Learning to Fly, part 2

After completing the Learning to Fly study and lapbook, being the homeschool mom that I am, I looked online to find something else to further our study. I found a really neat airplane experiment on Kids DO Science. The unit went over methods of science, saftey, vocabulary words, animal facts and thinking skills. It also included worksheets and follow up questions in which I re-wrote because they were geared toward a classroom setting.

I printed off the instructions and the picklets were let loose to make 6 paper airplanes in various weights of paper.

These airplanes are named after animals found at the Upper Three Runs Creek, near the school where this lesson came from. Dragonfly, grasshopper, big brown bat and bald eagle are a few.

After the construction, came the fun part. Luckily, we were at the gym the morning of the experiment and had plenty of room for the flying.

It is a must because a lot of throwing, testing and measuring were in store.
They learned that scientists use centimeters when they measure because it is easier to do the math, so the picklets measured in centimeters.

At the end of testing the distance these airplanes flew the picklets filled out some questions, averaged out the distance and made some bar graphs.

Then they re-tested after changing the variables. They added weight with paperclips, added additional folds, turned a fan on...all kinds of different things. They also recorded the distance on each of these.

In all, this experiment is probably their favorite of all time. When else do they get permission to spend three hours throwing paper airplanes? Of course, I know they learned quite a bit in the process of it all. :)


(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
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Learning to Fly, part 1

Finally! An actual post with scholastic material! Yee-haw!

While on CurrClick the other day I found a mini unit/class Learning to Fly available for 75 cents. I just couldn't pass it up, so I bought it. Dill and Sweet worked on this last week.

This was very simple, cut and dry. The picklets knew alot of what was covered but they also learned a few things. For instance they learned what an aerodrome is and they learned how a monk is associated with flying. The actual work on the lapbook took 2 days.

Instead of making the normal lapbook we have started using card stock and our binding machine to make the books. This way we still have the mini books for the lapbook aspect but we can also bind in additional worksheets that are used in the unit. It works well for us.

On top of the mini books included in the lapbook, we found some images online that we used to enhance the book.

They learned about the first hot air balloon, the great aerodrome and Chanute.

They read about the English Monk who tried to fly but I think the favorite story among the picklets was the story of Icarus.

Of course, no flight study with be complete without a little Leonardo.

For the covers, the picklets followed this instructional on how to draw an airplane. They then used this technique to make them unique.

Dill's Cover

Sweet's Cover


Also included in the class and the funnest part was the experiment. The experiment was the RotoMotor. It is a helicopter like thing that you hold up and it flies down like a copter. Dill cut out and has been playing with it ever since. The picklets have tested it in different sizes, weights, heights, crumpled, uncrumpled and loves all of them.

This was a fun little class. Though it says it is geared toward 3rd through 5th graders I think it was a little easy for Sweet. She did learn a few things but most was a review. Since this was just a mini unit, I would really like to enroll in one of the regular classes and try those out. Maybe when they go on sale...

Tomorrow: part 2

A Tale of Four Tails

Above are 4 tails. Each is different in it's own way. Each has it's own personality. Each served one purpose.

Yesterday was Cow Appreciation Day at Chic-Fil-A. Never being one's to pass up on something free AND fun, we each decorated our own cow costumes, right down to the tails.

Dill dressed as a Jersey Cow. His costume consisted of a Viking's Jersey complete with spots, an ear tag that said "Jersey Cow", a mask printed from here, a placard that read "eat more chickin" and a tail.

Sweet dressed as "Sassy" the Beverly Hills Cow. Her costume was fashionably decorated with spots, necklaces,

bracelets, rings, a purse, an ear tag marked "Sassy" and, of course, a pierced tail.

Chip was a pretty unsure about the whole dressing up as a cow thing. At 15, almost 16, he is way too cool, to participate in things such as this. Not really dressing as a "cow" but as a surfer dude with a cow head, he still chickened out at the mall. He walked in, looked over at Chic-Fil-A and said, "I'm NOT doing this." Turned around and walked to the van. Later, when he saw other teenagers dressed in cow costumes, he dressed back up and got his free meal. He wore a Hawaiian shirt with spots, a tail, a mask and a boogie board that said, "Cowabunga Dude!"

I dressed as one of the cows that chased us last weekend at Abbe Creek. I had spots or "markings", an ear tag with the name "Susie" (after my cousins calf named Susie) a tail and a sign that said, "I'm the cow that chased a family a Abbe Creek last weekend."

I also had a placard that had a whole bunch of cow facts, but left it at home. Sweet let me use hers instead. It also said, "Eat more Chickin."

So, we all got our choice of what meal we wanted. Sweet chose chicken nuggets, Chip and I had the Chic-fil A sandwiches and Dill has the charbroiled. YUM! Then, on top of all that freeness, they were handing out prizes. We won a cow beanie that says Peece, Luv, Chickin. (Sweet is holding it in the picture) We also won food prizes of a shake, lemonade and chicken strips.

Last year we dressed up, walked through the mall to Chic-fil-A only to find we went on the wrong day. Even though the manager took pity on us and gave us the free meal last year, this year was MUCH more fun!

(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

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Treehouse Envy

While doing our siteseeing tour during our camping trip we saw this treehouse. I have MAJOR treehouse envy.



(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
All Rights Reserved

Campfire Pizza

When we camp we usually have the same thing to eat. Brats and hotdogs, hamburgers and chicken grillers. These are usually accomplanied by macaroni salad, potato salad or cole slaw, veggeis and dip, jello salad and beans. Boring but 4 times a year we know exactly what we are eating. Easy schmeasy.

Right before we went camping Cool was cleaning out the garage and found the pizza maker thingamabobs that he used when he was growing up and thus our menu changed. We had campfire pizza for lunch one day. If you want to make campfire pizza just follow these directions.

Place a peice of buttered bread, butter side down, on one side of the pizza maker.


Put pizza sauce on bread.


Place pepperoni on top of sauce.


About 5 peices will do.


Top the pepperoni with mozzerella cheese. We used shredded but any mozzerella will work.


Put two more dots of sauce on top of the cheese. Not sure why, that's just what Cool did.


Top with other peice of buttered bread, this time butter side up.


Put the other peice of the pizza maker on and squeese real tight to get it to shut. Then latch it with the hook.


You then tear the crust and extra bread that is hanging over the side off. Throw it to the eagerly waiting dogs.


Stick the pizza maker right in the coals of the fire.


After a few minutes turn it over.


I cannot tell you how long it takes to cook this. It really depends on the heat produced by the coals. You just kinda know when it is done.

You slowly open it up...


Pick up the fork you find laying on the table and wipe it clean...


And gently lift the pizza out and let it fall on a paper plate.




I let me dad cut it open because pizza is his favorite food and because he has never had campfire pizza before.






And for those of you who don't like pizza (like me) it also makes really good grilled cheese sandwiches.


(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
All Rights Reserved

Abbe Creek

We left the campground on Friday to do some site seeing. We camp at the same campground every Fourth of July in the same site. And each year we see signs for interesting things. Each year we say, "We should go check that out." Each year we don't. This year I told Cool, "We are doing this, this, this and this. Just so ya know." Cool, being the loving, wonderful husband that he is said, "OK. Anything you want my love, my friend, my queen." OK, maybe he didn't say those exact words, but we did go site seeing none-the-less. Our first stop was Abbe Creek School.

Unfortunately, the school wasn't open for tourists on the day we went. But we still got to take in the beauty of the old country school. Built in 1856, it is the oldest brick school building still standing in the state of Iowa or so I read.


The history carved on the outside of the building was neat. 1925 was the oldest date I saw. I wonder who DMA is. Would I have been friends with them?


I love puppy love. I hope they are happily married now.


Abbe Creek School is next to Abbe Creek, DUH! But in these parts we don't call them "creeks" we call them "cricks". But Abbe Crick doesn't sound as good as Abbe Creek so for arguments sake, I will keep referring to it as a creek unless I decide crick sounds better.

This has two set of steps. One set on this side of the fence and one set on the other side of the fence.


So as we walked up the one set and down the other we found ourselves walking along the crick. It was very peaceful and had quite a current. I am not sure if cricks have currents but this one did. Abbe Creek was the water source for the school back in the day.



We realized the fence was to keep the cows on the other side off the school lawn. The cows were cooling themselves in the crick. It was quite clear that we were disturbing them. In this instance and the one above, crick is the proper way to describe the body of water, just for the record.


This mama is glaring at Chip who is way too close to her youngun. The calf is running to it's mama cause Chip is scary, really he is.




You will need to picture the following scenario because I don't have a picture to show it....cause I was running ya see. Chip, the blue speck, in the above picture was the cause of the ruckus in the scenario you are going to have imagine. That mama cow was not too happy about him being so close to her babe, ya see. So, she stared him down until felt his life was in peril and decided to leave. Well, after turning to leave, Chip decided to run.

What Chip didn't know is that by starting to run he could spook the cows. Cattle can spook easily. So by running, Chip spooked this field full of over protective mamas and caused a, um, er, a stampede of sorts. See those cows in back of Chip? They started to run after him which in essence caused us to start to run because, well, we didn't want to be cow fodder.

I'm guessing they just wanted to play. Maybe a game of cat and mouse or bovine and human? Who said the smart cows live in California? These here are Iowa cows and they are pretty darned smart. They got a family of 5 to run for their lives.

Regardless of the fact that we were chased by Bessie and her friends and that the school wasn't open, we had a great time exploring the crick and the grounds of Abbe Creek School.


(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
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Creatures of the Campground

The picklets are known for heading off into the woods and coming back with creatures.

Some alive






Some not.


The picklets also spotted creatures right near our campsite and excited all of us. Like the doe and fawn that walked by our camper 3 times over the weekend. Didn't catch the fawn any of those times but our memories will get us by.

Sparrows were everywhere.

These two kept taking turns feeding each other. At first we thought they were mother and birdling but they both flew off and both were the same size.

Because of all the wonderful wild flowers my picklets brought to me all weekend, we had fun watching polination in action.



(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
All Rights Reserved