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Saturday, April 19, 2008

A Homemade Balance

Well, after much thought and research, I have finally found some homemade balance instructions that work (not that the others wouldn't have worked, but they didn't work for me). I tried a few approaches before I got to this particular one. My first idea was to rig the Spill the Beans game...which didn't quite turn out the way that I had hoped. The second idea that I came across involved a ruler and a pencil...and the Spill the Beans game...I really wanted that to work! Finally, I found this: Make your own mass balance scale. My scale is of a more crude appearance, but I'm hoping that my husband can tweak it at some point since he's a lot stronger than me :D I was just too impatient to wait until he got home at the end of a long work day...and I didn't want to bug him with something so trivial at that point. Anyway, hope this serves some of you...I had all of these materials at home so this balance cost me $0...compared to a minimum of $10 + shipping elsewhere (from what I've seen).

Most of all, my kiddos are delighted to play with it. (I'm glad they don't know what they're missing yet!) Maybe I'll find a nice balance at a yard sale this summer. For now, this will work.

Now to find instructions for some of the other math manipulatives that my kiddos "need" for their curriculum...what have you used???

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Cheeeeese!

Well, this probably won't excite you guys, but we successfully made ricotta cheese today. It was so easy. I can't believe I kept putting it off. I love ricotta cheese so this is great!

Hope you all are having a blessed day!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Did you know???

That if you exert a small amount of pressure on the glass of a double-paned window in just the right place (in an attempt to push it upward to lock it)...that it will break. I wish I could say that it was an April Fool's joke since it happened on April 1st because I really didn't think that I was strong enough to break a window with my bare hands...but alas, it is no April Fool's joke. And I think that is the limit for run-on-sentences for me today. :P

A word to the wise: Always push on the plastic/wood frame of the window when attempting to close it; not the glass! :D