Jayden's birthday- Pt 2

Later on in the week Jayden went to see The Muppets. His final request for his birth week celebration was to go to a museum. We went to the Children's Museum of New Hampshire.

Jayden was instantly drawn to the Lego section. You had to build your own car and race it down the track (behind him). 

 

 

Caitlin and Juan tried to move these tubes to get the ball going in the direction she wanted them to go. 

 Jayden was pretty disenchanted with 3¢ stamps costing a dime! 

 

 I'm not going to lie... this phone scared me a little.

 

Cait and I made a Japanese fan. Her face after she saw the finished product was priceless. I guess it didn't look the way she expected it to.

 

This machine needed coins to make music. Jayden took one look at it and said "Man, these people are such thieves!" He is pretty frugal when it comes to money.

 The kids got to be on tv!

 

 They got to steer a boat and raise the sail.

 They took turns driving a train too.

 We headed over to the music station where they played various instruments.

 They also tried on masks from Japan, Africa, & Mexico.

 Jayden's face imprint.

 

 

 Jayden found Christmas Island!

 As we left we saw horses, which Caitlin pet, but Jayden did not!

Jayden's birthday Part 1

While I took a hiatus from the blog, Jayden turned 8! Family came over and helped make his birthday special! <3 In true Tania fashion, I made sure this little boy celebrated his birthday all week long!

Blue chocolate chip pancakes at the birthday boys request:

 He played video games and Legos:

He is very in to Minecraft, and I am sooooo not crafty. So we ordered a cake, which we requested to look like a grass block from the game. Then we bought all of the "action figures" that we could find.

 

 His face when he saw his cake:

 

The day after our family left, Jayden had a friend come spend the night. Of course, video games were involved.

 The next morning we all went to play at an arcade.

 

We also took him to play laser tag. We did boys vs. girls. The boys won, but in our defense, someone on our team didn't understand the concept of hiding and shooting. (cough *Caitlin* cough)

History

Last week we worked on "The Return of Assyria" from Story of the World.

We started by reading the chapter and going over comprehension questions.

We read about how the Assyrians wanted to grow their empire again. They attacked everyone around them and were very harsh to the cities that they defeated, especially those who rebelled against them.

Jayden did some map work and they both colored a picture that  showed the Assyrians ready for battle.

Their coloring page looked like this, only it was black and white for coloring.

Using Lego blocks, the kids crafted an Assyrian Seige Tower as well as the big city wall that seige towers were designed to knock down.

In this chapter one of the things we learned is Ashurbanipal- an Assyrian king- was the first king to build a library. He collected many books for his library at Nineveh. Each kids made their own book to add to his collection!

Jayden's story was about Minecraft.

Caitlin's story was about a rat and cat. 

Science

We finally wrapped up our cnidarian unit!

First we reviewed what cnidaria look like and read about some examples of them.

 Then the kids filled out their worksheets.

Our next unit in science has us working on worms... yay? I have to admit that I have been dragging my feet on starting this unit. We have to dig up our own worms... Cait would gladly go out and get it done but Jayden isn't a fan of the dirt. Perhaps we can get away with buying some! The thought of storing them in my house really creeps me out though...

All of us have been doing our best to become healthier. This includes improving our eating habits. I found a pretty cool idea on Pinterest about growing your own romaine lettuce. The kids and I decided to make this a science project. It's super easy and it works!

All you have to do is take the stump of your romaine lettuce. Wash it off and sit it in an inch of water.

Change the water every day. (I haven't been remembering to do this daily so the stump is getting a little bit brown--oops!)

It's been 9 days and look what we have!

I have been terrible at taking care of this thing, so we probably won't eat it. I only just thought to put it in sunlight... again-oops! In my defense I've heard you can either raise children or raise plants. Plants die on me pretty quickly but my kids are still alive, so I guess I'm doing alright!

Next time I go grocery shopping I will get a new head of romaine lettuce. Hopefully we will have warmer, sunnier days to come, and our little plant will grow!