No School Day 8

Day 8 no school,

Started the day off with PE- dog walking style, so much rain last night, should have worn our rubber boots to walk down the road. Glad we did our ditch cleaning service on no school day 1, the ditches were filled to capacity and overflowing this morning.

Chloe went along too but is so spoiled she got to be carried instead of having to get her paws wet.
On the way home, out of the blue Brittney bends down and picks up TWO four leaf clovers! How lucky is that? No idea how she could even spot these as we were just walking down the road with grass and weeds on both sides. She sure does have an eye for 4 leaf clovers, finds them all the time! Lucky girl.
 
Social Studies/History - Watched American History for Kids, the Civil war. Interesting documentary about how kids were involved in the war. Kids as young as 8 helped as drummer boys, runners, gun powder carriers and assisted the medical teams to help the wounded. I never knew they had kids in the war! Our kids have it pretty easy to be called to stay home right now instead of fight in a war!
 
Civil engineering- Carissa and Scott worked on flood control and ditch digging. This seems to be endless this year! There is just so much water, never seen it like this before. It is only a temporary fix but at least drained out big puddles in the driveway.
 
Engineering- Brittney designed a way to hang her new saddle blanket rack from day 4. Used a bolt and some duct tape to make a bridle hook work in the close hanger rod. So proud of her for thinking of this on her own. She just "saw" it in her mind. We may have an engineer on our hands!
She also helped built a saddle rack out of some old gridwall parts. Reminded me of my days working a AA Callister We used to build racks like this all the time for saddle displays.
 
Music- quite a bit of piano playing today.
 
Band- found a new reality documentary series about competitive marching bands. Kids were glued! Then hoping to be able to do "real" band again someday.
 
Veterinary science- Lameness examination and evaluation, wound cleaning and doctoring of my mare Autumn. Right rear, only a small cut but it is swollen and sore.

No School Day 7

Day 7 no school,

First day of grumpy kids during no school break, I think they got too comfortable resting on Sunday. Hard to kick start the week today.

History - Still working on learning about the Civil war for Carissa. Watched Minutes from the Civil war, had some interesting facts. Our favorite tidbit was that soldiers were issued a rubber covered canvas cloth that was just invented with the Goodyear patent. The rubber made the cloth waterproof and was used either to put on the ground to sleep on or to put over you in a downpour. It certainly rains a lot around here!
 
Shop & Math- Brittney and I worked on upcycling an old sink and walker and a scrap sheet of plastic into a new camping sink complete with a new electric pump faucet. Pretty much done except we need a longer hose for the clean water and still waiting on one part for the drain. Prime shipping seems to be at least 7 days right now instead of 2! Brittney learned there is LOTS and LOTS of measuring and adding fractions when it comes to building anything. Will post a video of it in action once we get it totally completed.
 
Carissa helped build the "potty throne" for our portable potty. The original is was just a little too short for comfort. The new stand makes it just perfect. Ran out of time to paint it. Going to have to wait for another day since it is going to rain tomorrow. Lesson learned, pre-drill small parts of wood before using screws or it will split and you have to do it all over. Tried to cheat the system, see no school day 4 on repentance.
 
Geology- Carissa found a nearly perfect heart shaped rock in the driveway.
Civil engineering- perhaps a bit too much time building cities on Minecraft today in between projects. Tomorrow those devises may be quarantined or on lockdown like the rest of the world.

No School Day 6

Day 6 no school

Yes, it's Saturday, but there hasn't been school for a week and perhaps we will take a different day off some time, so "home school" was in session!

Beautiful sunny day, although cold

Social Studies/History. Carissa was supposed to be studying the civil war at regular school this week so we decided to go to Wilson's Creek National Battlefield where a civil war battle was fought. We learned the first Union General was killed in battle there, General Lyon. In our opinion the best way to see the national park is on horseback, you know, how the people and the soldiers back then would have done it! We want to be authentic.
 
We had a lovely ride up until the point of crossing Wilson's Creek, (which for my Utah friends is huge river) Before our ride the park ranger assured us the river crossing was open and the river didn't look too deep. Well, you can't always trust a government official, because as the kids on their horses headed into the river it was up to their saddle pads! Instant lesson in water run off and why we should pack extra socks in the first aid kit we carry. Although wet, the kids made it through fine, Scott and I chose to go a different way and not go swimming today. Probably wouldn't have been bad had it been August when the real battle of the war was fought. But today it was under 50 degrees so not the best weather for swimming. Then we had a great picnic lunch at Confederate General Sterling Price's cabin where the battle of Bloody Hill unfolded many years ago.
 
We enjoyed the new trail riding seat cushions, they worked perfectly (see No school day #3 and #4 for more info)
 
Always more fun to go visit places where history happened than to just read about it in a book! And yes, we practiced social distancing, lots of distancing.
 
Earth Science- noticed that the national park is much better at controlling water run off and erosion on their trails than the state forest is. The national park has man made intermittent flat areas on the trail and areas to direct the water off the trail so it doesn't run straight down and cause complete trail erosion like we experienced at the state forest.
 
Music- as we drove to the battlefield we looked out the window and what did we see? Popcorn popping on the Bradford pear tree. Then we all had to burst into song!
 
Civil Engineering- Kids did have a bit of time to work on building their Minecraft cities. Because of our recent trail rides and encounters with erosion they have decided to remove all dirt roads from their "cities" and replace them with pavement, add drainage ditches to both sided, build a reservoir to handle the run off, add a power plant to light the city and add other rivers to drain off the reservoir when it gets too full so it doesn't flood the campgrounds. Ya that is going to take awhile.

No School Day 5

Day 5 no school

Today was mostly an independent study day for the girls.

Biology- Brittney was assigned to research: The Corona Virus/Covid 19, Parvo Virus and Polio Virus. She wrote a 6 page paper and presented her findings in an oral report to us this evening. Among other things, she discovered that so far Parvo and Polio are more resilient, more deadly and harder to kill than the Corona Virus. Although both of the previous ones have been around long enough that there are vaccines available. Perhaps one day the Covid 19 will have a vaccine too. She found the Virus research very interesting and is going to continue on with her research.
 
Earth Science- Carissa was assigned to study and report on the earthquake that happened in Utah this week. The earthquake was 5.7, the largest since 1992. She had previously interviewed her grandma and learned that at her house lots of items fell off shelves and there was no power for hours, but no major damage. Grandma lives only 7 miles from epicenter of the quake so she felt the full force of the rumbling. Carissa learned the earthquake was the "normal" kind of earthquake where the fault lines stretch or pull away from each other. In other words, "the fault line is practicing social distancing."
 
Band- Flute, Piano, Xylophone all practiced and music score writing implemented.
 
Home ec- both practiced using such novel items such as a washcloth, broom, dust pan and a mop, oh my. But we were assured, no paper towels were used in the kitchen cleaning process. Those are precious you know!
 
Scott and I went to 2 Walmart's, 2 Sam's Club's, Menards, Braums, and Harbor Freight and found no Toilet paper or eggs at any of the locations. However, Menards, the hardware store did have lots of my favorite cereal in stock with no quantity purchase limits, score!
 
And on a sad note, Krispy Kreme no longer is handing out free donuts when the hot light is on.

No School Day 4

Day 4 no school "home school learning, rained most of the day so we had to mostly do indoor projects:

Engineering/Home ec continued from Day 3-designed and sewed waterproof seat cushion covers for next time we need to sit on a wet bumpy log while out trail riding. Carissa and Katie did the sewing.
Repentance/do it right the first time- kids learned how it is much easier to sew it correctly the first time than it is to unpick your sewing mistakes with a seam ripper, then have to redo it all, especially with heavy upholstery thread. But everything is fixable.
 
History- after a discussion during sewing project above about how we were actually doing an assembly line making it faster and easier to complete the project. Watched an episode of the documentary: The Men Who Built America on Henry Ford.
 
Animal Science- Dog grooming, clipping and cleaning.
 
Chemistry- learning we have at least 3 chemicals on hand, other than bleach, that kill Corona Virus among other things.
 
Shop class & Math - Brittney made a much needed saddle pad rack for the horse trailer. She had to use actual algebra to calculate the length of rope needed, with knot, measurements. Plus had to add in fractions for the pipe diameter. Paper was required. She calculated perfectly, that A in Algebra 2 is paying off in the real world.
 
Mechanical Engineering/mechanics- Scott and Brittney put a new chain on "Shina" the horse pedal cart. Turned out to be quite the mechanical problem but was solved, by thinking outside the "box" and learned how to use a new bike chain tool. FINALLY got to drive Shina! Wow this fix it project has been years in the making!
 
PE- Good ole fashion country fun, floating an old hubcap down the ditch and through the "tunnels" chasing it down stream along the road and doing it all over again.
Another full day of learning on the farm!