SNOW DAY!

Woo hoo!  In central VA, I have to tell you - ice gets us out of school more than snow.  However, we had a BIG storm (for us) come our way yesterday afternoon, which resulted in a 1pm dismissal and...well, originally a 2 hour delay than a closure for today!  Wow!  I thought as I got the final call around 8ish this morning.  I'll put it to good use (and of course, immediately went back to sleep until my diva woke me up asking where her snow gear was from the night before!).  

As you can tell, it's already starting to melt...even though the temperature is barely above freezing!

I am TRYING to use my time wisely.  Of course, I also find working from home VERY distracting.  I mean, the house is a mess (it usually is with 6 people in our household, but I am usually too tired to deal with it), so of course some sweeping and cleaning was in order.  I tried to multi task and think of things as I was scrubbing a sticky part of the floor where (I think) pineapple juice was spilled the other day but of course, no one remembers doing it!  Then of course there was the mad dash looking thru the house for boots for my son, snowpants for my daughter (the boots are now on the Walmart list - found some hand-me-down snowpants for both of them)....then of course, I get caught up in this show called "Catfish" on MTV where they help people meet up in person who've met on the Internet.  Of COURSE they're running a marathon on it today...and I've never seen the show before!  

Does this sound like your life?

So now I kinda have some peace and quiet.  Kinda.  The 12 yr old has two friends over and after playing in the snow, they're up in his room playing/watching Xbox.  My daughter is busy trying to annoy them, despite my best efforts to distract her.  Currently it's watching Brave on DVD on the "big" TV and offering popcorn. :)  Sort of working.

So....I didn't post last week.  I always try to at least once a week.  I still crack up that when I look at my archives, I blogged more last February (the shortest month) than any other month!  Speaking of which, I have a "blogiversary" coming up soon!  

I will tell you the truth - I have been up to my ears in foxes, polar bears, leopard seals, and penguins - and LOVING it!  

Our next 3 Science units are on habitats, life cycles, and animal adaptations.  I decided this year to incorporate it with a polar animal unit.  I also have the added bonus of introducing Antarctica, the equator, and the Arctic Circle for our upcoming map skills later this Spring!  There is a TON out there about penguins and polar bears.  Lots of teachers seem to do polar animal units around this time of year (and who can blame them!) and they seem to center around those two animals the most.

But of course, I wanted more.

Found this great website created by (students?) Ohio State University called "Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears."  GREAT RESOURCES!  Nonfiction texts (in all levels), e-books, science experiments, ideas, and more!  

I created two wiki sites on Antarctica and the other on the Arctic Circle.  It's kind of grown into a monster (the unit).  I'm still creating as I go.  I think I'll be posting it sometime in February or March when it's finally done! :)  I wanted to include leopard seals...and there is NOT a lot of kid stuff out there about leopard seals.  I also wanted to include arctic foxes, since our mascot is the fox, and other animals as well (narwhal, walrus, etc).  We also looked at Mt. Erebus (because a volcano in Antarctica is pretty fascinating!) and the different poles.  

I have had the best time researching and creating - and I can't seem to stop!  I think it's the nerd in me. :)  I mean, we'll be covering camouflage, animal adaptations, migrations (with the whales), life cycles, creating are/have/live charts, labeling the different parts of the animals....I even created a Google Earth "tour" of what we're studying!

So, as you can tell, I'm keeping myself busy!  Be sure to check out the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bear site - we'll be doing the blubber experiment as well as the glacier/iceburg experiments as well!

Off to get "snowed in" again! :)