My Manic Mondays

Today we woke up late after having a busy weekend...traveling home from Opelika Saturday night & then all the Mother's Day festivities yesterday. I didn't even have my lesson plans done for the week so I started on that as soon as I ate my breakfast. We finally got started around 11am & worked until 5:30.

We are studying Environments in Science right now. Populations, ecology, conservation, etc. Today we looked up endangered species for the Southeastern U.S. & learned about some of the things that are endangered in our area, so it was interesting to see what things were happening around us & why. I plan on looking into conservation opportunities in our county so that we can hopefully get involved & do a more hands on effort to improve where we live.

I also asked N... for a list of 3 things that he could do to conserve water. His answer...."No brush (teeth), no flush (you know what that means), & no baths!" I let him know that was not going to happen! However, we did discuss how we could limit the water use of each activity. So ask your kids the ways that they could conserve water & see what creative answers you get.

Wednesday we are going to visit a new Science Center in Cartersville, Georgia. It is connected to the Weinman Mineral Museum which has been there for years. We have been there several times & they have been building this new science section for about 2 years now & it is now open, so I am looking forward to visiting it. I will be posting photos & information on Thursday with details about our trip. I am interested to see if they have a display on conservation so that I can work it into our science study.

Another activity you could do with your kids is to give them a camera & let them take snapshots of pollution. This will give them more of a hands on activity & opens the door for discussion about pollution & how it affects our lives.

Also this week in History/Geography we are discussing Nepal & the Himalayan Mts. Did you know that the base of the Himalayans are rain forest? It actually lies in the Tropic zone! I just assumed it was all snow & ice. So another activity I plan this week is to have N... draw a picture of Mt. Everest, art & geography in one shot.

Hope you all have a great week!