Evidence of Learning

A few photos from the past week...

E and I read a book about magnifying glasses. It contained lots of "try this" things, and we had lots of fun seeing things up close, including our fingerprints, salt, the dots on newsprint and money. We also enjoyed learning how water is convex, and therefore makes things appear larger. Good stuff.

I sometimes get bummed when the boys get presents which find their way onto a top shelf, or inside a closet. We've gotten lots of things which I feel would be great if the boys would only do them. However the gifts do belong to them, so I don't complain when I open a closet and find tons of unused fun things to do. I was happy that one of these things made its way out this week. R made a robot out of coins. First he had me bring him to the bank to get four rolls of pennies and some other change (for a total of $5.26 he keeps telling me), and then he spent time locked away in his room putting it together. Click on it to check it out large; it's really cool.

We went to Brooksvale Park on Wednesday. The Ranger there is the dad of a friend, so it was that much more fun. He does the program for school kids every year and since his mom is part of our homeschooling group she asked him to do one for us.

We had seen a demonstration of making maple syrup at Old Sturbridge Village a couple of years ago, but it's been several years since we've seen a demonstration of more modern methods. The Ranger talked inside for a while, giving a lively history of how it may have been discovered by local Indians, then talked about the different collection methods today, the different grades, and the difference between maple syrup and pancake syrup.

Then we headed outside, where the kids all got to make a tap out of birch wood. The Ranger then passed us on to the woman who is running the sugar shack this year. She brought us out and showed us a functioning tap, and taught us how to tell the difference between Sugar Maples and other maples. (It was really cold out!)

Then she brought us down to the sugar shack, where she showed us how they boil down the sap and make it into syrup. It smelled really good!

Finally, they brought us back up to the building where we started, and we all got to sample some vanilla ice-cream with their hand-made maple syrup on it. Yum! The boys had a good time watching this demonstration. I can always tell something is enjoyable because it gets repeated, in detail, to Dad when he gets home in the evening.