Diorama Drama

Daniel created a diorama as a "book report" for a book he read, "Percy Jackson - The Last Olympian." This is the fifth and last book in the Percy Jackson series, which brings Greek mythology into the present day. The title character, Percy, is a demigod, the son of Poseidon, the Greek god of the oceans, and a mortal woman. In the first book, "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief," he learns who he is and meets other demigods and mythical creatures familiar in Greek mythology, such as the medusa. In each book he has to battle the bad creatures to save humanity.

I suggested to Daniel that we create a 3-level diorama depicting the underworld, the mortal world, and Mt. Olympus. Daniel decided what would be in each scene and we used playmobil characters to depict them. It was a lot of fun!

Diorama-rama

Snow = No School

Here's our week in review:

Monday - school.
Tuesday - "teacher workday" i.e., no school. The teacher workday was originally scheduled for Monday but was rescheduled when we missed a day of school last week because of icy conditions.
Wednesday - school closed due to impending threat of snow. Started sleeting and snowing heavily at 3pm. Several inches in a few hours. Rushour traffic was a complete mess and some people did not get home until the wee hours of the morning. We spent the evening sledding but had to close our eyes because the snow was coming at an angle!
Thursday - school closed due to snow on ground.
Friday - school closed due to...I really have no idea. Snow cleared in our area. However, some areas had no electricity so I guess it was justified.

In review: 1 day of school last week. I just hope we have school on Monday!
Here are some pics of the boys sledding during all that free time they had!

Snow Days

Winter Wonderland

We skiied at Timberline over winter break. This was our third trip to the resort and by far the coldest! The first day, temperature at the base was 19 degrees fahrenheit, and the wind at the top of the mountain was unbelievable! We skiied all morning and took a late lunch, after which I decided it was just too cold to go back out. The boys thought so too, so we stayed in our cabin while Stuart ventured out for a few more runs. Our cabin was almost slopeside; we just had to hike through the snow behind the house across the street...usually easy but not so easy while carrying two pairs of skis!

The temps were the same on day 2, but we toughed it out until the early afternoon by warming up with chili and hot chocolate in the lodge at lunch.

On day 3 we took the boys to the neighboring resort, Canaan Valley, where they had fun tubing. Then we drove to Blackwater Falls and enjoyed a gorgeous (but freezing) walk through the snow to see the frozen falls!

Timberline