Quackin' Up: Science Day

Whoever decided to remove regular school work and make our Tuesdays science/art/extra day is a genius. Oh wait, that was me.  
The only thing is I didn't come up with that on my own; I've seen it done in lots of homeschooling families.  Genius points removed. Carry on.

Today was all science, and involved 3 quick and easy projects, all from ScienceBob.com.

First up was a lesson in vibrations and sound, demonstrated with "duck calls" made from straws.  This was a huge hit with my noise-making, Duck Dynasty loving boys.

Later we calmed (and quieted) things down by experimenting with static electricity.  The boys took turns combing their hair several times and then holding the comb near the water to see the water bend toward the comb.

Finally we made miniature "lava lamps" by filling a glass over half full of water, coloring it (just for fun) and then adding a layer of vegetable oil.

Then we plopped bits of salt (and later tried sugar) onto the oil.

The salt would sink to the bottom, bringing some of the oil with it.  The salt would then stay, while the oil rose back to the top.  Fun!

Do you have a science or art project to suggest for us?  Tuesday seems to come around fairly often!

Experimenting

After a couple of over-filled and stressful Tuesdays (story-time at the library and other outings) ...

and getting tired of never being able to make the time for extras like science experiments, art projects, etc,...

 I decided to eliminate most of our regular school work from Tuesdays and fit in one or two of the fun things.

Today was the second week of such a Tuesday and I think it's going to work for us!

Not only did the day go more smoothly and pleasantly, we all enjoyed some hands-on work.

Alan is doing Five In a Row this semester, and both weeks our inspiration has come from the science section of his current book.

Last week was The Little Red Lighthouse (in which a big bridge is built), so we built bridges from index cards, made our predictions, and tested their strength with pennies.  (From this site.) (and I didn't take pictures! bad blogger. But fun Mama!)

This week's book is When I was Young in the Mountains, and one of the suggested science lessons was snakes.  We checked out several snake books from the library today and spent some time snuggled up on the couch reading through them together.  Later I had the boys give me some snake facts, which I wrote on our chalkboard door.  We then made a flip book and Dale and Alan wrote a fact on each page.

We also did a couple of water experiments today.  One was this displacement experiment from Kids Activities Blog.  We filled a cup to the brim with water and carefully added pennies, watching the water swell up to the top and finally spill over.  Tyler won the award for 'most improved' with this one; he started throwing them in like you would chunk a penny in a fountain, and ended up being just as careful  - or more so! - as the other boys.  

To finish up our science day we did one more water experiment.  If you look at kids' stuff at all on Pinterest you've probably seen this one.  

And it worked!  We have 1 blue paper towel, 1 yellow paper towel, and an inch of green water in that middle glass all sitting on our kitchen counter right now.  The boys wanted to leave it sitting over night to see what would happen next.  And I agreed. Ah, the life of a scientist!

Happy Tuesday! Just might be my new favorite weekday!

Scrub-a-dub-dub!

My friend Sam (whose daughter Bethany had a liver transplant almost exactly 1 year after Alan) recently posted a helpful, handy, how-to video on good hand-washing.


You definitely don't have to have an immune-suppressed family member to appreciate the germs and illnesses you can avoid with simple hand-washing.  We instruct our boys (and follow this ourselves, as well) to rub both hands together, making suds for 20 seconds.  We either watch the bathroom clock or sing the ABC's to ensure we've scrubbed long enough.


I like how this video takes that a little further and gives good instructions on how to scrub.  Will we use this exact method every time we wash now?  Um... no.  But we will definitely take improved habits from it, and probably kill more germs in the process.  Yay!







The only thing that bothers me about this video is that she turns touches the faucet handle with clean hands to turn the water off.  What was the last thing to touch that faucet...?  Her dirty hands!  At home I always touch again, but in public I either use my elbow or forearm or leave the water running while I grab a paper towel for touching the faucet.  Obsessive germo-phobe?  Ohhhh... possibly. ;)


Many of you have probably already heard of the germs/hand-washing glitter demonstration.  I keep meaning to do that with my boys... maybe this week!  For those not familiar, you coat your hands with a light layer of cooking oil and then a sprinkling of fine glitter.  The glitter represents bacteria & viruses, and you get to see how long it takes to wash all those stubborn bits away!  Hmmm... I'm thinking one kid could 'wash' the quick & easy way and another could scrub up as in the video above and see who got rid of more germs!


Stay warm and stay well!

Making a Wind-vane

I am equal parts Plan Ahead and Fly-by-your Pants.


Maybe leaning a bit toward the Fly-by-your Pants side.


At any rate, we are learning about weather these days, and when a hands-on idea came to Dale and me last week, we jumped in with both feet.


I saw a picture of a make-your-own wind-vane using balsa wood in a DK book we had from the library.  It looked easy enough, except for the fact that I don't keep balsa wood on hand, ya know?


Long story short, here's what we came up with using what we had on hand:

1 curtain rod with rubber tip

1 drinking straw

1 extra long straight-pin or needle

cardstock

tape

Ours worked in the fact that it turned when the wind blew.  

However, due to the fact we were standing between a house, a fence, a storage shed, and no fewer than half-a-dozen very large trees, we weren't exactly able to tell which direction the wind was coming from.

I am certain our beautiful little contraption would work in a more open area.  Hopefully we'll remember to bring it along on our next trip to a more open area.  

And hopefully it will be windy!

The Solar System in our Hallway

My boy is a visual, hands-on learner.


I, apparently, am a slow learner, because I am still always pleasantly surprised when projects like today's resonate so well with him.

Gathered 'round our book.

For our model we didn't worry about the accuracy of the size of the planets.  We made Jupiter the biggest and Mercury and Pluto the smallest (yes, we counted Pluto as a planet) and arranged the rest in the middle.

From the sun on the left, through Jupiter on the right edge.

Where we got out our measuring tape was for relative distance from the sun.


Handily, we had the sun Alan made a couple of weeks ago when he was learning about creation, so we started with that.


From there, we measured: 
2 inches for Mercury
3 inches for Venus
4 inches for Earth
6 inches for Mars
1 foot, 9 inches for Jupiter
3 feet, 2 inches for Saturn
6 feet, 5 inches for Uranus
10 feet, 1 inch for Neptune
13 feet, 3 inches for Pluto


Our hallway is the longest stretch of wall in the house, and since we're planning on painting it sooner or later anyway, we just stuck our planets up with scotch tape.

Not only did this visual help us get just a tiny bit better understanding of the vastness of our solar system, it turned out to be a fantastically fun play scene.  

As crowded as it was near the sun, look how far Pluto is!

Long after I had seen all I needed to, we still had astronauts in taxis and all other manner of spacecraft zooming up and down the hall, to infinity and... well... you know the rest.

-------------------------------------------------------

The idea for this project came from a great little book from our library:

This little winner is copyright 1987.  In it you will find facts about the sun and each of the planets in our solar system.  Their orbits, sizes, etc.  You will not find any nonsense about big bangs, the passage of billions of years, or anything else of the sort.  While it would be great to find such a factual book that also includes the true creation of the solar system, after sorting through so many big-bang-books I found even the neutrality of this one refreshing!

Weekly Wrap Up - Week 3

We've finished 3 weeks of school.  Really?  Just 3?  Feels like it ought to be 6!


Dale covered Exodus and Leviticus in Bible this week.  Monday, after reading an overview of the first 18 chapters of Exodus, I had him imagine what he would experience for each of the 5 senses if he had been there.  My favorite was his answer for sense of touch: darkness you can feel (9th plauge - Exodus 10:21).  


Monday also began our unit on bridges.


Alan learned about Adam and Eve this week and did lots of activities with the letter 'A'.

Tuesday I got out a handful of toothpicks for Alan to practice making A's.  We ended up spelling lots of words out of toothpicks, and seeing Dale get into that along-side us reminded me to get him away from pencil and paper more.  So when spelling test time came around on Thursday, we got out our letter tiles and Dale spelled his words that way.


That wasn't the only one of Alan's activities Dale was interested in.  Our number-hop game intended for a preschooler to have fun identifying his numbers turned into a great way for a 2nd grader to practice his math facts!

In science we started our unit on space.  This week we covered the planets in our solar system.  Each day I had Dale read a few selections from the plethora of space books from the library and our own collection.  He narrated information on 3 planets a day.  On Thursday I typed up his narrations and printed them for him to illustrate and make into a book.


After hearing Dale tell about Venus having acid in its atmosphere, it occurred to me that he had no idea what acid is, so we did a basic introduction with the vinegar / egg experiment:

One egg.  Add vinegar.

See the bubbles?

They do!

This morning our egg was soft!  We're going to let it keep sitting over the weekend to see if it will get down to just the membrane, like it is supposed to.  


As always, Friday meant library day.  We sorted our books into 'keep' and 'take back' and headed off with our list for next week.  As usual, I checked out more than I brought back!


Dale, however, missed library day this week.  He has spent the day helping Gramps mend fences, literally.  Knowing my bundle of energy and future young man spent his day out working with Gramps makes me glad we follow a four-day week, and incredibly thankful for homeschool!

Building Bridges

A social studies, geography, math, (and more) unit.

Our social studies article for this week, Building Bridges of Hope, was cut from Parade magazine, the little insert that comes in many Sunday newspapers.


In it we read about Ken Frantz and his organization, Bridges to Prosperity, that travels the world building (what else?) bridges in key places.  The bridges built by Frantz's organization allow people in remote and poor areas to more easily access medical help, trade, and other necessities.  These bridges literally change lives.


These bridges also provided a week full of stuff for us to learn!


Some of the following ideas we have already done, others we will do as we finish out our week.  Still others would be ideal for older kids or a longer, more intensive unit.


Science /  Math:
In addition to the Parade article and the Bridges to Prosperity website, we also checked out a bridge book from our library.  It gives a beginning look at bridge types and the science behind their construction.
Search Amazon.com for bridges


We worked on building our own bridges the high-tech way after downloading free bridge design software from West Point.  It's a little advanced for Dale, but he thinks it's fun anyway.  Who am I kidding?  It's over my head and I still think it's fun.  I'm determined to build a bridge that won't collapse!  This software would be great for a highschooler or anyone interested in engineering.  The website even offers an annual bridge-building contest!


After reading the bridge book and practicing with the software, I'm planning on getting out our wooden blocks this afternoon to see what kind of bridges we can build with them, too.


Geography
For geography, I printed a world map (with countries).  Together we read the article through again and identified each country in which Bridges to Prosperity has built a bridge.  Consulting our jumbo world atlas, we colored the countries with bridges on our map.  We also used this time to discuss the continents.


Missions
Next we will research and find out what missionaries our denomination has in each of those countries.  We will take a moment to mark them on our map and pray for them.


Writing
If Dale was a little older, I would have him write a story from the viewpoint of a village child, telling the excitement of the bridge builders coming or how he will be able to use the bridge in his own life.  Or maybe a news story about bridge built by Bridges to Prosperity (you can read about all their bridges on their website).


History
This unit would be great to learn about historic bridges in the US or around the world.  There are so many out there!


Art
To finish up our mini-unit on bridges, I'm thinking we will choose a picture of a bridge (either one from Bridges to Prosperity or a famous one) and draw it, adding in materials like toothpicks, string, etc to create the bridges.


I know we have only scratched the surface of what could be done with a unit on bridges.  We may have to visit the topic again someday!  If so, this website is full of lesson plan links and ideas, or a simple google search pulls up a multitude of ideas!


What bridge ideas have I missed?  Do you have any favorite unit studies?