Beautiful, fluffy flakes

snowman

We had the most beautiful snow coming down Monday evening!

tongue

My boys dress for warmth instead of style…

kick

Poor little snowman.

snow

snowfight

throw

throw2

snowangel

run

maddie

Soft flakes make for some yummy ice cream!

It is just Milk, Sugar, Vanilla, and Snow.

You should make some!

snowicecream

We hurried out the next morning to enjoy the snow before it melted!

sledding

I tried out a different angle for pics.

climb

I sat at the top of the hill so the sun would act as a back light and next to a tree to frame the shots with branches.

climb2

You can see more of the clutter in our yard this way but I like backlit subjects.

treelimb

sledding3

withhim

I gave my camera to my oldest so I could get in a shot!

This goof had a hat on top of a jacket hood.

He said it was warmer that way.

The Battle of Round Mountain Educational Day ~Yale, OK

I found out about the Battle of Round Mountain Winter Encampment in Yale, OK right before it took place last year and did not make it!

So this year I was determined to get out there.

Friday is the educational day, Saturday and Sunday they have a battle re-enactment.

sign

It is hosted at the Assemblies of God church in Yale.

You park in the church parking lot, go behind the church and you will see the trail sign.

welcome

There is a path that leads to the camp.

path

confederatecamp

food2

This was a wonderful setup.

She was so nice and shared so much information with us about the food during that time!

food

She really wanted the boys to touch everything!

We ended up buying some Molasses Cookies from her and it was like I was back at my Grandma’s house.

She loved Molasses cookies.

try

There were a couple of shops with some clothing, candy, and toys to buy.

hats

My oldest wanted to know if the pants were pajamas.

pants

tents

shops

straw

This man loved to share and teach.

He wanted to show the kids everything.

I am so thankful for people like this, that share their love of history with kids.

lantern

tighten

His son was there as well and gave us a demonstration on his drum!

laugh

If you would like to hear what it sounded like, I posted a short video I took on YouTube, here.

serious

camp

horse

We remember seeing this guy last year at the Honey Springs Re-enactment.

load

My oldest was pretty excited to see an artillery sign.

happy

He likes the big guns…

canons

Not sure where to start getting your children excited about history?

Check out how I introduced a love of history to my boys, here.

Or some of my favorite books for kids on the civil war, here.

Pompeii and Volcanoes

Here are the books we used to study the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

pompeiibooks

*This post contains Amazon Associate links

“Magic Tree House #13: Vacation Under the Volcano by Mary Pope Osborne

“I Survived #10: I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79 by Lauren Tarshis

“You Wouldn’t Want to Live in Pompeii! A Volcanic Eruption You’d Rather Avoid” by John Malam

“Escape from Pompeii” by Christina Balit

Volcanobooks

We studied Volcanoes along with learning about the Mount Vesuvius eruption.

Here are the books we used.

“The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth (Magic School Bus)” by Joanna Cole

“The Magic School Bus Science Chapter Book #15: Voyage to the Volcano by Judith Stamper

“The Explosive World of Volcanoes with Max Axiom, Super Scientist (Graphic Science)” by Christopher L. Harbo

“Big Book of Earth & Sky” by Bodie Hodge

“Volcano Rising” by Susan Swan

“Volcanoes (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)” by Franklin M. Branley

MagicSchoolbusKit

We also used a Magic School Bus Kit, The Magic School Bus -Blasting Off With Erupting Volcanoes.

kit

The boys got a lot out of the labelling the kit had them do!

I was really surprised by that. I thought they would get more out of the actual experiments.

label

stickers

The were really interested in figuring out what types the different volcanoes we read about were.

volcanochart

Sometimes I just never know what will interest them!

egg

They liked this experiment showing how fault lines work.

crack

faultlines

Drawing the fault lines on his “earth”.

squeeze

yolk

Hopefully our earth does not have to be squished for an eruption to take place…

squeezed2

splat

Total destruction.

mess

bakingsoda

I was a little disappointed that most of the experiments had to do with baking soda reactions to different acids.

I guess it is the most kid friendly eruption but I felt like it did not have a lot to do with how an actual eruption takes place.

funnel

water

We decided to try out one I had found online a while ago, here.

Please buy the Corning Pyrex made for laboratory use for this experiment!

We used regular Microwave safe Pyrex and I think it was a horrible idea.

I read about it later and saw that it is not safe for stove tops!

Do not use it!

Yikes!

We will be buying this “Corning Pyrex 1000-600 Glass 600mL Graduated Low Form Griffin Beaker, 50mL Graduation Interval, with Double Scale before we try this again!

wax

The wax works it’s way up through the sand when it is heated.

Very cool.

We also watched Nova: Deadliest Volcanoes and Pompeii – The Last Day.

Deadliest Volcanoes was great! It even talked about Vesuvius and that fact it is actually a part of a super volcano!

That is crazy to see!

Pompeii: The Last Day was a little too intense for my 7&8yr old.

They ended up leaving because it was just too much for them.

I enjoyed it though and I think teenagers would find it interesting but it might be too sad for young kids.

It tried to give a story to the cast’s of people and animals that they found from the eruption.

Both of these were available on Netflix when we did this study.