about an hour watching a video storybook compilation from Scholastic called "Giving Thanks Storybook Treasures." It was pretty great.

It featured four stories. First was "Giving Thanks," written and narrated by Chief Jake Swamp and illustrated by Erwin Printup Jr. The story is known as the Thanksgiving Address, and it's a  Native American good morning message, with the writer thanking elements of the natural world, from the blades of grass to the stars in the sky.

"Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and illustrated by Susan Jeffers, was up next. It was an excerpt of Longfellow's famous poem. 

"The Pilgrims of Plimoth" gave great detail about the first pilgrims' journey to their new home, and the struggles they endured upon arriving (including HALF of the people dying the first winter). It gave interesting details of the daily lives of the men, women and children in the settlement. We learned about their work, their diet, their recreation, their relationship with Native Americans and how important the Sabbath was to them.

The last story was "Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship" by Nikki Giovanni, with great illustrations by Bryan Collier, narrated by Danny Glover) The story of an unusual, historic friendship between two great American leaders – Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The story told us how the men met and how much they had in common - as well as how they paid the price while battling to put an end to slavery. Afterward there was an interview with the author. It gave us a better understanding of her goals in writing the book and the resources she used to get information to write it.  .

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: We listened in on a news conference today with an update about the Mars Science Laboratory's latest activities. Right now, Curiosity is readying to take its first scoop of Martian soil. Once it does that, the mobile laboratory will begin analyzing it. What the rover will be checking is to see if the soil at Gale Crater ever offered the environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. MSL's chemical analysis should be able to tell if the ingredients necessary for life are present.

To me, on first glance the photo (courtesy NASA-JPL) looked like a footprint. What it actually is is is a wheel scuff mark.Guess that's as close to a footprint as Curiosity gets, eh? 

Mission managers predict that the first solid samples will be in the analytical instruments in about two weeks.

STORY PROBLEM: For the kids' math homework, they had to solve a mystery called The Big Top Carnival Caper.  It's from Scholastic's Math Mavens Mysteries series. I thought it was a great "real world" math problem. They had to figure out the total cost of giving away a free balloon to every 10th rider of a Ferris wheel during one day at the carnival. It was a step-by-step process, where they first had to figure out total attendance, and then how many balloons they need (1/10 of the total riders). And knowing the cost of 10 balloons ($1), they had to figure out how much it would cost to buy X amount of balloons. 

It was a great exercise to demonstrate the importance of being orderly and neat when solving a math problem, how important labels are, and keeping track of what you know, what you need to know, and how to get from A to B to C to D.

We'll definitely be doing more Math Mavems Mysteries in the future.