The Wisconsin Howards

The Move to Wisconsin

2009-02-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

The car jutted to a halt. The windows were slightly opened. My sister and i listened to the slight rustling of the leaves. We looked at our new home dumbfounded. I expected it to be far, far less exciting.
After a few minutes, we heard the faint click of the doors unlocking. Ria and I rustled to the door. After a lot of shoving, we finally managed to escape the horrible, dreadful car. We had sat in the same stinkin' spot for 18 bazillion (well maybe not the bazillion part) hours. We sat that long for the only reason - to get to this spot, my new home. It was in the cold and chilly state of Wisconsin.
It was hard leaving my old best friends but the shiver down my spine seemed to make up for all my worries. As I was daydreaming of what it would look like inside, I heard my sister Ria called out "Hey Otter, last one to the swings is a rotten egg!" A split second after we were both racing to the swings. We ran past the new glistening house. It was a small mixture of white and baby blue with textured marron shingles.
We finally crossed the yard to the swings. We swung and played until I saw a movement through the pines. I thought it was the wind until I looked closer. I then figured out it wasn't the wind at all - it was an 8-year-old my boy! My age! I ran over to him and saw that he was swinging nunchucks. His name was Bayley. He told me that the nunchucks had wood in them but soft coverings. He showed me everything in the new neighborhood. It was only about 5 minutes but I had been touched. I loved my new home in Wisconsin and that was going to be my home for a very very very long time.

Otter's Debut as an Orator

2009-02-26T09:55:00.000-08:00

Otter wrote a story about moving to Wisconsin that was published in the "Prairie Voices." This book is a collection of stories selected from all of the schools in the district. He was asked to read his story to the entire elementary school and here is the video from it! (The first few sentences were not recorded....)

When he comes home, I'll have him post the story on here.

Its been one of those days

2009-02-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

Ria actually opened up the car window while we were going through the car wash. Really. Wow. Thankfully, the big rollers and sprayers were at the end of the car and she was sitting in the front.

In addition, Parker decided to walk through the snow with his socks on. I bet he was thinking that might do wonders for his sinus infection and ear infections. Great.

one act play by huck finn

2009-02-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

hey cawie - its bootiful out here today.

yeah, it is kinda nice....

i think we should plays togethwer

ok, let me bite your leg

hey cawie, i think we should try to run and play

ok, let me bite your leg

hey cawie, is your widdle tfing beeping on your neck?

i don't know, i too busy biting your leg

mine's not beeping at all. lets see how far we can go...

aaahhh this is gweat! lets run yeah! yeah!!!

ffwwweeedddommm! lets go to the pond and chase some ducks!!

yeah lets bite their legs!

dangit, i feel something wet on me cawie - is dat rain?

i don't know, i too busy biting your legs...

dangit, it is rain. it was so nice when we fiwst ran away and now we are wet and far from home..

your leg taste like wet dog.

oh look, here comes da mommy in da van, quick, lets jump in.

its da mommy its da mommy i so excited its da mommy!

why is she laughing at us manically? why is she calling us stoopid wet stinky puppies and asking if we enjoy being dis wet???

its da mommy its da mommy its da mommy i so excited i could bite your leg

dangit, the little corner in the back of dis van is very tiny and you smell like wet dog....

7's

2009-02-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Beanie writes her 7's backwards (as well as her 2, 5, and 9s), which is normal while kids are learning their numbers. This morning we were working on her numbers and I was showing her how 7's are supposed to be turned around. She insisted she was doing them the right way. I pulled down the calendar to show her the 7's on the calendar, as well as her school lunch menu to show her the way 7's were written there. Her response was "Was that from my school? You can't trust anything those guys do....I think the 7's go this way...." and went back to writing her 7's backwards.

Back at it again!

2009-02-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

I hope to keep this blog regular again as life is finally returning to a somewhat normal status now that the last of us has made her appearance! Indie Lynn was born on Dec. 30 and is a perfectly healthy and happy baby:) She has been wonderful so far and her older siblings adore her. So do the dogs - they occasionally try to sneak in licking the toes. What is so appealing about baby toes? I have even caught Parker trying to nibble her toes!

Here's the update on everyone else:

Otter is doing OK in school. His amazing intellect has now become a handicap for him as he thinks he does not need to work at all at school. Its a tough battle to keep him challenged and yet reinforce he still needs to learn the basics. He is going to start playing lacrosse, which should be a lot of fun for all of us. I can't wait to get a stick and practice with him! Once all this snow melts of course, until then, ice hockey on the local pond with his dad has been his sport of choice for the weekend.

Beanie is doing great. She loves school and is such a social butterfly. She is learning how to read and is quite the whiz in math. She can put together puzzles, train tracks, and buildings of legos faster than I have seen anyone else do it! She still has that loose tooth but thankfully has not tied it to anything else yet trying to yank it out. She is taking swim lessons and loves being in the water. She will definitely be on the swim team with Otter this year. I am so happy to have kids in love with the water!

Parker is 2-1/2. 'Nuff said:) Here's a video of him from the summer trying to emulate Otter at the swim meets:

Indie is wonderful. She is not yet sleeping through the night but has good 4-5 hour stretches. Good enough for us! She only fusses when she is hungry and it is not really a fuss, more of a squeak. Very adorable. I wonder how old she needs to be before I can throw her in the pool???

Escape Artist

2008-07-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

The little man has decided his crib is much too confining for him....witness the escape:

He now has a big boy bed that he is very excited about:

Popcorn

2008-07-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

Otter's blog is going to transition to stuff from all of us from now on! He is returning to public school in September (egad!) so I will try to keep videos and other stuff from the fam on here, as well as some of Otter's writings.....

So, here's the first video! Its the kids dancing to Popcorn from the Barenaked Ladies (excellent kiddo CD they just released btw......)

Otter's Explorer Project

2008-04-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

To complete Otter's lessons on the Explorers, he had to put together a "book" of 6 different accomplishments of famous explorers. Attached is his PowerPoint presentation. I showed him simply how to use PowerPoint and how to find some pictures for the explorers; the rest of the work is from him. He also drew maps from all of the Explorers' travels, but we could not get the scanner to work - hopefully at some other time I can post these on!

So, I needed to do a webpage because Blogger cannot do Powerpoints, but you can go to the webpage and click the link and this will open up the PowerPoint that Otter

http://tmpelletier3.googlepages.com/home

Enjoy!!!

...coming soon...

2008-04-12T11:14:00.001-07:00

Otter is still working on his Explorers stuff and probably won't do a post until some time next week:) Stay tuned! This one is going to be AWESOME!

Thee Mighty Saga of Explorer Learning

2008-04-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

We learned about explorers, landforms, and division this week.

This week we learned about Greeks and Vikings explorers.

Greeks:
There was once a blind poet named Homer. He was a Greek and also was the author of Odyssey. The Odyssey is just about this guy named Odysseus that wanted to go home. He had to battle a giant cyclops, pass swirling whirlpool and Battle a humongous army. Odysseus explored the islands and sent out troops to explore the new territory they found. Odysseus is a character from the book that Homer wrote. Some of the islands Homer mentioned in it were real and he mentions some of the maps in it to show how big the Greeks though the world was. Homer never wrote down the story, it was passed down through generations and then eventually was written into a book. The Greek king named Alexander the Great wanted to explore lands while he led his troops to battle so he brought geographers and recorders so he could record the land and see the different animals that lived there.

Vikings:

We also learned about Vikings. There is this one Viking that I thought was pretty cool named Erik the red. He first lived in Iceland with his mother, father, and two sisters. His dad had been banished from Iceland for murdering a man. Erik grew up and killed two men. He also had to be banished from Iceland. He grew up and had a son. He named his son Leif Erikson. Did you know that Christopher Columbus wasn’t the first one to discover America? Leif Erikson did. And to learn about what Vikings ate were going to make Viking bread. You can too at food network .com. I also read the kids' version to Beowulf. It was about this hero named Beowulf who fought ogres, Serpents and a giant monster named Grendel [In mine he didn’t have to fight his mom]. Beowulf was written during the time of the Vikings and he was kind of like a Viking in the books.

We also learned about the world map. Mommy told me about the places I just talked about were. We also learned about the Map. We learned about longitude, latitude, the Prime Meridian, and the equator. I am exhausted from all the writing so only a little more info. I also learned division. So if you have a question from division just shoot me an e-mail. I also [and this is the last time] learned about different land forms. They are named: strait, Gulf, Lake, bay island, river, isthmus peninsula, archipelago, and that’s all by!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Space Exploration

2008-03-14T13:18:00.001-07:00

This week we learned about the universe. This is a information blog of which planets are which. The planet that is closest to the sun is Mercury. It is named Mercury because Mercury was the messenger of the gods and was very fast. Mercury the planet is also very fast. It takes Mercury eighty days to orbit the sun. That is the shortest year in the solar system. The next planet is Venus. Venus is the same size as Earth. Venus used to have water but too much carbon dioxide got in the air, held onto heat, and made all the water evaporate. Earth is the planet we live on and in my last blog I told you so I don’t have to tell you anything about it. Mars. Mars is the god of war. The Romans named it because it has that bloody look. Mars is like the moon. It, long ago, got scar by asteroids and meteorites. The next planet is Jupiter. Jupiter is one of the gas giants. The red spot on it is a humongous hurricane that has been raging for hundreds of years. Jupiter is bigger than all of the planets combined. The next planet is Saturn. Saturn is also one of the gas giants. The ring around it looks solid but it is not. It is really a bunch of gas. The next planet is Uranus. Uranus is the god of the sky's. It is also a gas giant. It has many moons. The next planet is Neptune. Neptune and Uranus are sister planets. And Pluto isn't a planet any more. So there you have it, the secrets to the solar [means sun] system.

Explosion of knowledge

2008-03-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Explosion of knowledge

This week was awesome!

We learned about the inside of the earth this time and not the outside! We learned about how volcanoes formed and went to the geology museum. I brought stuff like my binoculars, a note book, a pencil, some snacks, and some guidebooks to dinosaurs and crystals. But, before I tell you this story I have to tell you this story... this week we learned about volcanoes. Volcanoes can be made from cracks on the earths crust, mountains, or even some dents on the ocean floor. Volcanoes get their lava [magma] from the mantel. The mantel is the middle layer of the earth. As the lava rises from the mantel [since it's hot] like hot air. Then all of the sudden, BOOM!! It bursts out of the volcano. Did you know that Hawaii [according to legend] got made by a goddess named Pele? The story goes that there was a fight between Pele and her sister. Pele tried to attack her sister with her magic stick but her sister blocked and fired back. Pele was cursed to dig fire pits for all eternity. We made a model volcano with my friends. We put stuff like little action figures and toy salamanders on the volcano that made it look pretty cool when it exploded. We filled it with baking soda and vinegar and when it exploded it looked like the little action figures were getting drowned in baking soda and vinegar lava. AAAaAAAAhhHHHHHH!!! The end .Okay, subject changed. Now we are talking about the different layers of the earth. The layers are: the core, the mantel, and last of all, the crust. Okay, let's start with the core. The core is the layer farthest away from us. The core is made up of two parts: the inner core and the outer core. The core is a solid. The outer core is not solid. It is liquid. The core is also the hottest part of the earth. It is made of iron and nickel. The iron and nickel have an extreme magnetic force. The force is so great that that is why the moon is orbiting us! The moon has an extreme force too! There is also the mantel. The mantel is the middle layer of the earth. The mantel is also made of iron and nickel too just like the core. But the core and the mantel are also different. The core was solid. And the mantel is liquid. Last but not least, the crust. The crust is the part that you are standing on right now! Did you know that the farthest hole ever drilled was 12 kilometers?' yep it's true. Okay. If the two continental plates push together, it causes an earthquake. Okay, the subject is changed now one more time. This week we also went to the to a geology museum. We saw crystals, fossils, rocks and gemstones. Tell Uncle Rob that we went to that museum.

Whether, Whether, Whether you like it or not, weather, weather, weather is colder than hot!!

2008-02-29T12:02:00.001-08:00

This week we learned about weather! I did so many cool things you won't believe it!

We watched this one really cool eyewitness movie about natural disasters! It had really cool facts on avalanches, hurricanes, landslides, well, you get the idea. I also read this book on hurricanes. It also had some really cool facts on hurricanes. I bet you didn't know that the eye of a hurricane was the calmest part of the hurricane. Before I thought that the eye was the roughest part of the hurricane. We also learned that hot air rises and cold air has to rush over and take its place.

This creates wind. We did an experiment for it where we took some paper, cut it into a circle, and then we made cuts and folded triangles in the circle. We also hooked up a paper clip to the circle. Oh, and we hooked up a hanger to the top. We hooked it on Mommy's finger, put it under the light and waited, and waited. Then it suddenly started spinning. We had created wind!

We also learned about how the earth rotated around the sun. That is why we have seasons. The beginning days of the seasons are Winter solstice, spring equinox, Summer solstice, and fall equinox. Solstice means "sun standing still." The winter solstice is when we have Christmas. In the fall and spring equinox the day and night have the same amount of time. The Egyptians celebrated the spring equinox in parties [and they did this because their plants sprouted]. The Christians celebrated Easter. Now I don’t think THAT'S weather!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAIT folks it's not over! We also learned how clouds formed. First the sun comes and makes all the water evaporate. Then it goes up in the air and then it hits the troposphere. It start's getting cold. All the water stays up there it's so cold!

Now I am done.

Gone Winter Wild!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-02-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

This week we learned about how insects, mammals, and plants have adapted to winter in ways to suit their habitat.

The insects are wicked awesome. Some insects freeze solid to protect themselves.
Some actually produce their own antifreeze! The antifreeze spreads around the insect's body making something like a snow proof shield. The antifreeze that insects make is not poisonous but the kind that is in cars is poisonous. Antifreeze is also a very good poison because it is very sweet. The antifreeze goes into a car to keep the car's engine from freezing. Unfortunately, it leaks from cars and dogs and cats come to lick it all up. Many dogs and cats die from the antifreeze.

Mammals have many other ways of protecting themselves from the cold. Some animals have very thick fur. For example, a buffalo has thick fur to protect it from the cold. The thick fur traps warm air inside and keeps the cold air out. This technique is used in varieties of different mammals.

We went to the zoo on Friday to see some real live animals out and to see their winter adaptions.We saw penguins and polar bears outside. Inside the tropical rain forest we saw tropical birds and fish. It was amazing, absolutely amazing!

Did you know that plants have ways to protect themselves too? Trees are very cool. They store up on food for the winter. Then it is finally wintertime. They tell all the leaves to shut down and stop giving the tree food. The tree forms a cork like substance that stops the food at the end of each leaf. The leaves all fall since they have no more use. In the winter, the tree eats its stored up food. All these adaptions are amazing!

PLANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-02-15T09:11:00.000-08:00

First, we wrote hypotheses about the experiment that we were doing. The experiment was
for trying to see which plant would grow better In different types of light. My hypotheses
was that the one with the most light would grow the best. The experiment was that we had
three plants. We also Had Three boxes. One of the boxes had holes in it. Another one had
been all closed up. We put two snap dragons in each of the boxes. they were labeled with
secret code names .We put them in the boxes wait a while an water em' feed em' and, WALA!*
that experiment was for me to find out what the scientific method was.we also learned about this guy who put some raw meat in a jar with a top on and another piece of meat in another jar
with the top off. the one with the top on got less maggots than the one with the top off.
this was true because the flies couldn't have gone through the top to lay eggs but the flies cold get through open area to lay eggs.
yeah! Okay, hey why am I still in this font? BOOM!!! ok, thats better,
as I was saying, Oh wait, that parts done. now it is getting to the more exciting part.
well, all right if you really want to hear it that bad, the exciting part is that I have been reading books late at night in my bed with a flash light. pretty exciting huh? Well, alright I'll go back to what i was talking about. I started doing this cool assignment about endangerd* plants what I
read a book about endangerd* plants. I chose three plants to write about there range, why endangred, and a way to help it .

What a DAY!

2008-02-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

this paragraph is about what math we have learned about this week.
we have learned multiplication. multiplication is the math for grouping.
we have learned the simple ones first [ 101 ]. for example, 0x5oo =0.
this is simple because there are 0 groups of 500. next we did ones. ones are easy.
for example, 1000x1=1000. this is easy because there are 1000 groups of one.

this paragraph is about our calender's history .
it all started out thousands of years ago, when the Egyptian people ruled.
they had to know when there crops would grow but they had nothing to tell days or months with!
so,they started with telling days with the moon or the season. they eventually evolved[we are still with the Egyptians] months. but only one problem. there were five extra days!!! i bet you can't guess what these were used for ;) they were used for parties [that was not a joke]
they were parties for the gods! meanwhile across the ocean the romans where planning their
calender. their calender was the closest related to ours. these are their months: 1.Martius
2. Aprilis 3. Maia 4. Junius 5. Quintilus 6. Sexitilus 7. September 8.October 9. November
10. December 11.Januarus 12.Februarius. NOTE: please remember that these are ROMAN months. So... 1. god of war. 2. god of love. 3.god of flowers. 4. goddess of woman. 5. quint means
5. 6. sex means 6. 7. sept means 7. 8.oct means 8. 9. nove means 9. 10. dece means 10. 11. janus means god of the doorway. we also learned the days of the week.

we learned plant anatomy and types of plants in our gardening room in the basement. we repotted a snake tongue and a dying zucchini. we searched around the house for leaves of my favorite houseplants, like the snake tongue. we got a leaf off it, planted it, and we wanted to see if it grew. we also learned plant anatomy of a tree, like the sapwood and the cambium.

today (february 8), we went on a field trip to olbrich gardens and we saw the plants that would probably grow in a rainforest sprouting fruits and flowers. we also saw venus flytraps and pitcher plants. we had to push parker around and run after ria. then, when parker started to get whiny, we started to go to the gift shop and look around. after that, we got our coats and drove home and here i am writing in this blog.

Week In Review

2008-01-31T07:34:00.000-08:00

"The mascot of our school is a dragon. We are the Hogwards dragons. This is a blog about my computer education.
I have learned about inputs and outputs. An input is information that you put in a computer. For example, a CD. There are two types of CDs'. One is a RW. RW stands for re writable and re-readable . That's what I learned this week.