You've got Mail!

 

Here's what we did for school today!
We looked at a world map to find NZ, England and America and got an idea of how far our mail had to go. The kids were suprised that NZ is so small and I was suprised out how many cities are in America! We were going to colour in each city or town as we 'visit' but ended up deciding to colour in each state. Both Tui and Pearl are going to California but to different parts of California and it was getting pretty complicated trying to show it on our map!

Then we stated our MAIL EXPERIMENT....some of you will be getting mail soon! We are trying to find out how long it takes for mail sent at the same time on the same day at the same postal rate will take to get to different parts of NZ and America. We want to know if it the further the mail has to go actually has an affect on how long it takes to get there.

We looked at ways our mail moves (some great info on the NZ post website) and looked at the type of transport used.
Jacob was pleased to be able to use his lego and make a Fokker F27s like the plane NZ post uses- he really loves his lego :) There is a lot of fuel used getting mail around the world.(According to NZ Post it's over 3 million litres of diesel per yr just for the trucks)

We found out some interesing facts....
* The big Truck and Trailer that NZ post uses can carry 20 tonne of mail.
* They deliver 10,000 truck and tralier loads of mail a year, 40 loads per day. (10,000 x 20 tonne!)
* A standard letter weighs 50g...IF all mail was a standard letter that would equal 40,000,000 letters a year!
* NZ post has over 2000 posties, over 80 trucks, over 110 vans and 8 planes.
* One of the planes used by NZ post is a Fokker F27s, which can carry 5.5 tonnes of mail.
* The busiest time of day if NZ post is actually at night when mail is transported to larger centres for sorting.

So...there's a whole lot of info for one day!

A lot of the numbers were to big for the kids to comprehend but they are definatley a lot more aware of what happens before our mail reaches our box. Even for bills!

Flat Kids:)

 

Here's Flat Tui, Flat Pearl and Flat Jake. They'll be off on their OE on Tuesday:)

Pearl and Tui are going to DISNEYLAND!

 

OK, well Flat Pearl and Flat Tui are! Flat Jacob's going to the Grand Canyon!

States of America

 

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I found a world map online so the kids could see how far they flat travelers will be going (it only costs $2 to travel!!) and I found this map of America so we could look at the states they will be going too. I'll find one for England and Scotland as well. We have a line version of America so we will be able to colour in each state as we visit and when our flat travelers arrive home again we will be able to put them all in a book together with relevant information about each state that we have visited!

 

Meet Sparkle the flat Kaimanawa pony

 

This is Sparkle...she's Tui's Kaimanawa pony :) Sparkle was drawn by Pearl and is a flat traveler, she's going to stay with a homeschooling family in Sacramento....they will take our flat with them and collect souvenirs of their life in their part of the U.S.A! We will host a FT for them too :) Jewell our flat Kiwi is going to England and possibly Scotland!
So far Flat Jacob is going to Chicago and may visit the Grand Canyon, Flat Tui is going to stay with her pen pal in Utah and Flat Pearl is going to Disneyland!!! We think it;s a great way for the kids to learn about other countries and how other famillies live. I'll post pics of our flat kids when they are finished:)

Stamp collecting

 

We did geography today with stamps and flat travellers....
I got the stamps from Trade Me, they are mostly NZ and Australia but we also got some cool English stamps, American stamps, 1 from Italy and 1 German stamp...Jacob wanted the superbike stamp (no surprise there!)from Australia and the girls chose these other 2....

And BABIES!!!

 

Less than a week later we have teeny-tiny baby caterpillars :)

Eggs!!

 

A flying visit....

 

Spot the visitor

 

We found this baby praying mantis in Pearl's swan plant. Great camoflage! If it was a little smaller it would have been fed to our frogs!.

Paper wasp nest

 

We had 5! Good thing Dad was home to take care of them :)

First day of RDA

 

Tui was realllllly pleased to be back on a horse again!

New pony at RDA

 

This gorgeous girl is new to RDA...and we all want one! lol! Her name is Missy

The army, thunderbirds and a dirt bike...

 

We've been talking about the relevance of numbers, how they gives us information and what sort of information we can get from numbers. For example some numbers help us to stay safe (like speed signs) some help us find things or get somewhere on time! On our trip to AK we discussed what we could see on the road, what the number plates read etc. On Tuesday Jacob made some road signs for his dirt bike riding solider to help him get over the Thunder birds space mountain!

Wow....He survived!

 

On Monday we went to Auckland, we did a return trip in one go because Tui had a hospital appt that we didn't want to miss! We got 40 minutes from home and the traffic was stopped. We missed this crash by minutes! SH2 was closed for 2 hours while to police and air ambulance did their jobs and we missed the appointment. That was a bummer but nothing compared to what the driver and his family must have been going through. Praise God we all made it home safely!

Science

 

Which is heavier? Salt water or fresh?

 

Jacob has been learning about the eels habitats. Because eels can be found in both fresh and salt water we decided to find out find out more about the two types of water. The results: Salt water is heavier than fresh!

Pearl's swan plant

 

Pearl was really pleased when I cam home with a swan plant for her! It's going to be her job to make sure the plant stays healthy and she's going to regular egg checks and measure the plants growth. It will be awesome when we have caterpillars!

Dad shows Pearl the root system

 

The swan plant is actually 2! Dad helps Pearl to get the out of the pot and seperate the plants.

It's a good thing having a big sister....

 

Who can read the care instructions on the tag!

First day of school....

 

Today was our first day of school for the year (Yes, I know it's 2 days earlier than the rest of the country!) and the kids were so keen to get going they were all up at 6.30 and we had started school by 8.30....
This year every one has a different unit study- Tui is doing Shire horses and Welsh Mountain ponies, Jacob is learning about eels and Pearl is learning about Monarch butterflies and their caterpillars. We're going to go to Marshall's Animal Park to see the butterfly sancturary, eel swirl and Shire horses and Welsh mountain ponies sometime towards the end of the term.

Here's the FANTASTIC eel Jacob made from playdough today.

The MAD scientist!

 

Jake made a 2nd playdough eel and we did a few tests (no animals were harmed in the process of discovery....lol) to find out if a playdough eel would float like a real eel...it turns out that it won't and Jake the Mad Scientist suggested that it might be because it wasn't moving (like a real eel...or a boat with a motor) or because it was too heavy....he then decided that a boat was heavy too so it probably sunk because it wasn't moving.
We also wanted to find out what an eel felt like so we left the playdough in water until it was all SLIMEY, GOOEY, COLD and WET! The girls both agreed that this was GROSS but by the look on Jake's face he didn't think so!

Monarch Unit

 

This term Pearl is doing a unit on Monarch Butterflies and their caterpillars.
Here's Pearl making her very groovy caterpillars and leaves!
She also made a Chrysalis for one of her 'babies' to hide in and brainstormed what she thought it would feel like to be a caterpillar all snuggled up in a chrysalis.
Later one were going to put all the great descriptive words into a poem....

Awwwww to cute!

 

Oh, yeah and the bug's cute too!

The popcorns going NUTS

Tui made the popcorn for our morning tea and then wrote this poem....

PoP! PoP! PoP!
Went the popcorn
Oh no!
What am I going to do?
The hot, fluffy popcorn is going NUTS!