SIRS Discoverer

1. Armadillos - Personally I'd like to know if was Jane or Julie who decided on armadillos :) I've actually been about 2 feet away from an armadillo once. They're kinda cute!

But on with the lesson...First of all I have to say that some of the article titles made me laugh: "Hard Body," "Boinngg! Here Come the Armadillos," and "Real Animals or Magic?" are among my favorites. It was nice that in the search results list articles with photographs had the little camera icon and the Lexile level listed. The articles were generally good and age-appropriate; but one entitled "The Face Only a Mother Could Love" from Southern Living caught me a little off-guard with the first sentence: "Beauty may be skin-deep, but when you're talking about an armadillo, ugliness goes all the way to the bone. What other animal looks like it was fashioned from leftover parts after God finished making everything else?" Ouch!!!!! So they may not be a delicate humming bird or a powerful tiger, but let's not teach our kids to be so snarky! I'll admit that armadillos seem a bit unfortunate, but have you seen Sphynx cats? Give me an armadillo any day over those!

2.a. Country Facts - I checked out both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Along with maps and pictures of the flags, there were general facts about the geography and population, as well as a listing of important historical events. But more than that I like the fact-finder worksheets at the top of each article. I appreciate that each of these is created by professionals using reliable sources, but the articles referenced from the two countries I looked up are, frankly, old. The newest one from either is 2006. I'm sorry but in that respect Wikipedia's gotcha beat!

2.b. Maps of the World - I started out using some of the 7 boxes of map choices listed along the top of the page...maybe I'm just a negative Nelly today, but I was not impressed with these maps for the most part. It's nice that you can print the map out in color, but it bothers me that all the maps I looked at had dates of 1998 or older. Most teachers wouldn't look favorably on print information that old, so to have it in an electronic resource is disappointing. When I started using the alphabet options & the search options, I was amazed to see how many more options for maps there were. Many of these were much more interesting and informative. However, I was still disappointed by the timeliness of some of them. One map of the US for "Immigrants Admitted by Intended State of Residence" was from 1992! This is way too old!

2.c. I decided to explore the "Fiction" area. Not bad, not too bad at all. It's nice that most of the stories are short so they aren't hard to read on a computer, if you don't want to print them. These would be useful things to have for summer reading extras.

I also found the overall layout of this database to be rather unappealing.

Laissez Faire my Lesson 1C!

Can you guess which version of World Book Foreign Language Edition I chose to play with? :)

Well, other than if a French child needed to do some homework while traveling in the U.S., I'm not sure how this would really benefit the average library user. I got excited by the guinea pigs, but then backtracked to antelope. It's conceivable that children could discern what other types of antelope exist across the ocean, which this article seem to feature. However, I then did a search in the PL Research version and got tons more information than in the French version.

While listening to an article in the Spanish language version it was nice to have whatever section or feature highlighted as it was read aloud.

Lesson 1B

So I decided to knock it off with the wombats and porcupines, to check out coyotes. In World Book Online for Kids (PL version), the information is simple but effective for the age group. I do wish they would use real photos for this age group though. I don't really see the point of using drawings for little kids. I also listened to the coyote sound...not impressed really. Let's see what we have in Info Finder...

Ahh, much more information on coyotes in Info Finder, and once again a real photograph and Latin as well. I also just noticed the "double click on a word to define it" feature. Pretty neat. It's also interesting to me that there is no mention of the articles for the K-5 grades being aligned with the SD content standards. I wonder why that is? Hmmm....

Okay, so when I went into World Book Reference Center I totally got distracted by a picture of Mount Raupehu on the North Island of New Zealand - I'm a huge LOR fan. Then I thought I might as well look up New Zealand as my country. I like the feature on the left that just gives a bunch of pictures. I would think this would be very helpful for a student doing research on a country. The e-book feature on the right is also interesting. Also, primary sources are also very helpful to many people doing research. I think people will like the general layout and graphic nature of the articles. It's laid out very nicely.

Lesson 1A

World Book Kids...Well, I wanted to learn some more about wombats but they are only briefly mentioned in an article about Australia. I know wombats aren't the most popular mammal in the world, but they are really interesting! So picking up the pieces of my disappointed heart I looked up porcupines instead. I've always been tempted to stop on the highway when I see one that has been hit to take a few of its quills, but I've never had the guts to follow through. I was actually a bit disappointed in the article on porcupines though. The picture was an old, faded drawing and other than mentioning they spend a lot of time in trees, that's all the habitat information that was given.

World Book Student pulls it out! I found an article on wombats! Hey, wait a minute...they're marsupials! I didn't know that! I'd always read they were a lot like a large badger. The information in the article was much more thorough than the "Kids" edition. So onto porcupines...also a much more detailed article with a real photograph this time. They even threw a little scientific classification (Latin!) in there for good measure!

World Book Advanced didn't disappoint with information on Luxembourg! I especially like the way the article is outlined on the left side of the page for easy navigation. The "Facts in Brief" table was very nice. I think this would be very useful for someone doing a report. Also interesting is that Reagan and JFK seem to have the most presidential papers mentioning Luxembourg.

In World Book Explorer I browsed until I got to an article on the National Park system. I did notice that you can translate the article into many different languages. While it notes that the translation won't be perfect, a general sense of the information will be intact. I tried translating the article I found into Arabic...I think some of the text gets cut off on the right side of the screen. I don' t know if this is a big problem. Not having the ability to read Arabic but knowing it's reads from right to left, it looks abrupt to me.

Just have to say this

Not many people even know this blog exists, but I feel like I need to get something out.

Over the last 7 weeks, especially the most recent 2, the only thing that Sarah Palin has proved she is really good at is twisting words, winking at the camera, and having a decent sense of style.

And I've realized that all McCain has really proved is that he's more of a "more for me and none for you" kinda guy. His whole shtick with "growing the pie" is absurd. The man exhibits his lack of economic sense if he thinks that just making the "pie" bigger is good economics. When we have an equitable economic society and stop being so greedy, then it doesn't matter how big or small the pie is, there will be enough for everyone. I'd like to see McCain go tell people in a soup kitchen that "spreading the wealth" is a bad, bad idea.

Monday; June 21, 2008

Some brave souls who slept in tents woke this morning to a horse nibbling on their tents.

Most of the rest of us began the day with breakfast, including tasty bagels or toast to order (thanks Melissa!). Don’s toast was indeed the most special: multi-grain bread, crunchy peanut butter, and vanilla yogurt.

Asa and Max lead us all in morning devotions to help start the day off right.

3…2…1…BLAST OFF! The vans started making their first pick-up runs of the day around 8:20 a.m. and before we knew it, campers were arriving! Many were sleepy at first, especially Daniel, and some of the camp staff were a little sleepy too. Most everyone woke up and games were played while we waited for the rest of the campers to arrive.

Raggedy Butterfly showed up with her bunnies. Noah was the first rabbit to make an appearance and all the kids got a chance to pet him. Once the campers were all delivered, everyone piled into the church for the first opening session so Chrystie could review all the guidelines and codes of conduct for the week. And then they were off….

The first group in the Book Nook was a sweet but very crazy and large group of girls with Melissa and Jenny, who eventually named themselves the Honey Bees. Bella wanted their name to be the pink cupcakes, but lost out on that one. The next group were Steve and Will’s very stoic young men, followed by a whole bunch more girls with Sam and Emma, and a mixed group with Don and Cal.

Sharing the space with the technology station proved to be a challenge when it came to storytime and what seemed like 50 fans. The kids at the technology station were playing a really fun recycling game with some really fun noises that were best heard at full volume, or so they thought. I know that I can out-shout just about anyone (except maybe Rebecca), so reading to the kids wasn’t too much of a problem for me, but seemed to drown out Kati W. Not that you could have told by watching Kati – she plowed right on through all that noise determined to read her entire book! ‘Atta girl, Kati!

All the kids loved picking out books, even some of the *gasp* boys! Stevie was so excited to find Harry Potter books, but was disappointed that they were only supposed to take home 3 on the first day. So I promised I would hold the next three for him until the following day. I had a great, although slightly overwhelming time, with all of the groups as they rotated through prompted by Don’s chicken call (5 feet away, please). The kids also loved taking pictures with our cameras.

Derrick brought Sammi to camp so she could have some fun because she was unable to attend the leadership camp the week previous.

She had a great time telling anyone who would listen, and some who would not, about her 10 Transformers and all her different video games. Sammi also had a blast sneaking up on me, grabbing my waist, and scaring the living daylights out of me!

Lunch was organized chaos as always, with Kati W. almost having a minor meltdown when she realized all the PB&J sandwiches were gone. But once again, Chrystie saved the day and gave Kati her sandwich. The night before, Don was helping to clean up and prepare for the next day by making lemonade. But sometime after adding the powder and water, his adult ADD kicked in and he put the pitcher in the fridge…which left Rebecca hacking with a plastic mixing spoon through a solidified version of pink lemonade drink mix at lunch. His lemonade making privileges were quickly revoked and he was properly ashamed.

Then like a great tide going out, all the campers were gone for the day, though our ears still rang from all their laughter and yelling. Jay had thoroughly enjoyed the day so much that he decided to get dehydrated. The appropriate amount of fussing was had and the moms of the camp got him watered, cooled, and napped.

At our post-camp meeting the vultures, er, I mean, teenagers descended on the leftover Skittles and M&Ms. Afternoon assignments were handed out, including the re-grouping of all the campers into 5 groups (kudos to Melissa and Sam). I spent the better part of 2 hours making approximately 9 dozen cookies for Tuesday’s lunch. Back away from the cookies.

Dinner was a pleasant affair of tasty spaghetti. Cal was so excited about the brownies and ice cream for dessert that in his frenzy, he bit clear through his plastic spoon. Thus ended the first day of camp.

Other highlights: getting a kiss from Morning Star and Cody’s smile.

Hau Kola Learning Camp, Makasan Elementary, part 1

Sunday; June 20, 2008

This year’s drive down seemed to fly by. Maybe it was the fact that I got to listen to “A Prairie Home Companion” and an audio book, or maybe it was that this year I wasn’t pulling a 16 foot trailer through sand. Either way, I got to camp around 3:30 in the afternoon and much to my delight everyone was there!

After some quick introductions, we unloaded the Star Lab into the Guild Hall and I threw most of my stuff from the giant Suburban into the room where I would be sleeping. I was very excited to see the progress made on the guest bedrooms from last year. Bunk beds with real mattresses are several steps up from sleeping on air mattress (that always lose air) right on the sub-floor.

We then unloaded the van that had the boxes of books for the Book Nook. About 9 of us lined up and did a fireman’s brigade line to get the boxes inside the church. Some of the boxes were heavier than others and an interesting warning system was devised at the front of the line to alert persons further on to the approximate weight of the box. Gone were descriptors such as “heavy,” “medium,” or “light.” Instead phrases such as “middle aged man” or “just a baby” were issued. Unfortunately, the ever so creative descriptions died about half-way down the line and the bland old “heavy” or “light” were still the order of the day. Cal certainly seemed to have a good time with the setting up of the Book Nook. In the unloading line, I passed boxes to him and much to his disappointment I refused to throw the boxes to him despite much urging. Then we discovered that the boxes were all taped shut, but never fear – Jenny to the rescue! She retrieved a steak knife from the kitchen which Cal used with wild abandon to open the boxes. Steve also produced a pocket knife with quite possibly the world’s smallest blade. Eventually all the boxes were unpacked and the Book Nook was ready for business the next day. If only we’d known to save the board books for the next week….

Then I had a chance to get myself unpacked and somewhat settled in before we took off on our next adventure – passing out flyers for camp. And any time is an adventure with Doug at the wheel. I have now learned that Doug is not afraid of several things while behind of the wheel of a minivan such as going really fast down dirt roads, going really fast over cattle guards, going really fast over hidden potholes, and the prospect of running over large dogs (more on that to come). Our van visited some pretty far flung houses, and I was also very encouraged to see some nicer houses that people were making an effort to take care of. While in the van my attention was split between listening to Doug fill Kati in on the history of the area and the math nerds in the back. Driving through one neighborhood, we were all very saddened to see a dog that had had a bad encounter with a porcupine.

Emma and Tunde definitely win best handing-out-flyers story. They went up to a house and as they were telling the woman at the door about camp a baby in a diaper toddled over. The baby began to fart and grunt every few seconds, and everyone was trying to ignore her until it was no longer possible, when they all just looked down at her and laughed.

By the time everyone got back we were all pretty hungry and were still waiting on the Chadron run to return with the rest of the food for dinner. Though we didn’t eat until almost 8 p.m., we did have some wonderful company: Mallory, a former camper, her husband and 3 young children. Steve was also surprised to find that Doug had (unintentionally) stolen his cup. Then just to make things crystal clear he wrote, “STEVE NOT DUG” on his new cup.

When dinner was over Rebecca proceeded to work on a project for the coming week. This project involved Skittles and M&Ms, which are like a siren song to all teenagers who all rushed over to “help.” One Rebecca-command later, everyone was properly terrified and backed away quickly. They found solace in a calm and peaceful game called “Screaming Ninjas,” of which Hannah won round #1. Then the heavens opened and everyone was ecstatic to learn that we were in the presence of greatness for Lo! Kati is one of the creators of Screaming Ninjas! All hastened to give her much praise and laud.

The group then moved on to evening reflections and covenant statements.

My favorite memory of the evening (and one of the whole week) was Emma resolutely chewing the chocolate right in Don’s face. Ahhhhh, life is sweet!

Other highlights for the day: Julia and Hannah made Don a tipi to go with his Don-doll! Now he and Brison can stay warm and dry!