Intersecting Lines

Today we took a field trip to the Birmingham Art Museum for a new tour called Intersecting Lines: Math in Art. It was so cool! The docent talked to the kids about math concepts while pointing out pieces that demonstrated the ideas.

Obtuse and acute angles, diagonal and intersecting lines.

Symmetry and pattern

Area, multiplication, tessellation

Right angles, symmetry, and color patterns.

Major math concepts were needed to insure high winds wouldn't turn this sculpture into a death trap.

My guys hadn't been to this museum since they were little. As in G was in a stroller little. Here they are way too grown up. Sigh.

We had some time to kill before the tour so this is what we did...

Playing around the falls

Don't let them fool you...

It's usually more like this.

When the tour was over we checked out some of our favorite pieces.

Art is fun!

Samurai!

Thunderbird Totem

Afterwards we headed over to the McWane Center for some quality science time!

Micro-schooling

School has been going much smoother around here since our reboot. Everyone is happy with more music, more projects, more fun and less busywork. Especially me! Which is strange when you think about it, because straying away from a curriculum puts lots more work and strain on the teacher. It is worth it when your seven year old asks to listen to the cell song again because he didn't learn all the words yet. Score!

This week our lessons have been tiny. Minute. Micro in fact. It started off with this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zafJKbMPA8&feature=colike

Is that not the coolest? The boys LOVED it and so we kicked off our study on the smaller things in life. Just to keep them in the cell mindset we colored these pictures from Crayola's web site:

http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/print/human-cell-coloring-page/

Tomorrow for supper we are having something fun to cell-ebrate the end of the week. A animal cell pizza like this one from Journey 2 Excellence.

We have been talking about size and scale with the boys for math, so one of the assignments this week fit right in with our Lego Club assignment. This week we were supposed to build something that was a smaller scale than a mini-figure. C picked out an Egyptian tomb.