NorthPointe Home School GroupMarch 9, 2010Leave No Trace/ Maple SyrupAgain the day dawned bright and clear . A perfect day for camping! So we divided into groups and packed our backpacks complete with tent, tarp, cooking pot, mac and cheese, trowel, toilet paper, plastic bag and sleeping bag. And we set up camp though the snow was still on the ground. We made campfires to cook our mac snack on, set up our cozy tents and learned abut digging a latrine far away from the camping area. We had a blast camping and when it was time to pack up, we learned the most important part--leave no trace. Put out and cover that fire up unless it is a commonly-used fire ring. Pack out any trash. Hopefully we scoped the terrain well enough before set up and it was not very damaged. No one should have even know that we had "camped there." After a break of lunch and reading our new story, we went taste-testing. But first we had to do some work! Mr. Phil showed us how to drill and tap some maple trees and let us help. He had been boiling a batch of maple syrup for six hours already and so we saw what the watery sap looks and tastes like right out of the tree and then also got to taste the boiled-down syrup. Did you know that it takes abut 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup? We also taste-compared the real maple syrup to the artificial kind and discovered that all the kids preferred the real which is not always the case. It was the last day for throwing snowballs. Spring seems to be on its way! March 2, 2010Animal Life Cycles Not Life Styles of the Rich and Famous, but Life Cycles of the Wild and Wonderful! Particularly of the types of animals called insects and bugs. Insects have three or four life cycles. What are they? What makes an insect an insect? Is your marshmallow and candy creation true to insect form? That exoskeleton? Crunchy! Did you know that the smallest known insect is the Fairy Fly at 0.139 mm? The longest is the Chan's Megastick with one specimen in a museum measuring 14.1 inches! To many of our kids, and a couple of our insect-loving teachers, these are amazing facts! Where do insects go in the wintertime? Well, we actually found some insects today out upon the snow--snow fleas! Lots of them. Don't worry, your child won't carry them home to your dog or carpet because they are not that kind. It is really very interesting to see swarms of black dots jumping about on the snow. God has His own type of antifreeze for these little creatures. One of our teachers brought in a beautiful insect collection with beetles, butterflies and others from all over the world including some locally caught here in Michigan. It was such a beautiful day for tromping through the snow under the blue sky looking for signs of life cycles. After putting in some work on our "squirrel huts" at the end of the day, we couldn't help but build some snowmen and throw a few snowballs too.
January 12, 2010 Winter Waterland! Today we spent most of our time on the ice of Little Bostwick Lake--our great little kettle lake here at camp. First we talked a bit about winter weather and also ice safety. After venturing down the hundred or so winter steps to the lake ( now there is some good excercise!) we split into two groups. One learned to use a spud to make holes near the shores and collect water which we later viewed under a microscope and drew pictures of what we saw. The kids learned that we need the ice to be at least about 3" thick for us to walk out on the lake. The lake was frozen to about 7". However, we drew a line in the snow not to pass into the areas of the springs on the opposite side of the lake as there is moving water under that ice. We also were the first group to use our new ice-fishing poles! For this we augered into the ice and learned how very sharp an auger is. Each had his/her own hole to fish in. It was fun to put a minnow on a hook and watch it sink into the cold depths through the ice. As we were reminded by Matt who was helping us with this activity, the sport is called "fishing," not "catching." However, one of the boys did catch a nice bluegill. One never knows exactly where or why the fish are going to bite it seems. What is ice without the fun of broomball? Besides broomball, we also added our own version of Curling, a sport rarely played in this area, by using jugs of frozen liquid for the "stones." Snow Snake? While it is definitely not an Olympic sport, it is a favorite of campers and we played this on the ice as well. Lakes are still alive and fun even when the water is in the form of ice in the winter. Maybe especially when it is ice. At least at camp! January 5, 2010Winter Olympics! The snow was perfect for our games today. As one of our little girls noted at one point, "It looks like we're in a snow globe!" The day began with three teams each naming their own country and making a map and flag to match. Then the winter games began with "Equator-land," "Albania," and "Snow Leopard Country" digging and shoveling their ways into the snowbanks to make snow forts. The forts were judged on size, usefulness and creativity. Then came "skeet shooting," or throwing snowballs at larger pieces of snow thrown into the air. This was followed by sledding competitions which included sled bowling, racing, and crazy sledding. Ever try to run with one snow-shoed leg tied to another's? How about running backwards with a snowshoe on? These were the snowshoe races! Extra points were given throughout the day for encouragement, persistence, creativity and other good team qualities. Finally the award ceremony with bracelets for the winning team and award-winning snowcones for all. Of course the snowcones were made with pure Michigan snow and flavored by a choice of juices. Orange? Lemonade? Pina Colada? We were happy to be joined by two new homeschoolers for our Winter Games and the semester, Connor and Ransom. Welcome!
December 15, 2009Today was one big Christmas party! We began the day by reading the Luke 2 Christmas story to remind us of the focus of our celebration--the birth of Jesus many years ago. Then we headed out to the dining hall and kitchen to work on Christmas cookies and to make paper chains and ornaments for our 14' Christmas tree. The cookies, well, if not perfect, were lots of fun. We came up with new frosting colors such as "bog" and "Shrek." The kids, the floor, the counters and the teachers were all covered in flour and frosting--a fun scene. After lunch we read a tale passed on by Inuits (ask your children about Inuits :) ) , The Polar Bear Son, and learned a little bit about that group of Native people while we were at it. It was impressive to find a couple of your children already knowledgable about this group! Then off to sled! It had been snowing a bit and the hills were fast. Sledding never ceases to be a favorite activity it seems. Back inside to decorate the tree which turned out to be beautiful, finish projects and gather belongings before heading home for Christmas break. Merry Christmas Everyone! December 8, 2009Snow! We have our snow and more is supposed to be on its way with a storm approaching. Snow opens up a whole new adventure at camp--tracking, sledding, snow-shoeing, penguin-sliding--and cold! Please remember to send some extra mittens and socks and bundle your children up since it is much more fun to play when one is warm and dry than wet and cold. We do have a clothes dryer and a lost-and-found which we can use if the children get too wet, but it is nice to have some dry things available from home. Today we discussed consensus and estimates and made some charts on poster boards in groups. We measured the height of the treehouse by using a rope and then a tape measure. Most of us thought it seems much higher than the 34 1/2 feet that we came up with! We figured it must be because it is already on high ground since it sits on the top of the "bowl" that feeds into the bog. It was a lot of counting, but we measured steps to the treehouse and also around the bog and then compared the actual to the estimated (in case you are wondering why your children might be tired at the end of camp day, it is more than 1,000 steps around the bog and more than 500 steps to get there! Once the snow gets deeper, we might have to count "trudges" instead of steps) We also noticed many tracks of animals on our walks in the snow. Almost back to the time of year for our very own Camp Roger sport of " Penguin Sledding!" Generally your kids won't come home as dirty as they might have today. The snow was not very deep yet and it became more of leaf sledding. Leaf sledding turned out to be pretty fun! We visited Jarvis, the huge white bunny that seems to love kids and checked in on the Degus. We ended the day with hot chocolate and a goodbye to Steve, one of our teachers who cannot be with us next semester. Patrick, a sixth grade teacher for many years will be joining us in his place. OCTOBER 20, 2009As you know, this beautiful time of year is when seeds are out in abundance in Michigan. Today we had fun learning about them. We went over the basics of seed anatomy using a diagram of a bean seed. We talked briefly about the parable of the seeds that Jesus told in the Bible and faith as small as a mustard seed mentioning that maybe parents could elaborate at home. Also we read an Eric Carle book about a little seed and how it traveled and went through the seasons and grew. Hiking through 3 "zones"--Native Michigan, Red Pines and the Meadow, we collected many different kinds of seeds talking about which plants they came from, how they were dispersed etc. Your child should have a bag of seeds and a chart in his/her folder that he can complete at home by gluing seeds onto it. Hopefully she will know what some are and you may recognize some as well. Of particular interest was the edible invasive species Autumn Olive (interesting because it was edible of course) The kids also worked on a detailed drawing of a tree of their choice. We will keep these and draw the same tree again as it changes throughout the year. We then collected acorns and checked them for acorn weevils Please ask your child about this experiment Of course we played some outdoor games, had lunch (kids build up an appetite in those woods!) and read part of our continuing story. After lunch we hiked to Pickerel Lake to check out cattails and their many seeds and stopped to work on our own plots of land and our forts/shelters. In all it was a beautiful day at Camp Roger. We hope your children enjoyed it as much as we did. Sincerely, Julie, Patti, Cheryl and Patrick
OCTOBER 27, 2009 Today we continued our topic of trees/seeds/leaves with forestry being our topic. Matt, our Director of Operations and long time Camp Roger staff did some demonstrations with a chainsaw, axe, maul, splitter, and chop saw. We could tell it was not his first day with an axe! We carefully gave the children a chance to chop some wood as well with close instruction and supervision. Matt used the chop saw to make circular coasters or decorations which we painted with designs. To get an idea of an acre, we measured out 210 x 210' with a climbing rope even though 19.3 million forested acres in Michigan are still hard for us all to imagine! Miss Julie led a hike talking about particlular areas and trees. We listened to Miss Patti talk a bit about reforestation and played the maze in the Red Pine Forest with teams. We also talked about "Indian Joe" and walked through some of his old Scotch pines he sold for Christmas trees. We found some of the old barbed wire where he had surrounded some of his property ! We visited our "old classroom" which we like to do from time to time because our friendly tarantula, new awesome Leopard Gecko, and Degus live there. We took Willow, our class Degu back to our classroom to run around for the day with us. We have also been trying to focus on an on-going basis the ideas of giving each other personal space (not pushing, taking hats, clinging etc) and being courteous and attentive to each other. It is interesting to see individual children grow in these areas as well. It turned out to be a nice fall day with no rain, beautiful leaves and even some blue sky. Being here reminds us that God is truly the most amazing Artist!
November 10, 2009 CAMP CRAFTS Today the group made four items: large gourd bird houses which the kids built, decorated and hung at camp for our bird friends to use. We also made mini- lanyards to be used as zipper pulls, "God's Eyes"-- yarn and stick weavings, and a fall door hanging or table decoration with Indian corn. The instructions were sent home for two of the crafts. After lunch and story reading, we spent time on our forts/shelters which are an on-going project. If the kids make them well enough and some families want to spend some time or an overnight in the spring in them, they should be able to. Some of the kids are really hoping for that so beware :)
November 17, 2009 PIONEER THEME An older child was paired with a younger and they cooked hot egg sandwiches on cook cans as a team. If you don't know what a cook can is, it is simply a large coffee can upside down with a homemade candle burning underneath to make a stove. Somehow the egg sandwiches made on them always taste extra delicious! Another pioneer activity was making a fence by lashing. We needed post hole diggers, shovels and twine. The idea was to stress the tightness of the joint trying to make it super solid and not necessarily to build a long fence. Lastly, Mr. Phil took us on a hike around the area. He showed us an old foundation of a barn and a house. It was interesting to note that the barn was significantly larger than the house which stressed what was important at the time. The property belonged to a Dr. Waite, the only doctor in the area 150 years ago. Not much is known about him except that he did have a wife and was the area doctor. Mr. Phil has much interesting history of the area to tell stories of and hikes with him are always a special treat. Almost the entire day was spent outside and the kids seemed to enjoy it.
November 24, 2009 SCAVENGER HUNTS! It is deer hunting season in Michigan and hunting was the name of the game for the day! But only hunting to find (though one of our young deer hunters brought in his special venison jerky to share which was great!). We did many games starting by hunting for plastic insects in the classroom. Then the students had to hunt for classmates with answers to particular questions. After that came a long hike in the woods to find letters along the way that would need to be put in order to finish a phrase of Martin Luther King Jr: " One does not need to see the whole staircase _________________________" (he just needs to take the first step).. There were also hunts for many objects hidden in the woods, a hunt for natural items from a list found at camp with the final objective being to see what were the coolest things we could find. There was a word-find done together in teams with readers paired with non-readers about things found around our Little Bostwick Lake. The catch was the words were not given--only hints about what would be found by our lake. The kids amazed us with their ability to help each other and their enthusiastic knowledge! Lastly, we walked around the lake and looked for large puzzle pieces which we had to piece together. The puzzle told us to hurry to the sandpit where we would roast marshmallows on the fire for the end of the day. This worked well as it was also a student's birthday and we often roast marshmallows or have hot cocoa for our kids' birthdays. No deer killed but lots of fun hunting today!
December 1, 2009 ANIMALS AND HABITATS This day reviewed what many of our students are becoming experts in--animal habitats and what is needed for them. Many habitat games were played including the "Habitat Loss Game," The "Food Web Yarn Game," "Fox in a Hole," and "Animal Senses." We also nailed apple and orange halves onto boards and put out corn and seeds for the birds and wood creatures near our classroom. We took a hike to look for for animal signs and therefore habitat of any kind. Of course live animals counted, but so did any signs such as tracks, scat, rubbings, homes, holes, half-eaten seeds etc. There were two teams and both found at least a hundred signs! We have some very observant children! In the afternoon we worked on our shelters and found a very interesting, incredibly huge group of insects. The research is still out on that. Then we played "Oh Rabbit," a fun habitat-teaching game with the whole group until it was time to go home. No snow yet, but we're waiting!
|
