Special Connection Homeschool

By now my readers know that Gesserine is a weather nut, so last year I took her to the Storm Fury on the Plains presentation put on the by the National Weather Service out of Wichita. She sat through the entire 2 hours and couldn't wait to go again. They do this annually so last night we attended it again. I am glad we did because last year I had no idea how much information would be in one of these things and I forgot so much of it when I got home. This year, I took notes! The Storm Fury on the Plains is an official weather spotting training session. They offer these in every county because Kansas has the second highest number of severe weather events in the country. Only Texas tops us simply because it is bigger. Per 1000 miles, we are just barely behind Oklahoma. Basically statistics confirm what we already know, we are in the heart of tornado alley.  The information they give you is fascinating and of course educational.  We were quizzed on trying to determine ...

My Gess loves science, but mostly she loves studying the weather.  Every time spring arrives she is fascinated with the storms that come with.  In April we had the opportunity to go to a storm spotter class. This information helps you be able to spot various types of storms, how to do so safely, and how to share that information with others.  It was a two hour class and Gess sat through it all.  Of course much of it was visual as there were tons of images and video clips used as examples.  Still, I was very proud of how well she did. This last week we had a chance to spot one of those storms.  Thankfully, we haven't had any huge super cells pass by, but we have had a few small storms which has given us some much needed rain.  We managed to get some pictures the other day.  Here is the storm that passed by as we were heading into the store. A few moments later, after we were safely inside, we were pounded with wind and hail.  But ins...

I am sure you heard about the devastating tornado in Moore Oklahoma on Monday.  Our hearts are saddened and our prayers go out to the families who suffered loss during that tragedy.  As a resident of another part of "tornado alley" in Kansas I can certainly sympathize.  We live only four hours from Moore and less than two hours from Joplin which had the most deadly tornado in modern history two years ago today.  Our community has been quick to rise to action to help in both of these tragedies and I am thankful to have been a part of that. While we didn't suffer any damage or get a major hit by the storm we did go through it and there was some wind damage in our town.  We were under a tornado watch the entire day and for us it never went to a warning.  We did power down our technical equipment, such as computers and game systems when the storm became severe so we were down to the radio for our weather updates for awhile.  Around 3:30 in the afternoon ...

Last week we went on a trip to see Gess' brother at college who was starring in a play. He did an excellent job and I am so very proud of him!  I did not, however, get any pictures.  While we were there we went to the mall and came across a hurricane simulator.  Gess loves the weather so we had to let her give it a try.  She was nervous about it but Tim's girlfriend Chelsie got her to go in with her. Then the winds started picking up. Once they hit around 50 mph Gess tried to get out but Chelsie held on to her and got her to stay. They topped off near 80 then started to slow back down. Chelsie commented when it was over that it probably wasn't much like an actual hurricane and I agreed.  It's not just the wind but the rain and the debris that comes along with it all that makes it so severe.  I know hurricanes.  I have lived in Florida and south Texas and I have been through, and ran from, many hurricanes in my lifetime.  In fac...

We got quite the snow storm this past week.  Our local weather man referred appropriately to it as thundersnow.  It was really weird for me to hear a thunderstorm and see snow falling instead of rain.  Of course we were in the area that got more of a thundersleet storm.  What snow we got was packed tightly beneath a solid sheet of ice.  There was about 21/2 to 3 inches of it but it was all solid ice. The thunderstorm apparently scared Gess.  My husband woke up to her standing over him with her safari adventure vest on.  When asked what she was doing she told him that she was wearing her armor because of the lightning.  The one thing that kept her courage up was the fact that it was snowing.  She really wanted to make a snow man, but because of the ice that never happened.  Poor kid.  She kept looking at the snow not understanding how come I said she wouldn't be able to make a snow man, so she went out to play and figured it out....

This last year Gess started enjoying riddles.  I believe it started when  we reviewed K-5 Learning because there was always a new riddle on their start page everyday.  Anyway, since she isn't really well versed in riddles she tends to focus on two very famous ones.  The knock-knock jokes and the why did the chicken cross the road ones.  Of course she tires of the same old answers, so lately she has gotten creative with them.  This morning she had a new one which those of you who are familiar with her fascination with weather and meteorology will appreciate.  So here was our conversation in the car this morning. Gess:  "Why did the chicken become a meteorologist?" Me:  "I don't know, why did the chicken become a meteorologist?" Gess:  "Because the chicken had lots and lots of school!" Well, when Gess took the tour of  the KOAM studio for our Weather on the Move review that's what Doug Heady said you needed to be a meteorolo...

Having a daughter with Down syndrome has been a blessing and a joy.  It really has proven that children with Down syndrome are more alike other kids than they are different.  Each child has their own goals, dreams, desires, interests and talents and that includes children who have Down syndrome.  Gesserine's interests all seemed to be tied into science.  She loves studying anything about the weather and her dream is to one day be a storm chaser, but if that doesn't work out she will settle for being a meteorologist.  With this in mind you can see why we were thrilled to be able to review Weather on the Move from Homeschool Legacy . Homeschool Legacy  offers once-a-week unit studies in a variety of subjects that help make learning more intriguing and fun.  Once a week you get to ditch the text books, tests and other activities you had planned and instead do a unit study that hits all the main subjects while learning something really cool.  The...

The weather sure has been brutal lately. We do not live all that far from Joplin and we are so torn up about the tragedy that struck there. We have been volunteering at our local collection center to get supplies to those in need, but I sure wish I could do more. Then yesterday we were in KC for Gess' annual ENT checkup. Right after we got in to see the doctor the tornado sirens went off and we were shuffled (along with everyone else there) into the stairwell. We spent over an hour waiting it out and thankfully we were spared, though Sedalia got hit shortly thereafter and several people were injured. With all this in mind I think it is a good time to remind you of some resources I had found to help teach Gess what to do during a tornado. You will also find these on my blog, Tornadoes and Hailstorms that I wrote a couple of years ago. It certainly has helped Gess. In fact, when we had to leave the doctor's office because of the tornado she quoted the first video and ask...

The start of the new year is a good time to really start focusing on learning more about the calendar, days, dates and their relevance to our everyday life. At the end of last year I shared my desire to really enhance these topics for Gess this year and shared some of the activities I am doing there. This is simply to follow up on that blog (Season, Holidays and Calendar Activities) and share a few more ideas that I have added to it. To begin with I wanted to share how I implemented the thoughts I had on how I might have each month highlighting the season, holidays and other important information. Well, here is the template I made and how it turned out. I first found a blank calendar at familycrafts.about.com and used it to start my template. At the top of the page I have a line to write what month it is. Under that we look at what order that month is (January is the 1st, February the 2nd, etc) and how many days are in it. We then glue on pictures to represent the seasons and ...

No Time For Flashcards is one of my favorite blogs for finding fun and easy craft and other hands on activities to do with youngsters. Well, this morning I found the Weather Man blog there and I realized that was something I just had to do with Gess. Since our hailstorm this summer she has been fascinated with the weather. While we did check the daily weather this last school year, we only had picture cards and a workbook to write it all down in. Well this Magnetic Weather Station looked like a lot more fun for us so I went right away to making one. You can visit the No Time For Flashcards blog for step by step instructions, as they did a really fine job at explaining it. It is really simple and took no time at all. They also always post great book ideas to go along with their activities, it's really neat. Here is Gess with our finished product. I did the actual cutting and just let Gess help me glue some cotton balls onto the clouds and the circle on the sun and she he...

We had an awful storm blow through last night. It was one of those sudden storms where you go from no rain to a torrential downpour in a matter of minutes. The hail was really blasting our patio and we called Gess to come and look so she could see what it hail actually was. As with everything else, we turn these moments into teaching moments. We have talked about weather and warnings and what to do, but you know that is never like the real thing. So after she watched the hail, we wrote the word and talked about it. From there it was into the bathroom as a tornado warning came across the radio. Now, hopefully, she will never see a tornado up close, so we are using the internet for that. We spent our morning discussing weather safety and I found a couple of resources I thought I would share. Please let me know what resources you use to teach weather safety to your kids too! One was a printable coloring book called Bill and Maria Learn About Tornado Safety provided b...