Don't pull-ey my leg....

That's right! Yesterday we learned about and built some basic pulley structures and systems using household items. We found a great book at the library that showed how to make a fixed pulley system, a moving pulley system, and a mutli-pulley system.

Here are some photos of our fixed pulley system.

Next we looked at using a multi-pulley system like on big sailing ships for pulling up the sails.

Here is a short video of what we did.




And finally, here is the moving pulley system that we built. Tony loved this one because it's the type of pulley system that he will get to try out when we go zip lining this summer!!!

To Bottle or Not to Bottle....

So, Tony and I were reading in Owl magazine about the talk to ban the sale of bottled water....

Tony thinks that bottled water should still be available because it is a healthy drink and we should keep drinking water and make it quick and easy.

I think we should stop selling bottled water. I tend to agree more with David Suzuki that we should spend the money used to bottle water and put it into making sure that we have a water system that is completely drinkable instead. However, I do see the need for emergency supplies etc. But it also makes me wonder....if we would ban the making of plastic to bottle water, a good for you product, why would we continue to allow other companies to make plastic to bottle beverages that overall decrease the health of our population and put more strain on our health care system?


Just wondering what our readers thoughts were on this?

Creativity....

Good bye winter! Hello vibrant spring colors!!!!!



We just finished learning about our God given creativity at church. I think some of my best creative work comes through photography. It's been a love of mine for a long time.

Tony, Tony, Tony

Proudly showing off the Sun Tea he made! (See previous posts for more info on that!)

Cute Candids caught by Tony

Tony is getting really good with the camera too! He caught these ones of Isaac.....

Isaac and the Stumps....

These are just the 4 cutest pictures, there were actually about 10 more from the different covers and stumps along our walk!

A Not So Impromptu Game of Street Hockey

Tony and Joel played in the first game of street hockey hosted Friday afternoons by our church in the parking lot!

Isaac cheering on Daddy!












Daddy needed some recovery time!

Spring has sprung....

Some nice photos from our daily walk on Thursday.

Spring has definitely arrived and we're certainly enjoying every chance we get to go out in the sunshine!

This particular day Isaac insisted on having his picture taken on every manhole cover and tree stump we passed. It turned out to be quite a long walk :) Tony entertained Isaac and I with bike tricks along the way! He is sure getting good with his BMX!

Salt Water Evaporation

Tony: Yesterday I made an experiment to understand salt water evaporation.


We put some salt into some water. We also put a jar in the center. We covered the bowl in plastic wrap. And put a penny on the top. It's sitting on the dishwasher in the sun and we will check it every day for a week before trying to drink the water out of the jar.

Mom: This experiment is out of the same book as the Sun Tea: "A Child's Introduction to the Environment". Basically you start out with salt water and look at how you can get the salt out of it.

Here is how it looks so far: (I think the saran wrap might be a bit tight because the water droplets aren't moving yet, but we are going to watch and see what happens and try it again if we don't get water in the jar by the end of the 7 days.)

Sun Tea

We are using some fun books from the library! We found one book on the environment and renewable resources so we tried two fun projects today! Tony is making sun tea for our family and we are doing an experiment on making fresh water from drinking water. Here are the preliminary pictures. We will keep you updated!







Tony:
This is how I made Sun Tea following the instructions from "A Child's Introduction to The Environment..." by Michael Driscoll and Professor Dennis Driscoll.

You'll need:
1 gallon (4 liters) water
6 tea bags (ordinary tea, or try an herbal kind such as peppermint or a fruit flavor)
a clear 1-gallon jug or pitcher

1. Pour the water into the clear jug. Add the tea bags. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap.

2. Leave the jug outside in the bright sun for until the water is amber colored (usually just two or three hours). Remove tea bags.

3. Refrigerate the jug and drink the tea within the next day or two. And thats it.

I changed the recipe slightly because i did not have a 1 gallon jug or pitcher.

Instead i used 2 liters. 3 bags of tea. And then i did the rest of the instuctions.

A new start

Here we are again, giving it another go at blogging! I am not a good journal keeper, never have been....but we're working on it. We want to show you all the cool stuff that we are working on and learning about as we continue along our parenting and homeschooling journey.