How are your gardens doing? Mine looks a lot better than it did two weeks ago. I did have to do some replanting, though.
A couple of weeks ago, I got to go to Mr. Steinberger’s house. Mr. Steinberger is our resident bird expert and knows a lot about birds and birding. He has been learning about birds on his own, since he was an elementary school student. The study of birds is called ornithology. So you could say, Mr. Steinberger is a amatuer ornithologist. We went to his garden and he talked about the having birds around and how they are important to our ecology and gardens. We got to look inside one of his blue bird boxes to see some baby blue birds!
Thank you for the birthday wishes and recording your responses on FlipGrid. IF YOU DID NOT DO THAT LAST WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT, please take a moment to go back and let me know what you thought about our books this trimester. I will confirm with Mrs. Midkiff, but I believe this is the last library class. 🙁
I made two more stops last week on the Civil War trail. Ironically, both of the sites we visited had “stuff” happen during May! Be sure to click on the blue links for more information.
As mentioned several times, where we live in Beaverdam, Virginia from the Depot to where we actually live, there was civil war activity. Parts of our property extend to the North Anna River and my grandfather found buttons from uniforms when walking around near the river. Chris and I stopped at theNorth Anna Battlefield Park , which is about 8 miles southeast of us and took a couple of pictures.I used to walk out here when Chris was a toddler while we were waiting for Brandon while he was being tutored in math one summer. It was crowded, so we didn’t walk around. Normally, not many people are around, but now that people are forced to stay home, they are looking for ways to get outdoors and exercise, and heading to this park is one way they can do that. In May of 1864 at Ox Ford, the Confederates turned around Union attacks taking place near the river.
I also went to Mr. Steinberger’s home in Guinea, Virginia, which is about 16 miles north of where we live, and a fairly short drive from the Academy. The Steinbergers live in walking distance of theJackson Death Site. General Stonewall Jackson died of his injuries on May 10, 1863. Here is what Mr. S had to share with us! Chapter 7 from Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run is below that.
The National JMG has been hosting classes this spring virtually, from Texas A&M. These are some of the same of activities I have done with JMG students in past years. Now that school is almost done, you can go back and view these classes on your own.
Well, this is it! No assignment this week, except to watch/listen to this week’s installment. There are 3 separate videos. The first one is my final thoughts. The last two are part A&B of Long way From Chicago by Richard Peck. When my video goes over 33 minutes, the phone automatically splits into separate videos.
As far as I know, Mrs. LaRochelle and I will still split duties and hope to see you in the Middle School in our newly renovated library. I also plan to be the assistant coach for Cross Country again next season. If you are seriously interested in running, please run over the summer with family with proper social distancing. Remember in Cross County, we train for a 3.1 mile race, not jus 1 mile!
This week, I am down at the garden looking at the damage by the very cold weather we had Sunday morning. We covered the vegetables and some of our flowers. The flowers are fine and pretty. But the tomatoes and peppers are not. That makes me sad.
There are two (2) games from ABCYa, that you can do this week.
The first one goes with my video about my vegetables. When you have vegetables, plants, and flowers growing in your garden, you have to water them!
Today, you get a bonus feature. I have a pond and it has wildlife in and around it, such as deer, black bears, bobcats, coyotes, owls, water birds, snapping turtles, frogs, bull frogs, peepers, and this year a pair of beavers! I admire beavers and am in awe of how that can create their own ECOSYSTEM, sometimes that ecosystem goes against the plans of landowners and farmers. :-(. They can cause a lot of damage that costs a lot of money. But they are cute! But see if you can see their handiwork in my video. At the end is info about my garden for my Junior Master Gardeners Club.
The beginning of this video is a followup to the trip the pond. Then our featured fractured fairy tale The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs follows.
