I don't know if there is anywhere you can get Pathfinders models there, but they are really wonderful. These two would tie in nicely with a unit on flight: http://www.pathfindersdesignandtechnology.com/portfolio-item/da-vinci-ornithopter/ http://www.pathfindersdesignandtechnology.com/portfolio-item/da-vinci-helicopter/

I thought I would post what we have been doing for our unit on Botany. There has been a lot of discussion lately on Quark Chronicles and how it fits into a science program, so I thought this might be useful for others. Quark Chronicles:Botany was the inspiration for this unit as I knew my ds would love it; everything else was added to accompany it. I think this would work for about grades 2-4. Note that guesthollow has a great botany resource for higher levels. We read Quark Chronicles:Botany every night as a read aloud. As we go through Quark, ds points out words with which he is unfamiliar. I jot them down and he does a vocabulary page on the words during school time. We started TOPS Science: Radishes the day after we started Quark. It is a hands-on unit where you grow radishes in various conditions and track the progress of the seeds to plants. It needs to be done every weekday for a month for it to work successfully. It has been invaluable for our unit study. We use Real Science Odyssey:Life (the sections on plants and cells) to enhance ds' retention of the concepts. It has pages on labelling flowers and seeds, learning about monocots vs dicots, etc. Most of the curriculum is on the body and animals, so I wouldn't buy it just for botany, but I do plan to use it with the next two Quark books on zoology and anatomy. We have added a few experiments from Looking at Plants (by David Suzuki) because ds is having so much fun sprouting seeds. You can download it as a pdf. We have a subscription to BrainPop and ds watches all of the related vidoes. We also watched the Eyewitness movies Plant, Tree and Life. We are planning to watch the Bill Nye videos on Biodiversity, Cells, Forests, Plants, Flowers, and Farming. When we have finished TOPS we are going to do level 1 of Ellen McHenry's Botany in 8. This is probably too much for lower elementary, but if your dc are really enthused about botany it could be worth a look. You can check out her site for free printouts and see if they are the right level. Here are the picture books and reference books we are reading to go along with our unit (none of these titles are necessary, they are based on what we had available): - Shanleya's Quest (and the card game) - Let's Read and Find Out: What's Alive; Be a Friend to Trees, How Do Apples Grow, From Seed to Pumpkin, Why Do Leaves Change Colour; A Tree is a Plant; How a Seed Grows - Usborne beginners: How Flowers Grow; Trees - Living Sunlight (M Bang) - Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas - Tree of Life: The Incredible Diversity of Life on Earth - The Vegetables We Eat (Gail Gibbons) - Hungry Plants (M Batten) - No Monkeys, No Chocolate (M Stewart) - The Woods Scientist (S Swinburne) - The Tree Book For Kids and Their Grownups - The One Small Square series - Look What I Did With a Leaf (M Sohi) - Basher Science: Biology - Rookie Read About Science: Ferns - What is a Living Thing (B Kalman) - Eyewitness: Tree - Nature Anatomy (J Rothman) - Smithsonian Natural History - local plant guides We also read the following picture books for fun (these are more fiction-based): - Barbara Bash's Tree Tales: Ancient Ones, Desert Giant, Tree of Life, In the Heart of the Village - Tree Song (H Stewart) - Planting a Rainbow (L Ehlert) - The Dandelion Seed (J Anthony) - Holly Bloom's Garden - Apple Picking Time - The Curious Garden

Which animal encyclopedia did you get?

Fortunately, the Milk Frindle How to Train Your Dragon A Whole Nother Story Muddle Earth

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

We listen to Beethoven's Wig, Song School Latin, a ton of Canadian music (both children's music and fiddle tunes) and classical music. We listen to music every day while we eat breakfast and get ready for school, during "recess" breaks, and in the car.

I'll be excited with you. Yay!!! New book!! Which biology book did you get?

I have a science background, but not in any of the fields relevant to evolution. We are halfway through Quark Botany, and I have no objections whatsoever to the content up to this point. I have not noticed any subtle phrasing that could indicate a religious bias, and that is usually something that jumps out at me. I think you have to look at Quark for what it is: a set of novels. It is not a science curriculum. Rather than look at Quark as the spine, I would choose something else to be the main curriculum and use Quark as a hook to keep the dc engaged in the subject and to reinforce their learning. With this perspective I do not have an issue with Quark omitting topics. Not including evolution does not make the novel incomplete; it simply does not enter into the storyline. As for the writing quality, it is not perfect. I did not buy Sassafras due to the writing issues (and the focus on non-adventure science being boring). The first third of Quark was quite well done. Then there were four or so chapters with a few grammatical errors. The last couple of chapters have been ok again. I am willing to overlook the errors because ds loves the book so much and I think the author has done a great job of making a story out of science topics. I don't want to dissuade anyone from buying it, but I have not seen this mentioned before (maybe no one else noticed?) and I don't want anyone to feel mislead after hearing about it being well written. I still plan to buy all of the other Quark books because they are so engaging and ds has learned so much from the first one. When we encounter a scientific term with which ds is unfamiliar, he asks if we can add it to a vocab list so he can learn and remember it (he has never done this with any other book). He wants to read it every day, including weekends. He has already requested to read it again when we are finished. For us, it has been a very valuable component to our science this term.

We love Quark! We are doing TOPS Science Radishes with it, which has been *excellent*. There is also a David Suzuki book called Looking at Plants that has a great set of plant experiments which we will be doing after TOPS. Your library might have the book. There is also a pdf of it online.

What a relief that she has been found! Her poor family must have been frantic. :grouphug:

:grouphug: Thinking of her today and hoping she is safe.

There is a free iPad app to go along with the books. It looks like you solve puzzle clues to find treasures around the world.

Awwwwwwww. So cute!!!

My ds' story may give you a little inspiration. My ds was a typical reluctant writer. Bathroom breaks, snack breaks, needing to get a cup of water, oops my pen fell again. He still does that with subjects he isn't thrilled about, but writing is no longer an issue for us. What worked for my son was coming up with something he wanted to write because he found it fun. We spent a lot of time creating stories. He would tell me his story and I would type it and print it out for him. He loved doing that. Then one day I was busy with the toddler and I thought he was playing in his room. But when I checked in on him he was sitting at his desk writing "a book". He had a story idea and I wasn't there to write/type for him, so he decided to try it himself. He spent over half an hour to painstakingly write one sentence on his own. I heaped on the praise and completely ignored errors. He beamed with pride. He then started writing on his own time. Slowly, but determined because he wanted to do it. I bought him a dictionary and special pens. I gave him unlimited paper. He wanted to make a "real book" so I got him his own stapler so he could staple sheets together to make a book. We dropped our writing program for a year and didn't do writing as part of school anymore. He wrote over thirty "books" in one year, completely by himself during his free time. He invented a universe and created over a dozen stories about it along with descriptive guides for the different planets, and language guides for the different races. He won three writing competitions last year (fiction, non-fiction, and poetry) and now considers himself an author. Now obviously not every child is going to get this enthused about writing. But I marvel at how eighteen months ago my ds couldn't write a four word sentence without a major battle, and now he writes pages at a time for enjoyment. If I had pushed him to stick with the writing program he didn't like I would not have discovered that he has a passion for writing. I would put WWE aside for now. Although we didn't do a formal curriculum for writing for that whole year, one thing ds liked was the book Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye. I highly recommend it for reluctant writers. Ds found her writing games very fun and was always willing to give them a try.

Congratulations to your ds!!!! Very exciting! Yay!!

There are a lot of people responding to this thread that have not actually used an iPad Pro. You can run two apps split-screen, you can store both photos and documents in the cloud if you need more space, you can get a full-size Bluetooth keyboard, and using the pencil is actually more precise than using a mouse. You can get Word and Excel (or use Apple's word processor or spreadsheet) for the iPad Pro if that is something you need. It really depends on what you need to do. I use my iPad Pro 99% of the time. I use my old MacBook the other 1%, usually for the cd drive. I used to do all my photo editing on the MacBook, but I now use the iPad. I don't make photobooks though, so that isn't something with which I am familiar.

I would let him read and write for "school time" and then sneak math-based puzzles, games and activities in later in the day along with some fun science. And some audiobooks during play time. For my ds, morning = school, so he doesn't count all the educational afternoon activities as school. We even do school-work at bedtime, but he doesn't count that either. :)

I watched it again tonight too! And I was thinking of this thread and all the theories. I like the movie every bit as much as the first time. I can't wait for the next one. :)

cuboro snap circuits Lego technic k'nex wooden model kits science kits you could get him into stop motion animation using his Legos or kapla blocks as subjects what about audio books to listen to? my ds listens as he plays.

My oldest woke up SIX times per night EVERY SINGLE NIGHT until he was three and a half. I was a zombie. Then one day (almost in tears) I sat him down and told him that Mummy would be so happy to see him in the morning if he slept the whole way until morning. That we would have special cuddle time and it would be so awesome. He has slept through the night ever since. I know this is pretty unusual, so I'm not suggesting that it will work for others, but I did want to give you hope that terrible sleepers can become excellent sleepers. You will sleep again!

I would not use them past day 3.

If you like nature there is a beautiful app of the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens with videos of David Attenborough. It is called Kingdom of Plants. If you have an instrument that you tune you can use insTuner (I use this for my ukulele). Star Walk is a lovely app that identifies things in the night sky based on where you aim your iPad (at planets, constellations, satellites, etc.) Poems by Heart can help you memorize poetry. It is limited to poems that the publisher has chosen, but I find it an effective tool for memorization.

Congrats to your daughter!

My copy is ok, but I have had that happen before with a different book. I agree about contacting the publisher, although since you have already emailed the author I would give her a chance to respond first.

:grouphug: I am so very sorry for your loss. :grouphug: