Weather

This was our last major home school topic. It was a great summer, and I feel like the kids learned a lot.

In fact, Seth has made major leaps in reading and writing. We worked on things a little bit at a time, so that he didn't ever get frustrated or sick of it, but suddenly it was like a light turned on, and he was suddenly reading! He is sounding out words to write them, as well, and I am loving some of the stuff he comes up with.

Here is Seth reading on one of the first days after he realized he could do it himself!

Hannah's love for science has only deepened. She is so inquisitive, and has been known to ask really thoughful questions days or even weeks after something struck her fancy. I love it! She has become a great journal writer, and loves to makes lists and answer questions in her journals. She also loves to take her encyclopedias and transcribe them into notebooks. Not sure what she sees in that process, but OK!

As for Weather:

Here is what the kids had to say in the pre-interview:
Hannah: There's sunny, cloudy, rainy, half cloudy, half sunny, and half rainy. Weather can be harmful or calm.
Seth: It can be sunny and rainy, cloudy and stormy, and half light and half dark. Gas makes the sun. It gets really hot, really cold, and really icy.

So we went through books and talked about different types of weather. We talked about how the earth's rotations makes the weather change. We talked about severe weather, normal weather changes, seasons, the water cycle, and lightning and thunder. We talked about various tools used to measure the weather. We talked about how we would dress based on the weather. We talked about the different types of clouds and named them. We talked about why they look the way they do.

We did a couple of simple experiments. We put ice cubes and salt in this metal bowl, and watched it for about 20 minutes. Here is is after just a few minutes...condensation, and freezing already starting!
Then when we checked it again after the full 20 minutes, it looked like this!
I told them how the air all around us has moisture in it, but it's not cold enough to feel like water or ice, but when it comes near a colder area, like a glass filled with ice, or this metal bowl, the water in the air condenses and either turns to water or ice, depending on how cold it is. They thought this was cool because they had always thought that the water sort of "leaked" through the glass when a glass had ice in it.

The second experiment was more complicated, but very cool. Basically we were making a cloud in a bottle. Hannah got this cool science book called Pop Bottle Science for her birthday from her Aunt Marcie. It comes with a few simple items (like a pop bottle) and you can do 79 experiments with it.

Step 1: Add two inches of hot water into your pop bottle.
Step 2: Blow into the bottle to fill it completely with air, and then cap it.
Step 3: Shake the bottle for one minute. This mixes the water into the air molecules.Step 4: Light a match...let it burn for a couple of seconds, and then blow it out. Quickly uncap the bottle and drop the match in, and recap. Step 5: Lay the bottle on its side and push down on the bottle as hard as you can. Rick was better at this part than I was. You can see the cloud forming in the bottle, and condensation will occur on the inside of the bottle. Step 6: When you see the cloud, uncap the bottle and let the cloud out. We had to squeeze the bottle a couple of times for the cloud to escape. The dark colored paper was there so that you could see the cloud better. (I amped up the contrast on this picture so that you can see the cloud swirling up from the bottle better. You could see it pretty well in person, but it's hard to get good pictures of it!)
Essentially what is happening is that clouds are made of water vapor, air, and particles of dust. We added the match so that the burnt soot would dirty up the air and make the cloud more visible.

This one was a lot of fun because right around the time that we did this lesson, we had a lot of thunderstorms in the area. The kids were able to see all the types of clouds we had learned about, and looked at lightning and thunder in a whole new way.

The post-interview:
Seth: They use special tools to catch up to storms so they know what it is like. There are tornadoes. When it's wintry weather, you would want to wear gloves and a jacket and a scarf. Lightning comes first before thunder. Air crashes and makes thunder.
Hannah: There are different kinds of clouds. There's cumulus...like poofy clouds. I learned the water cycle. The water goes up to the clouds and the clouds fill up with rain so it comes down and then the sun evaporates it into the air and it does it over and over again. Thunder happens when the air explodes from the lightning and pushes the water in the air.

Next week: nothing. We are finished, but I will probably add a few things here and there throughout the year. I want to keep track of ideas so that I can use them with the Round 2 children, MaKaty and Cru. Until next time...

Pioneer Day/Bread and Butter

First of all, this is a rather photo heavy one...so bear that in mind.

The Pioneer Day holiday inspired me to refocus school a bit for this particular week. I decided to talk to the kids about what life might have been like in pioneer times. We discussed the trek across the country. We talked about the terrain they covered. We discussed how they traveled, by wagon and handcart. We talked about the dangers of the land and the dangers of illness, etc. We talked about what they might have packed in their wagons and what they would have had to leave behind. And we talked about what they might have eaten, and how they might have prepared it. Then we focused in on BREAD AND BUTTER. We talked about how yeast worked. We did a yeast experiment. We made homemade bread. We made butter from cream. We toured a local bakery. And at the end of it all...this is what the kids had to say.

Seth: Pioneers bought oxen and cattle. They made butter. They made their clothes. They brought blankets and rope in their wagons. They walked across America and they left where the bad guys were hurting them and went far away from them. Yeast makes bread rise. If you don't push the air out of bread, it will build a big hole in the bread.

Hannah: The Pioneers traveled across America. They made their own butter and bread. We celebrate them on Pioneer Day. They carried their supplies on handcarts or wagons. Yeast rises and if you don't knead the air out, there would be a big hole in your bread. (they steal ideas from each other, obviously...)

Here is our yeast experiment. All three glasses had cornmeal in them. The first had only cornmeal and water. The second had cornmeal, baking soda and water, and the last had cornmeal, yeast, and water. We watched them for 20 minutes. In the meantime...

We mixed up some dough:
And kneaded it. (I used to be a Kneader at Great Harvest Bread Company...I find kneading to be fun and relaxing. My kids enjoyed it as well. You could say that kneading is in their blood ;)
By this time, our glasses looked like this. We talked about how the second glass obviously had seen a chemical reaction, but no growth. The third glass had grown due to the yeast, and obviously...the first glass just looked like cornmeal in water. Easy peasy. They could really picture what was going on within the bread dough.
While we waited for the dough to rise...we took cream and put it in jars and shook it like crazy!
It turned creamy and thick...
Then suddenly, the butter separates from the whey...and makes a big thunk! Pour off the whey and you have homemade butter. (I did add a little salt to flavor it, but not a lot).
Before long, our bread was ready to go into the oven:
And finally! Bread and Butter! They look proud, right?
OK, onto the field trip. I scheduled a visit to a local bakery. But they didn't do tours for less than 20 kids. So I called up a bunch of friends, and they all showed up! Yay! We made quite the crew. But the kids were all really good. I think they had fun. I hope so, anyway!

A funny note...when we were all listening to the tour guide, Brett, give us instructions on not touching things and trying not to get dirty...he asked if there were any questions or comments. Seth's little buddy, Alex, piped up with, "I can see China from here!" Man, kids rock!

The tour started with the kids seeing the big mixing bowls. They are huge! To give a little perspective...they are big enough that when I worked at this bakery, years ago...we decided to see if it was big enough for me to fit in with the lid on. It was. I know because I climbed inside and a customer came into the store, and I had to stay in there until the customer left. Nice. Anyway...they are big. Brett told them that sometimes he comes in and fills them up with Captain Crunch and eats until he's sick. They thought that was pretty funny!
He told them that he was going to make bread dough as fast as he could. In fact, he was attempting a world record.
Thanks to Heidi for this photo...I hijacked it off her blog! He made his blob of dough in 36 seconds! Using flour, water, honey, and salt. Of course the yeast is also a factor when they are making real dough...
Here is what a full batch of Honey Whole Wheat looks like:
(another note...when I was working there...I could lift a 3/4 batch of dough from the bowl onto the table...by myself. It is not for the faint of heart, though...if the weight of the dough doesn't kill you...the smell of yeast as you pull the dough from the sides of the bowl will!)
Here they are separating the dough into loaves and kneading it.
Onto the oven. When he opened the doors, Maxine yelled, "It's like a ferris wheel for bread!" The shelves inside the oven rotate around just like a ferris wheel. Bennet also noted that the oven felt about as hot as it is outside. hehe. It *is* pretty hot out there!
We can sure fill up a bakery!Here are the breads rising and waiting for their turn in the oven!
And here's Bennet enjoying his slice. My kids wouldn't pose for a picture, but Bennet would. Thanks, Buddy!
Thanks to Beka, Amy, Jamie, Shauna, Angie, Shelly, Chantel and Heidi for bringing your kiddos and making it so that we had enough kids for a tour. It was fun!

Next week: Weather!