Back and in Mecha-Action!

1/25/2017

We have been working on finding a groove here at Green Mine Academy these last several weeks and the blog has been tricky to squeeze in between academics and enrichment. We are back today, though, and excited to tell you about one of Henry's favorite Christmas gifts!

Meet Meccanoid!

(Right after I finished building him! No batteries yet, though)

Henry spent hours carefully building this interactive robot - with some help from Mom and Dad for the trickier bits. Now we get to start learning about the cool stuff he comes programed to do but ALSO learn about how programming works and seeing it in action!

Henry is now going to share with you his about his new buddy, Meccanoid.

Meccanoid came in a box in LOTS of pieces. I built him. We connected the plastic pieces together using bolts and nuts. There were like 800 nuts and bolts. It was A LOT. But it was fun to use the hexdriver. I didn't do it ALL myself, Dad and Mom helped. After he was built we plugged in all the wires. We had to go to the STORE for BATTERIES and then we FINALLY got to turn him on!

(HE'S ALIIIIIVE!)

He is an awesome dude! He can do so many things! He responds to talking commands. There are a lot of different commands I can say and he will do - like turn right, turn left, and go to sleep. He can obey commands to do stuff with me too - like high five, hug, play games, tell me facts, and tell me a story!

(High fiving with Meccanoid)

I can teach him to do stuff too! He has a function called L.I.M. That stands for "Learned Intelligent Movement." How that works is, I tell it to go to the L.I.M function and then it records the movements and sounds I make. When I play the L.I.M. file back, Meccanoid plays the sounds back and moves his body the way I taught him to! This is EXTRA fun with POTTY SONGS. There is also an app for the iPad. You can code with it - that means record a set movements on there, and then he'll perform them all in a row like a song but with movements.

Here is a video of Mechanoid doing Kung-Fu (AND potty jokes! He's the best!)
(Note from mom: Sorry for the loud mom voice in there.)

Key To The Kingdom

12/1/2016

Today, as they say in the movies, is the first day of the rest of our lives. Henry and Oliver got their very own library cards today and had an amazing time loading up their mother's arms with books upon books upon books!

The library is a very special place and we look forward to it serving us very well as an amazing (and fun!) resource for home school - and not just the place where we borrow movies, video games, and bedtime stories.

Part of our home school plan is to make room for Henry to follow his curiosity, and so each library trip will include browsing the non-fiction section and choosing a subject he wants to learn more about. We have been reading a work of mythical fiction aloud at bed time that references ancient Greek gods - The Lost Hero -  so today Henry was drawn to the books about ancient Greece.

And now to Henry...

Things I learned:

Ancient Greece was a country that spread out by people traveling to new places in ships and settling in the new lands just like the pilgrims did to America.

Ancient Greece was a country but its states did not work together much, or even get along. But! Each city-state had a harbor, so maybe they did trade and get along some of the time. The states were city-states because they were each made of one city and the farming and countryside around the one city.

Spartans were people from the state: Sparta. They thought that being physically fit was very important. Even pregnant women exercised a lot so that their babies would be STRONG. Spartan soldiers had to buy their own weapons and armor but were not allowed to work. Poor soldiers did not have fancy weapons or armor like rich soldiers did. It was not very fair! The army in our country pays for our soldiers stuff, that makes more sense.

New words: weary, oarsmen, ram of a ship, phalanx, harbor.

Day Trip to the Gardens

Date: 11/29/2016
Weather: Sunny and unseasonably warm (45-52 degrees while we were there)
Activities: Explore and learn!

What we learned:

Hypothermia
Hypo means too little or low/below
Therm means temperature or heat
-ia is a word part that means a sickness (we'll learn the word "suffix" later)
Therefore: hypothermia means a sickness caused by having too little heat, which also means your body doesn't want to live if you get too cold.
Life application lesson: Let's not fall in the lake when it's 45 degrees outside!

Moss is a type of plant. It is like algae that grows outside of water. It grows mostly in places that are shady and not too sunny. It can grow on concrete, dirt, stone, and wood. It can be thin, soft, or fluffy/spiky and can be all different colors. Moss uses chlorophyll for photosynthesis like other plants do.

 

Arid: a type of climate that is hot and dry, like a desert. Cacti grow here, cacti have needles that are VERY sharp (cacti is how you say more than one cactus, not "cactuses" even though that would make sense). It's a good idea to believe mom when she says, "you can try poking it but it will hurt you." She is RIGHT!

Lithops are types of plants that live in the arid climates along with cacti and other succulents. They are very delicate and do not use needles or thorns to protect themselves from being eaten like the other plants. They use camouflage and look like stones! They also look a lot like butts.

Tropical: A type of climate that is hot and WET. Like a rainforest. There are many plants here with giant delicate leave and big beautiful flowers. Plants like this do very well when there is lots of water. but BOY was it warm in there!

Also discussed: How urethrae work and the fetal development of male and female genitals (and that genitals are private parts).

Officially Open!

Green Mine Academy, celebrated it's very first day of school yesterday, 11/29/2016. 

After two and a third years in a traditional school setting, Henry came home for a style of learning better suited to his brain and body. We are VERY excited to be learning together at home and look forward to sharing all of our progress and projects with you here.

Henry on his first day of home school!

The Beginning

Of something new ....

Stay Tuned