This Day in History: Coca Cola

According to my radio, Coca Cola was introduced this day in history in (I think) 1890. (I didn't catch the exact year) Coke was made of wine and cocaine. During prohibition the wine was changed to syrup and, well, cocaine was outlawed. Here is some history, lesson plans, recipes and other uses for Coke.

History and General Information:
History of Coca Cola

Wikipedia Coca Cola

Just for Fun

Fascinating facts about the invention of Coca-Cola® by John S. Pemberton in 1886

Chronical of Coca Cola

What came first: Coke or Pepsi?

Coca-Cola’s Olympic Sustainability Plan

Lesson Plans:
Coca Cola Unveils New Global Ad Stagedy (easy)

Coca Cola Unveils New Global Ad Stragedy (hard)

Diet Coke Geiser

Cola Success Story (daily edit)

The Coca Story Lesson Plan (needs text but I think any history of Coca Cola will do)

Grade 3 Lesson Plan

Coca-Cola Distillation

Recipes:
Coca Cola Recipes

Deep Fried Coke

Brown Cow

Diet Coke Cake

Uses for Coca Cola:
Unusal Uses for Coke

51 Uses for Coca Cola

Crazy Uses for Coca Cola

Coca Cola Commercials on Youtube...retromania dude


(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Peace and Poetry

We did a quick mini unit for MLK day. I did no research, just a google search this morning at 7:30 for lesson plans, before walking out the door for Gaga's house.

On the way to Gaga's we discussed why we celebrate MLK and how life as we know it would be different if he hadn't been courageous enough to do what he did.

The rest of the way we played the last letter game. Basically what ever word is said the next word has to start with the last letter. An example would be: day, yellow, Wallace, each, house, entire. It can get quite involved. In our ongoing game through out the day Dill tried to give Sweet only words that would begin with E...lol

On and off throughout the day the picklets worked on their school work. They listened to "I Have a Dream" on the way to the grocery store. Dill and Sweet wrote Diamante Poems (see their poetry below), did copy work (poem at bottom of linked page), read a biography of MLK and completed a dictionary page while at Gaga's. (Chip did his at home.)

Once we were home, had the van unloaded and the picklets got back from the sledding hill, we did an art project on peace (see project below). While working on their art project they listened to Drum Major for Justice, a free download I received this morning from Learn Out Loud. We talked about the Martin Luther King Jr. poem, what it means etc. We then discussed if they thought there were people who don't think MLK Day should be holiday and why while we ate some pizza and drank some pop.

To end the day we talked about Dr. King's vision of people helping people in need and what we can do to help. We found that the Civil Rights Commission is holding a book drive all week. So, we cleaned out our books to donate. We then talked about Haiti and the devastation caused by the earthquake. We are working on donations of toys and household items that might be of help.

Hopefully by the end of the week we will have a nice pile of donations for those in need.

Diamante Poetry by (in order) Chip, Sweet and Dill Pickle

Freedom
love right
needed loved admired
liberty justice money greed
wronged loathed death
distrust hate
Slavery

Dream
hope vision
hoping wished desired
illusion enchanted scary frighten
screaming scared quivering
terror horror
Nightmare

Freedom
sweet powerful
loving limited caring
gift property hard cruel
uncaring hating condemned
jail destructive
Imprisonment

Hearts of Peace Pictures

Caption and Picture by Sweet Pickle
"This is what it should be like across the world." (the captions say "thank you" and "you're welcome")

Caption and Picture by Chip Pickle
"Even when all chance of peace seem lost there's always HOPE."

Caption and Picture by Dill Pickle
"Dark and light. Balance and harmony. Just as life should be."



(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Day 3: Windows

We won a prize containing a bunch of crayola products a few months ago. Included in that assortment were Window Crayons. How exciting! Cool forbade me to use them for fear they would ruin the windows. Being the good wife that I am I "obeyed" him for a period, biding my time. Guess what honey? The time has come.

Day 3: Decorate windows with window crayons.

The picklets loved this project. They did their own designs.





I even got in on the action.

Things I learned:
First off make sure to wash the windows before decorating them. Dog slobber and Christmas decoration don't go together.
Second, write backwards so it can be read from the outside.
Third, taking pictures of window art is very hard.

Fourth, the picklets knew to write backwards but not me, why?
Fifth, Dill either views Santa as an evil entity or we need to concentrate on art a little more.

Sixth, this is really fun and I can't wait to do it again.
Seventh, Cool head didn't explode because we decorated the windows.

These crayons are great!

(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Monday

My head feels like it could explode. I think I have some sinus, allergy thing going on. I am sneezing, have a runny nose, have drainage in the back of my throat and my head wants to explode. I slept most of the day. Thank God for the Discovery Channel.

The picklets were a bit more productive than me. Sweet did all her chores, made my hot cocoa and watched tv from the comfort of my bed all day. The boys raked the rest of the lawn and made a trip to the compost pile. They watched TV from the comfort of the sofa.

Tonight Sweet and I are at gymnastics. Actually Sweet is at gymnastics. I am in the office writing on my blog and making a list of to-do's for tomorrow. The boys have a list of things that need to be done by the time I get home. We will leave in about 20 minutes.

Paper delivery went well this morning. The picklets all started their books for their lapbook projects and got science in with Discovery. Killer Animals, humongous rats, ant colonies...that's the life of a homeschooler!

Hope you all had a good day too.

Journey North

We again participated in Journey North. We followed the lesson plans provided on the Journey North Website.

The picklets each decorated a butterfly to send along with the migrating butterflies.

Dill decorated his as a Sharingan from Naruto. From what I understand this is one of the three noble occular jutsus in Naruto. At least that is what Dill tells me.


Sweet decorated hers by marbling it. She has US on it but didn't take into account that it should have been done backwards so it came out backwards. Oh well. (on the back I had typed their name, school and a greeting to the children in Mexico)


Chip decorated his with a Coca Cola logo. Coke is known world wide ya know.


We gathered everything together and sent it out. Dill asked the postmaster if he could watch them cancel the stamps and date it.

Now we wait until Spring to see if we get butterflies back. More of my Journey North posts.

(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Sign Language

I took sign language in high school. I am not "fluent" but I still know quite a bit of it; more than I can say for the French and Spanish I took. I taught the picklets the alphabet years ago. They can spell their name and often use the alphabet to spell their spelling words. But the sign language stopped there. I didn't continue with the lessons. So, this year, I am dusting off my sign CD, digging out my sign dictionaries, taking the sign dice off the shelf and we are going to continue on with our lessons.

My hope is that the picklets will be able to have conversations with hearing impaired. I know that my being able to speak some sign has been a heart warming experience over the years. It has put a smile on the faces of a few people who didn't think they would be able to communicate and made some potentially frustrating situations less stressful.

I guess the timing of this video being sent to the picklets and all three forwarding it on to me was apropos. I hope you enjoy it.

Kindness Challenge

The picklets will be participating in The Great Kindness Challenge on August 8th. According to the website:

"The Great Kindness Challenge is one day devoted to performing as many acts of kindness as possible. Our goal this year is to have over one million children participate. It is our hope that this day will inspire a lifelong commitment to service and kindness.From sunup to sundown, children around the world will accomplish simple, kind deeds using The Great Kindness Challenge Checklist."

The website has a downloadable checklist with 50 different things children can do to show kindness from painting a rock and giving it to a neighbor to hugging their siblings to smiling at 25 people to helping a person in need to visiting a senior care center. Of course doing something not on the checklist is absolutely acceptable too.

At the end of the day you can print out a certificate for your kidlet for participating. Not that mine need a certificate but positive reinforcement is a powerful motivator.

Not that any of us should have a reason to be kind to people but a day that emphasises is to kidlings and adults alike is good in my book.

Join us and let me know how it goes!

© 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Rain

I love the rain, always have. I love the sound of it hitting the road. The gentle rustling sound it makes hitting the trees. The pounding sound on our camper while we are sleeping. I love watching rain and walking in the rain even more. I love the ripples that appear when it puddles.

I find rain to be relaxing and calming.

Sweet and Banana love the rain too.

They find rain to be fun and a time to frolic.


I guess loving the rain is a matter of perspective.


Chip didn't liked the rain yesterday. And I am told he doesn't like corn anymore either.

You see Chip's first day detasseling was yesterday and it rained all day long, never stopped, until he got home. (you can see the sun out in back of him)

One look at his socks will tell you he was soaked from head to toe.

And just look at this face. It is definitely a face only a mother can love. Actually it scares me, really it does.

It shows just how happy he was to have me take his picture upon his return home. I am a mom with a camera, what else could I do?

Regardless of how Chip feels about the rain, I still like it.


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

Mock Trial Camp

The picklets were given the opportunity to attend camps at a local college this summer. Chip attended Mock Trial Camp. He absolutely loved it! Now he thinks he is an expert lets us know what can be used in court and what can't.

The Case:

• State v. Randall

Facts:

• James and Arlene go to a night club to have a drink. Randall, who has been drinking, comes up to their table, says he knows Arlene, and tries to talk to her. James gets angry and asks Randall to leave. An argument takes place and a fight ensues. The police are called and Randall is arrested for assault on James. Randall claims James caused the fight and that he was only defending himself.

Chip was one of the prosecutors. He had the burden of proof. Chip was asked by his group to write the opening statement.

"May it please the court?"

"Council?"

The reason we are here today, Your Honor, is because James Avery was assaulted by Randall Johnson.

Your Honor, this all took place on the date of May 1st, 2009 at the "Piano Bar" on 2nd Avenue, when James Avery walked into the bar with Arlene Templeton, James' new girlfriend. After entering the bar, they sat at a table and ordered drinks and dinner. While enjoying diner, Your Honor, Randall Johnson walked up to the table they were sitting at and asked Arlene, Jame's girlfriend, to dance, even though James was still sitting at the table. At that point Randall grabbed Arlene's arm to get her to dance. Worried about his girlfriend, James stood up calmly and asked Randall to leave or he would get the manager. When Randall refused to leave, James turned around to get the manager and BAM! Randall blindsided James with a punch. So as you can see Your Honor, Randall Johnson is guilty, of the assault and battery of James Avery.

Your Honor I know we have the burden of proof, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. At the end of the day we will meet that burden.

James Avery, a student at the University, will testify that Randall did indeed assault him.

Arlene Templeton, a teacher at an elementary school, will testify that Randall did grab her arm.

The reason we are here today, Your Honor, is because James Avery was assaulted by Randall Johnson. At the end of this trial we will ask that you find Randall Johnson guilty of assault and battery. Thank you.

I guess when Chip gave the opening statement he actually pounded his fist on the table when he said "BAM!" In the end the prosecution did win because they impeached a witness. A well deserved victory I do say!

The instructor told Chip he would make a good prosecutor because he has a gruff voice with a sharp edge to it.

Chip tends to obsess about things and this is no exception. He wants to join a mock trial group, which in itself isn't bad, but he doesn't want to join the one that is close. He wants to travel south 35-40 miles to join one that goes to state each year. Can you say OCD??

So, we will see what this fall brings. My guess is he will be busy with 4-H, gymnastics, music and Czech duties. But if he still wants to join we can look into it.

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
All Rights Reserved

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

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
All Rights Reserved