Friday, March 06, 2015

Friday Snowpocalypse snow construction (and more Minecraft)


All the knit things, and time to play in the snow.


Calvin, anyone?
I told her how I grew up in the frozen North and making igloo walls was an essential part of my education - we talked about using snow as 'glue' and also smoothing things out and looking through the snow to see where the weak points are - if you see light, it needs more snow there.

Take aim and fire!

Three snowmen, and she learned how to 
roll a huge snow ball, for the first time in her life.
Other than that, she had just seen it in books.
She was so amazed at how the snow stuck together - and even more so at how heavy it became so quickly!

Trek - or do we have gnomes?

Having a thoughtful moment after her snow wall was falling down.

And before all of this we did a lot more building in Minecraft for school today - as you can see on the map below it is getting quite crowded in our little world!  I've kind of spoiled her this week allowing Minecraft to be most of school for several days - but she is actually getting in and doing things..thinking, planning... and just when I think maybe I should be having her do something more traditional she has a really great idea or does a really good job with something I have asked her to try.  **Mark made a point that if she was in public school she wouldn't have had school at all this week - that we have covered this much ground is something to remark on...  Actually, since October, we have covered so much ground the only things I am worried about she might not be 'on par' with is her English 'parts of grammar' identification..which, considering her language issue, is difficult enough in itself for her in speech, much less in reading yet.  She is probably not getting what passed for history there either, but she does ask lots of questions, like the arch question from the other day, or the phoenix question from today.  **Mark points out we did all of Liberty's Kids this year, and she did learn from it.

We built two marketplaces, a new Indian village and places to harbor up boats today.  She also started doing requests and deliveries and we explored a few deep caverns.  She made 'the most beautiful place in the world' in a valley with a waterfall and flowers - part of what she had picked out of our Natural Wonders book (which was a Crimean peninsula photo full of green and mountains and water).  We made a money system in the marketplaces and did some trading with the villagers.  The money and market information kind of counts as a precursor to history or social studies.  We're laying the groundwork.  She also told me today she was 'an environmental Minecraft, a Steve that is part of Nature.'  She is a little bit worried about all of my tree clearing for making roads...lots to be said and learned there.  She had to clear trees to build her houses, too...but she is thinking on a pretty deep level there.

After doing all that horse riding in Minecraft she has found her old hobby horse I made again and been 'riding' it around the house from place to place.  It's really cute.

9a    - minecraft
12p    - Frozen Planet ep8 - on thin ice
1p    - minecraft
2.30p    - snowman construction
//phoenix discussion
//practicing making larges soap bubbles with bar soap - discussion about how the water swirls in the film of the bubble as it runs down towards the bottom
3.30p    - done

No comments: