Ben's Science Poem

For next week's presentation, Ben is supposed to choose something from our science memory work to tell more about.  He decided to write a poem about three of our science memory work topics.  Here is his poem:

Science Poem

by Ben Elder

Last week it was said to me

tell some science to thee.

Now where do I start. Let me see.

Oh yes, matter. This is what is.

Solids, liquids, gasses, and plasma.

Plasma is gas in high heating.

An example is lightening.

Gasses are mostly invisible.

If you seem to give up looking for them,

Look over boiling water, there is steam.

Liquids are things that flow,

Solids are everything hard,

From a brick to Grandpa Ard.

Uncle Sam and LBJ were in a race

To get their missions into space.

The names of the missions were Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle.

Apollo 11 was the first to get to the moon and back into the ocean puddle.

Last but not least are the natural cycles.

If you like to breathe, thank God for trees.

If you like water, thank God for putting us in the right place in space.

Otherwise, this would be a dry place.

Nitrogen helps plants grow.

Say to nitrogen, go, go, go.

Soon go to a quiet place and thank God for making these things in the universe

Because if not, life would be way worse.

More January

January has continued after the snow with warmer days and getting back on our school schedule.

 On the last day, Ben was finally able to get the snow to hold together in a small snowman.

 Mollie Grace has been wanting to try gymnastics.  Last Monday she was able to attend a class to try it out.  She LOVED it.  Parents were able to watch through big windows.

 Making banana bread.

 Annie with the dog house she built.

 Gathering "manna" in Sunday School.

 Last Sunday morning, Mollie Grace and I served in the nursery.  I took these pictures of Annie's Sunday School lesson.

John killed this deer Saturday evening, his final hunt for this season.

 Week 14 of CC today.  We learned about WWI leaders, who had some awesome mustaches.

 Science experiment with pepper and dish soap.

Drawing plants like Carl Linnaeus.

More snow pics

We went back out to play in the snow for a while after lunch.  It was melting on the street in front of our house but was still thick in the backyard.  It continued to slowly snow on and off all afternoon.

 Ben and Cole making snow angels.

Annie enjoyed the snow more after lunch.

Ben and Mollie Grace went back out after rest time and stayed out until dark playing with the neighbors.  Annie and I stayed inside (and I scanned in a pile of art work).  Afterwards we gathered up a bowlful of clean snow and made snow ice cream.

More art

Annie draws constantly.  It feels like she uses a ream of paper a day.  Below are some of the first people that she drew.  Her people have become more detailed with hair but I couldn't find any recent drawings.  Maybe I slipped them in the garbage can after everyone went to bed? I'll have to save a few to scan in soon.

 Ben does not hang his drawings on the refrigerator.  I asked him if he had any drawings he wanted me to scan in to save in the 2016 blog book.  He gave me the picture below which is representative of most of his drawings.  He draws lots of cars and NASCAR drivers.  He said he drew this while riding in the third row on our way to Kansas.

Mollie Grace Art

Mollie Grace loves to display her art on the side of the refrigerator.  I decided we should start 2017 with an empty space to hang new works so I scanned in her best drawings for our 2016 blog book.

Pilgrims and a turkey.

Mollie Grace dragging Ben around by his foot.  

Our family

Yogi Bear

The whole Jellystone crew -- Ranger Smith, Cindy, Yogi, and BooBoo.

Our family in pencil.  Notice our formal attire.  

 Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy from Narnia.

 Mollie Grace checked out a book from the library that showed you step by step how to draw princesses and other beautiful girls.  These are the results.

 Nativity scene.

Mollie Grace asked to include this one.

More from the Elders

Fran came through with pics of Annie and John.  Also Mrs. Elder sent me a family pic she took.

Snow!

We stayed in Jena until the Thursday after Christmas.  We spent Friday do laundry, grocery shopping, and packing and then headed to the hunting camp on Saturday.  We spent New Years Eve at the camp.  Ben planned to stay awake until midnight but when I headed to bed at 10:30 p.m. he was already asleep.  John took pictures of Ben shooting his new rifle and Mollie Grace hunting with him on his phone which I'll post when I get them from him.  All week the weather forecasters have waffled back and forth about us getting snow today.  When we went to bed last night the forecast was for less than and inch and I thought that was unlikely.  Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning!

Fireworks

For the first time that I can remember, I did not spend Christmas Eve at MawMaw Wilma and PawPaw Sherman's house.  May have been the first time ever.  However, we didn't miss out on all the fun.  MawMaw Wilma made hotdogs and chili, we bought fireworks, and all the kids came and played.  We had a great time!

 Rylee lighting a bottle rocket.

 Olivia, Rylee, and Ben lighting bottle rockets at the same time.

 Ben and Olivia shooting Roman Candles.

 MawMaw helping Rylee with a Roman Candle.

 Zac came and made a fire for us and set off our grand finale.

 Annie and PawPaw Sherman napped in his recliner during most of the fireworks.  She came out in time for the grand finale and a few sparklers.