Monday, April 28, 2008

Meteor!! Space part 3

One of my favorite all-time books has to be Meteor!! by Patricia Polacco.
It its the story of what happens when a meteorite lands on a farm, and the many amusing consequences of the "celestial" occurance.
Of course, because of the topic, it fits very nicely into our space study.

I also have a new technique in listening to books on tape. I usually always get our books on tape from the library, and I have begun ordering the book on tape, along with another copy of the book so there isn't any disagreement about who will get to hold the book. I may have to start ordering two extra copies of the books because Luke is really enjoying read alouds.
We are also very lucky that Grandpa H. has a real, genuine meteorite from outer space.

There is wonderful story about this meteorite.

My Grandma G was born in 1909 and she told a story about how one night when she was a young girl she was looking out her bedroom window and saw a "shower of fire" fall down from the sky right behind the barn. Nothing more came of this at that time. I don't know if people thought she was dreaming or just making things up, but at the time nothing was found.

We jump ahead to 1964. My mom and dad were living in a trailer on the same farm Grandma grew up on. Dad began work on a garden behind the barn. He was making hills for planting cucumbers, tossing out rocks as he came to them. He tossed one away, but realizing it felt awfully heavy he retreived it and put it in his pocket. When he got home he washed it off and as the dirt fell away it was shiny and Dad new immediately what he had.

It is quite heavy, consisting of nickel and iron. Dad tried to saw into it with a hacksaw to see the inside but it actually wore the teeth off the hacksaw blade after only cutting into the meteorite a 16th of an inch.

We are so proud to be able to hold this meteorite that came to us from outer space.

2 comments:

His Servant: Ann Kraeger said...

would you like to borrow the dvd astronaut farmer?

Anonymous said...

Awesome story and photo!