Summer Learning

Harry Potter Day

2011-09-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

Even though I didn't blog our home school adventures this summer, we did actually still have them. Here is a link to our family blog where I documented their favorite home school of the summer. Harry Potter Day.

Click HERE to see it!

Electricity

2010-08-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

I was originally going to do this in two sessions. One on atoms, molecules and bonds. And one on electricity. But we ran out of time this summer. So I sort of lumped them together. We focused mainly on electricity.

What they knew:

Hannah: It powers up things. It can electrocute you. It can cause sparks.

Seth: It can be used for lights, flashlights, cameras...it makes lights work.

We covered:

atoms: what makes up an atom, protons, neutrons, electrons, and the nucleus. we talked about charges, both positive and negative, the number of protons determines the type of atom.
molecules: made up of atoms bonding together
electricity: the flow of electrical charge...basically electrons on the move
circuits: giving the electrons a path to follow, forcing electricity to the areas we need it
we talked about he role Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison played in the development of modern electricity
we talked about sources of power, natural, chemical, man-made, etc.
we talked about how we kept our homes light and warm before electricity
visible forms of electricity: lightning, sparks, etc.
volts, amps, and watts...how to find these measurements on things in our environment, batteries, power boxes, etc. we talked about how voltage changes from a battery to a plug, to a lightning strike
SAFETY! We walked outside and looked at the warnings on the power box next to our house, looked at the voltage warnings, etc.
static electricity
conductive materials, and insulators.

I found this great resource online that had a very simple and short video explaining electricity and the simple circuit.

First we made molecules using marshmallows as the atoms, and toothpicks as the bonds. We viewed pictures of molecules on the internet as inspiration.

Next we completed a few experiments. We tested static electricity with a balloon. We rubbed it on our hair, the carpet, and on a wool sweater. We rubbed it on the sweater and then picked up pieces of paper from the table.

Next we "made lightning". We got into our dark walk-in closet and rubbed the balloon on the sweater, and then held it in front of the doorknob. The electrons arced between the balloon and the doorknob, and sparked for just a second, but long enough to see it. We did this several times because the LOVED it!

The most exciting experiment, for them and for me as well, was the circuit. I was so proud because I was getting the stuff ready for school the night before, and it was late. Rick was in bed, and I knew I wanted to try this, but didn't know if I could make it work without his help. I know this is ridiculously easy, and as simple of a light circuit as you can make, but still...it was so thrilling to rummage through our junk tool drawers and come away with something that actually worked! It was just a couple of wires, a Christmas light, and a 9V battery. And provided all three kids with entertainment for the afternoon!

Hannah:

Seth:

Even MaKaty:

What they learned:

Hannah: Electricity is made out of electrons moving, there are different kinds of atoms, the best showing of electricity is lightning, you can make lightning sparks, electrons travel through wires, because they are attracted to it, tons of electrons move quickly to a place by finding somewhere to go and it makes electricity in that place.

Seth: There's different kinds, electrics travel from one side of the battery to the other, if they go through the light they make it light up, they don't go through plastic and stuff, we walked out and looked at the electric box, if you break through the box, you'll get electrocuted, electricity lights everything up and electricity travels through your body.

Well, that's the summer for us. I have really had fun with the kids doing these things this summer. But I admit, I probably won't do the blog anymore. I feel like it's just another thing to add to my "to-do" list, and I don't think it got a lot of use. So next summer we will still do our home school, I'm just taking the blog aspect out of it.

School starts tomorrow. Enjoy!

Artists/Art History

2010-08-07T23:05:00.000-07:00

The other day Hannah and I were talking. I mentioned that something was a mosaic. Hannah said, "What's a mosaic?" And I knew what our next home school lesson would be.

What they knew:

Seth: Art can look good or bad, and it doesn't matter. Some art can be animals. You can use a pen or a marker, some can be anything you want.

Hannah: You can use pen, pencil, marker, paint brushes, paint, clay, crayon, and pastels. There are lots of famous artists. They all had different techniques. One is cutting out and glueing on. Art can be colorful or dull.

First off, let me tell you...it took us 4 hours to do all this stuff. Our usual home school session is about 2. But they were the ones who kept wanting more.

I am not a slave driver. Usually.

We started off by reading I Spy Two Eyes.

Next I gave them a very basic overview of some different styles of art. Just a couple of sentences about each.

abstract
cubism
impressionism
pointillism
pop art
post-impressionism
primitivism
realism
surrealism

I found images in books or online to showcase each of these styles. We discussed the "major players" in each of these styles. (Jackson Pollack for abstract, Seurat for pointillism, Dali for surrealism, etc.) We spent more time talking about impressionism specifically, and talked a bit about what led up to this style. We looked into the lives of Jackson Pollack, Henri Matisse, Monet, DaVinci, Van Gogh, and Picasso specifically. We also discussed various mediums, but primarily learned about painting.

Then I had made a little slideshow on the computer using about a dozen paintings. I "quizzed" them by showing them a painting and then seeing if they could remember something about it...the artist, the style, the medium, anything. They did really well!

Then we got busy DOING! I had prepared 4 activities for them.

a self portrait inspired by Van Gogh
an abstract action painting inspired by Jackson Pollack
a mosaic inspired by cubism
and a watercolor inspired by the Impressionist era.

They got to choose which one they wanted to do first.

Here are the results:

For some reason, I cannot find Seth's self-portrait. And I'm sad, because it was a more primitive style, and I loved it. Oh well. Hannah's is cute, but fairly predictable. The mosaics turned out cute, I thought. Seth's is a dragon, MaKaty's is a cow, and Hannah's is a unicorn.

The watercolors were fun, too. Seth decided on a desert landscape. If you can't tell, it's a turtle eating a cactus.

Hannah's is a pond and garden in a backyard.

And finally, we went outside and did some action painting. Rick brought home these huge maps so that the kids could use the backside for big art projects. They were perfect. We still ended up cleaning a little paint off of the garage door, and some off Seth's feet,

but for the most part, it was an easy clean-up. Seth chose to go back to the same spot each time he got a new color, and so his painting sort of has the effect of a volcano erupting.

Hannah walked around her painting with each new color, leaving a much more fluid look.

We plan to find some cool frames for them, and then cut out a chunk of the painting to fit inside.

What they know NOW:

Seth: Some artists use paper, or clay, some guy put paint in a balloon and painted splatters, some artists were never loved until now, some are weird like the guy who cut off his ear, there are self-portraits, some do cut paper, some even use glue.

Hannah: My favorite artist was totally crazy, and I'm very disappointed (Van Gogh). People like to paint happiness, using warm colors and cool colors, there were realism paintings, and impression paintings, some people cut things out and put them on, some people filled balloons with paint and threw them at the canvas, artists like to sign their paintings, some of the painters used shapes in their paintings called cubist painting.

I have also been doing a simple "school" with MaKaty each week. Usually we just go over the alphabet, practice writing her name, do weather, numbers, letters, etc..,read a couple of concept books, and do a math/concept worksheet. Today was about color, and she was just so cute sorting out the colored toys that I just couldn't resist taking pictures.

The cool rainbow effect doesn't hurt either.

Next week will be our final home school for this summer. Subject: Electricity!

Pirates

2010-07-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

Following on the heels of Vikings, Seth chose Pirates. I was...less than thrilled. Vikings are fierce enough...but pirates are just plain barbaric. So I approached with caution.

What They Knew:

Hannah: They often used guns called pistols, Blackbeard was the most fierce, Pirates don't just steal treasure, they steal food and cloth, and things they need to survive, they have ships called warbirds, some brought their families (???), pirate movies mix myth with truth, they had parrots, sometimes they got caught in storms...which is very dangerous on high seas.

Seth: They have big wooden ships, they don't have heads on their ships like the Vikings, some use guns and some use swords, some lost their heads, they have cannons on their ships.

We went over basic pirate history, we discussed what kinds of ships they used, and why they would choose smaller ships over the larger ones, we talked about a few famous pirates, Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Mary Read, etc. We looked at maps and followed some of the most common pirate courses. We discussed why they would choose to hit those areas most. We were very clear about the fact that pirates were NOT NICE PEOPLE who did a lot of bad things. We looked at a diagram of the insides of a pirate ship, and what the different spaces were used for, the galley, the captains quarters, etc. We looked at pirates symbols and pirate lingo.

For a writing activity, I had them write three days worth of a ships log. They had to come up with their pirate name and record what might have happened to them during that time. I totally love the results!

Next we did a "treasure hunt" activity. I had a bunch of cardboard coins, from pennies up to quarters that I buried in a bin of dry beans. The kids got to search for the "treasure" and then add up their "booty." The point was for them to learn how to count money...to use some tricks to make it easier (grouping, separating into 1$ increments, counting by 5's, 10's etc). In the end, Hannah ended up with quite a few more coins than Seth did. But the totals were almost identical. $5.29 for Seth, and $5.26 for Hannah. Apparently Seth ended up with more "silver" coinage.

Next we did a fun activity. I've been wanting to do the shaving cream activity, and this seemed the perfect opportunity. I printed a simple pirate ship image and taped it to the table, then I covered it with a piece of saran wrap, which I also taped down. Then I covered the picture with shaving cream and dropped a few drops of blue and green food coloring in.

They played around in the shaving cream for a while, and eventually realized that through the foam...there was something under there...

We call the color: Sea Foam Green.

What They Know Now:

Seth: Some pirate ships are called "junks". They steal the other peoples ships, some pirates get dumped off (marooned) for breaking a rule, Blackbeard was the meanest pirate in the whole world until the good guy got him.

Hannah: Pirate ships have rooms, their anchors were heavy and so were their sails, they had different types of flags, they all had to do with skeletons, they had smaller, fast ships, they would steal the daughters of the mayor or general, pirates called their treasure "booty", they could be very dangerous.

Next week: Famous Artists

Vikings

2010-07-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

On the way home from the movie theater, following How To Train Your Dragon, Hannah said, "Mom, I know that dragons are not real, but what about Vikings?"

And so a summer school topic was inspired.

What They Knew:

Hannah: They have their own handwriting, they fight, they lived in houses with roofs made of straw.

Seth: They fight.

We covered a lot of aspects of Vikings:

where they lived
what their houses were like
how they ran their towns
what their boats looked like and were used for
what foods they ate
what clothes they wore
what tools they used
how we know about them
their alphabet, Runes
their beliefs, including the gods, and how we got many of the names of the days of the week...
Erik the Red, Greenland, Vinland, Iceland, etc.
their weapons and forms of fighting
unique customs
followed their travels on a world map
discussed why/how they disappeared

They wrote their names in Runes.

And finally, we built this boat. The day after Hannah decided to do Vikings for our next lesson, we came across this kit in the clearance bin at Michaels. (yes, Michaels, despite my extreme dislike for them...they have the best assortment of fabric paint colors) . At any rate, it was fate. These kits are usually more money than I am willing to spend, but this boat has become a well loved and well used toy at our house...totally worth the 3$ I spent!

First Seth had to show me that he could make a sea horse out of these pieces.

Finished. I told them to show me their Viking faces. Yikes!

What They Learned:
Hannah: Vikings were very good at shipbuilding, they killed or banished people that broke the rules, Vikings often went to other lands and traded, or raided. They wore gold, some people were rich, their ships were strong and fast and they put their shields on the sides of the ship, they carved heads of animals on their ships, they liked to fight, and feast, and their meetings were called "things". The days of the week were named after the gods, Thor, Woden, and Frey/Freyja.

Seth: Viking boats were fast. They were also strong. They killed whales for food. They growed their own food. They traveled to Greenland and Iceland. They made their own weapons.

Another segment that we added to our school time was one on money. My sister gave Hannah a bunch of foreign coins for her birthday. So each "school" day, we pick out a coin, find the country on the map, discuss how many US dollars/cents it would be worth, whether or not it is still used today, etc. They have really liked this part. And so have I!

Next week: Pirates! (I know, it's so similar to Vikings...I will have to spin it a little to be more educational, and less horrifying.)

Sharks

2010-07-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Seth chose to learn about sharks this week. I toyed with the idea of doing oceans as a whole, but that was just too much information, and my kids are all about the details, so we focused on sharks.

What They Knew:

Seth: They have sharp teeth. They live in the sea, they eat fish.
Hannah: They have sharp teeth. they live in the ocean. They like to eat fish. They are very dangerous. They live deep down in the ocean.

We discussed the habitat of the shark, and which type of sharks lived deep in the ocean vs. which sharks lived closer to the surface. We named the most dangerous shark, the least dangerous shark, and some of the more unique sharks in between...i.e. the Cookie Cutter Shark and the Saw Shark. The kids thought it was cool that the cookie cutter shark, which sounds so cute and sweet, was much more brutal than the saw shark, who sounds so vicious. We discussed other members of the shark family, like Rays. We talked about the three ways that sharks give birth...laying eggs, an egg case, and live birth. Shark babies are called pups. We discussed the distinguishing characteristics of sharks...like the lack of bones, the ability to replace their teeth, and their mode of "breathing." We also talked about how many sharks need to keep moving so that they don't sink. We learned that they have an oil in their liver that helps them have more buoyancy. We poured a little oil into a glass of water to show how that process worked.

And finally, we got crafty. I had seen this idea on my friend Amy's blog a couple weeks ago, and knew that we would need to try it. Here is the site that she got the idea from. His looks so professional.

Ours looks slightly less professional, I admit. But I just adore the kids' drawings. Hannah did the octopus and the whale shark, while Seth did the black and green sharks.

One thing I will say about this project...be prepared to be freaked out. This currently sits on the table next to the computer, and more than once I have jumped because the fishies were "swimming" (thanks to the AC) and I thought they were real for a second. Creepy. The top of the box is cut with long slits where the fish are attached to buttons. So the kids can slide them around and constantly rearrange the fish like puppets. Very fun.

OK, so what did they learn?

What They Know Now:

Hannah: Some sharks live on the very bottom, cookie cutter sharks use their teeth like a cookie cutter, whale sharks are almost completely harmless, all sharks eat meat, oil helps them float, the oil is in their liver, some sharks eat each other, some lay eggs in a sack, the Great White is the most dangerous shark, sharks barely ever get sick, if sharks stop swimming, they sink.

Seth: They can eat their own babies, some babies eat their brothers and sisters, the cookie cutter shark makes cookies out of its prey with its mouth...even huge whales, the huge shark eats tiny food, and he's nice, and fat, the whale shark...that's what he's called, some sharks live at the bottom and look like sea weed, one shark looks like a swordfish, they are flabbery because they have that stuff inside that's not bone.

Next Week: Vikings (Hannah's choice, inspired by How to Train your Dragon)

Plants/Photosynthesis

2010-07-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Even though the kids had both done plant units in school this spring, they were still both very interested in it. So...we made it our choice for the week.

What They Knew:

Seth: "they grow by seeds, they need water, they need sunshine, they need air, they are alive, some plants eat bugs, some are big and some are small"

Hannah: "they need to breathe, they are big and small, they need certain things to make them green, they need warmth, sunlight, and water. they need time to germinate, they need soil, the leaves make the food, if they don't get pollinated, they can't make seeds"

As you can see, they already had a pretty good grasp on the concept. So I had to push it a little further. Thankfully, I had prepared more than I thought I would teach. So we ended up skipping most of the basics and focusing on photosynthesis. They filled out a worksheet labeling the parts of a plant. We read the book "The Life Cycle of a Carrot". We talked about seed dispersal and looked at different ways seeds can be spread. We learned about various unique plants from around the world. We discussed vocabulary words, including: root, stem, leaves, flowers, fruit, seeds, chlorophyll, photosynthesis, sugar, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. We learned the basic process of photosynthesis and the function of chlorophyll. Plants use water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to make their own food. As the food is absorbed, the plants leaves release oxygen into the air. (thank you, plants, for making our air so much better to breathe!) To see this process in action, we put lettuce leaves in water and placed them in the sunshine. About an hour later, we observed little bubbles of air on the surface of the leaves and into the water.

The picture doesn't show it very well. You can see the tiny bubbles on the side of the container better than you can see the big bubbles right on the surface of the leaf. Bummer. BUT, the kids could see it perfectly in person.

What They Learned:

Seth: "we don't eat the top part of a carrot, we eat the root. Some plants wrap around other plants and eat their food. birds and bees transfer pollen. plants make air."

Hannah: "There is a flower that is 3 ft wide, the redwood trees can be taller than the statue of liberty, people can spread pollen on purpose to make their crops grow more seeds, fruits have 2 jobs 1. to be delicious, and 2. to protect the seed. Chlorophyll is the stuff that makes it green. Plants make oxygen for us to breathe."

Next week: Sharks (it was Seth's choice)

Maps

2010-06-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

Summer school is back in session for us. In each of our formal summer school sessions we include the following:

a math skill sheet
a reading comprehension and/or spelling skill sheet
a critical thinking activity
a landmarks of the world card (I got this set of flashcards at the Target dollar spot last year, and the kids have loved them)
a pre-interview where they tell me what they already know
the main lesson plan and activity
the post-interview where they tell me what they learned

The kids have a list of topics already in line for the summer. For some reason, this is the one that ended up going first.

We had actually done maps at some point a couple of summers ago. The kids filled out a map of the United States, marking major landmarks where they thought they went. Look HERE to read more about that.

So I wanted to go a little further into the subject this time. Here is the Pre-Interview:

Hannah: Maps can show you where things are-- they can show you how to get places. Show you treasure. They can guide you through things. There are lots of kinds of maps, like treasure, world, country, state, city, body, room, and yard.

Seth: They can show people where to go and they help you get around. They help you get to different countries. There are world maps, maps to help you find treasure, and maps of your body.

We started off by having Seth read the book "You are Here" by Jennifer Gillis.

It is a basic guide to maps and how they work. My only complaint was that it was a little simplistic for where my kids were. We looked at a variety of types of maps, from floor plans to house plans, to topographical maps. Thanks to daddy's job, we have a great variety of maps to choose from. We brought some math into the process by going deeper into scale. I printed some simple maps from the internet (just google "map images" and you get all sorts of good stuff). I just made sure the ones I printed had a scale marking on them. We estimated the distance between cities using the scale and small rulers. They loved this. It was great because Hannah is getting pretty good with her multiplication, and could just say, "oh, that one is 6 times 2 miles, so...about 12 miles away!" Seth did the whole counting by 2's thing to get his answers. We also talked about keys and how they help us read maps. If I had it to do over again I would go into latitude and longitude because I think they were ready for it. Oh well. We can always throw that in later. Finally, we made our own maps. They used these brown paper sheets that Rick's mom gave me last year. They are perfect! I just told them to make a map of our city. There were no requirements...just put the things on that were most important to them. I was curious to see what this would uncover.

Seth's locations of choice were: McDonald's, IHOP, Wal-Mart, our house, our neighbor's house, church, and the grandparents houses. His map is really hard to read because he did it in pencil. After they were finished, we burned the edges. This was Seth's favorite part of the whole day. Little pyro.

Hannah's map was heavily dependent on the key. Her keyed locations were houses, stores, "dinner places", library, Brushfire (a pottery studio that she adores), Jumpin Jacks, school, church, the splash pad, and her piano teacher's house. The key symbol for school was a bell, the symbol for her piano teacher's was a little piano, the splash pads were raindrops, and the restaurants were little forks and spoons. The way she laid out her locations was actually fairly accurate. Based on her North/South orientation, she placed the grandparents houses in more or less the right direction. I was impressed. Overall I thought the maps were pretty representative of the two kids personalities!

Post Interview:

Seth: There are lots of kinds of maps. They can show you lakes and roads. They can show you your own back yard. The scale helps you know how long away something is.

Hannah: Scale on a map helps show things that are not that size in real life. Floor maps (plans) are maps of houses. What? I already knew everything else!!!

Next week: Plants!

Patience

2010-06-23T12:49:00.000-07:00

I am working on updating here...I have two home school posts to make when life settles down enough to get to it...but I am just reminding you that if you are already on as a contributor, you can post your own ideas/lesson plans, etc. If you are not a contributor, but would like to be...leave a comment here and I will add you. If I don't already have your e-mail, leave that in the comment as well. Please, feel welcome to post anything from a fun art project, to a good teaching book for kids, a great website, etc. It doesn't just have to be lesson plans and pictures!

Weather

2009-08-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T21:25:00.001-07:00

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!

The Human Body

2009-07-26T20:08:00.001-07:00

The pre-interview:
Seth: We have blood cells. There's good germs and bad germs. If you fall, you'll get germs. You have lots of blood. Inside you the blood is blue, and outside you, it's red.

Hannah: You have lungs and a heart and molecules and blood and blood cells and a brain and eyes. Without a body we couldn't do anything, and without a spirit, our body couldn't do anything.

I checked out a few books from the library...the simplest and funniest being "Armpits to Zits" which was an alphabet book of body parts and a little about them. It was pretty fun. We covered the muscular system and nervous system most specifically. We learned different types of muscles...how nerves and receptors work. We talked about the different areas of the brain and what parts of your body they control. I let them sort of lead the discussion...going more into detail about the stuff they were most interested in.

Seth's preschool had done this next activity with the whole class, and I sort of stole it and made it my own. Obviously, it was going to be different doing it with two kids, instead of a whole class. But basically, we pretended that we were inside a giants body, and we were cells and such, doing various jobs. I labeled the couch as the brain, the cedar chest as the heart, and the entertainment center as the lungs. Then we acted out some different scenarios. Such as:

the blood cells picking up oxygen in the lungs and returning to the heart and then being sent to the rest of the body...
the giant fell and scraped his knee, and a germ got in the cut...so the white blood cells took care of that germ!
the giants cut was bleeding, so a coagulant came and helped the red blood cells stick together and form a "shield"
the giant got his shots and the "weak measles germ" was sent in through the "needle" and the white blood cells took care of it...the antibody watched the white blood cells do their work, so he could remember for the next time. Then the "real measles germ" entered the giants body, and the white blood cells didn't know what to do, so the antibody showed them what he had learned...and they were able to kill the measles germ.

This was a surprising lot of fun. The kids loved it, and they wanted to do it again and again.

Here is Miss Oxygen waiting in the lungs for the blood to pick her up.

Here is Miss Germ coming in the cut.

Here is Captain Antibody, saving the day!

And here is the coagulant helping the red blood cell stick to the other red blood cells. (The coagulant was being very goofy.)

Then I had Seth lay down on a big piece of paper and I traced the outline of his body. I let the kids loose with markers, string, and popsicle sticks, and they tried to recreate the body. The toilet paper tube was all Hannah's idea. It's the esophagus. They kind of got bored before the whole body was finished, but they had fun while it lasted. I loved the red and blue string for the blood vessels.

Post- Interview:

Seth: A coagulant makes all the blood cells stick together and make a shield. The brain sends messages to your feet. Your bum is the biggest muscle. (When this little fact was read, it was followed by 20 minutes of intermittent giggling.) Your elbow is a joing and helps you bend. Germs come and white blood cells surround it until the germ dies. And Mr. Antibody teaches white blood cells what to do to fight.

Hannah: Your belly button is a scar. Your heart pumps the blood to all your body. The white blood cells kill the germs. There's really such thing as the antibody, and it saves the day. (She had thought this was just a joke). There's two sides of your brain. You have a brain stem. You feel dizzy if those things in your ear don't work.

Volcanoes

2009-07-21T21:55:00.001-07:00

The Pre-Interview:

Seth: Volcanoes blast. They have lots of lava in them. And gas. They make special kinds of rocks. They are really hot. They are red. They can kill people.

Hannah: They erupt. They can kill people. There was a volcano called Mt. Vesuvius, and it erupted on a town called Pompeii and Pompeii was buried in all the ash.

We talked about the layers of the earth and how magma is in the core...we talked briefly about fault lines and the plates rubbing together. I showed them how magma comes up through cracks and finally erupts out of a volcano. We looked at maps to guess where the most volcanoes would be. We talked about how lava cools and the different kinds of igneous rock left behind. We talked about the difference between active, dormant, and extinct volcanoes. We talked about the damage caused by volcanoes...by lava, ash, etc. Then we talked about the benefits of volcanoes, in farmland, natural heating, etc.

And on to the fun part...

We built a volcano out of salt dough.

Ingredients:
1 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of water (may add more)

Instructions:
In a large bowl, combine the salt and the flour
Make a well in the salt/flour mixture and add the water
Knead until smooth and shape into a ball
When not in use, wrap in plastic or store in an airtight container
HINT: To get a softer dough you can add more flour. Adding more salt will lend a more granulous affect.

I added some red and yellow food coloring to give it a little color, but it was still pretty light. Then I added red food coloring to some elmer's glue and made the little drips down the side of the volcano...just so it looked COOL! We built the volcano around a small bottle. In the bottle I put some baking soda, a little water, some red food coloring, and a squirt of dish soap (to make it bubbly). Then we added the vinegar when we wanted it to erupt. It was perfect because we could erupt it over and over again.

When Katy and Cru woke up from their naps, we decided to head up the road a little bit to an area that has quite a few extinct volcanoes. I let the kids walk around on the lava beds...we would have hiked to the top of the volcano, but it was well over 100 degrees, and I didn't want to kill them, so we just examined the lava rock and talked about how it was formed. We drove far enough up the road to be able to see down on the top of the volcano a bit and see how it showed the center of the volcano. They thought it was all very cool, and Seth would have been to the top of the volcano had I not been the voice of reason. Maybe we'll do it this winter sometime.

Post-Interview:

Hannah: Inside the earth there is lots of lava. Earthquakes are made by two plates smashed together. The lava comes through cracks in the ground and comes out volcanoes.

Seth: Volcanoes can cover up the earth with ash. There's lava under the earth called magna (he meant magma). Some volcanoes are extinct, some will go again. Lava turns to stone.

Next Week: The Human Body

Fossils

2009-07-10T13:59:00.001-07:00

The inspiration for this weeks lesson came from Beka. So thanks, Beka!

The initial interview: What do you know about fossils?
Seth: Things land in mud and stay there for a very long time and turn into fossils. Scientists study the fossils so they can know what lived in the dinosaur land.

Hannah: When they land in mud they stay there for a very long time, then the sand gets dry, then turns hard, and turns into rock, and makes a fossil.

We talked about the different ways fossils can be formed...under water, compressed by sand, etc. We talked about the different ways fossils are discovered...exposed by erosion, excavated by paleontologists, etc. We talked about what fossils can do to help us learn about our earth and the things that took place long ago. We read a book about Roy Chapman Andrews, to sort of put a face to the abstract nature of paleontology. This guy discovered the first dinosaur egg fossils in Mongolia in the 1920's...proving without a doubt that dinosaurs hatched from eggs. It is rumored that he was the inspiration for Indiana Jones...which appealed to Seth especially!

We have collected fossils over the years. Some family friends own property about an hour from here that is a treasure trove. The area was once a sea...millions of years ago, and now it is a mountain. The fossils are of shells, and there are hundreds of them! So we got out our fossil collection and looked at them and guessed what had happened to preserve them into fossils. We also talked a little about petrified wood.

Beka had said that she was going to make fossils with her kids, and so I decided I would try it, too. My sister had given me the vertebrae of a small animal (probably mouse)...thinking that my kids would think it was cool. It was perfect timing, because we decided to use it to make our "fossils". I mixed up a batch of plaster of paris, and we filled the bottoms of plastic cups with it. After it had hardened for about 10 minutes, we put the vertebrae and one of the shell fossils in it, leaving the impression. We let them harden for a few days, and they turned out awesome!

As part of our lesson, I wanted to take the kids to the dinosaur museum. A local man started to excavate his property to build on it, and discovered dinosaur footprints. The excavation stopped right then, and now, years later, a whole new kind of excavation goes on there! They have built the museum right around the site, leaving the fossils largely undisturbed. There are scientists and paleontologists right on site, and you can watch them working. It's not a large museum, by any means, but it's so cool for the kids to see what kinds of dinosaurs used to hang out around these parts! Here they are making some dinosaur rubbings.

An egg nest:

The new face of paleontology:

And the final interview:

Hannah: People didn't know if dinosaurs laid eggs until the scientists found dinosaur eggs. There are lots of fossils where the layers of rocks are (sedimentary rocks). Where we found our fossils used to be an ocean...that's why we have shells fossils.

Seth: A scientist (Andrews) found eggs and more fossils. Some animals got stuck in tar and died and it preserved them. They get covered up with sand and mud and turn into rock.

This was a fun one. It consumed a lot of our week, and the kids are still talking about it!

Next week: Volcanoes.

Turtles/Tortoises

2009-07-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

This week we were a little stumped on what to do for "school." That is, until we got to meet this little lady on Sunday.
My parents were walking up on the Red Hill, and saw her. They called us to see if we wanted to come see, so I took the kids and headed on over. By the time my parents had called us, and we drove back up to where they had seen her, she had traveled a bit...so Hannah got to help Grandpa and Marcie "track" her for a while. They found her pretty quickly, and we all got to look (but not touch) until she started acting a little worried. So we let her alone.

On the way home in the car, Seth suggested that we learn about tortoises and turtles for school this week. So we did. Incidental learning at its finest!

What they already knew:
Hannah: They have hard shells. The turtles have flippers and tortoises have legs. They go up on land to lay their eggs and they cover them up with sand so that other animals won't get their eggs. You can know how old they are by looking at the rings on their shells.

Seth: Tortoises can't swim and turtles can. They can put their heads into their shells. They have a hard shell so their predators don't eat them. Some are both water and land livers. The turtles in the water have fins for swimming and the tortoises have claws for land. (I think he meant flippers, not fins, but whatev!)

There was so much to learn about turtles that I tried to make it more concise by taking a few facts, and writing them on a picture of a turtle. Then I took another copy of the drawing and colored it, and cut out little parts of it like a puzzle. Then they took turns pulling off the little pieces and revealing new facts. I used the books from the library to illustrate some of the points better. We learned how to tell the difference between a turtle and a tortoise. We learned how to tell if it was a boy tortoise or a girl. We examined an actual tortoise shell that had been found in the desert a long time ago. And we looked at the pictures of our little tortoise friend from earlier in the week. We were able to tell that the shell we were looking at was a boy, and the tortoise we had seen Sunday was a girl. The kids thought that was pretty cool. We discussed their life cycle and life expectancy. We talked about reptiles, being cold-blooded, and how to keep cool/warm when they needed to. We talked about diets; and, of course, speed.

When we were done with that, they each got to make their own tortoise "puzzle" and they enjoyed coloring the pieces of the shell. They insisted on my rewriting all the fact onto their tortoises as well.
What they know now:
Seth: The boys have a gular horn that points up, and the girls is flat. They lay their eggs and dig a hole and cover it. They dig burrows and hybernate. Tortoises eat cactuses for water. Some are so big that you could ride on them.
Hannah: You can tell the difference between the girls and boys by looking at their tails, their horns, and their shells. Girl tortoises pee on the ground to make it softer for digging their egg holes. They don't have as many bones as humans. The plates on their shells are called scutes.

Next Week: Fossils.

The Solar System

2009-06-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

The Solar System was a subject that we were going to do last summer, and then life got busy and mom got pregnant, and school started again, and it just didn't happen. Finally, here it is.

Pre-Lesson Knowledge:

Hannah: The sun is the biggest planet. Rockets go into outer space. Mars is red from all the iron.

Jupiter is the 2nd biggest planet (after the sun.)

Seth: The sun is bigger than the planets in space. The sun has gas.

We started with some basic vocabulary. What is a planet? What is the solar system? What is an orbit? Etc.

Then we discussed each planet in turn. We covered distinguishing characteristics, size, the mythological reasons for each planets name, and number of moons or rings. We also discussed whether or not life could exist on this planet based on temperature, air quality, etc. We discussed the dwarf planet status of Pluto, but didn't really go into the other dwarf planets too much.

We did a little experiment trying to recreate the swirly surface of Jupiter by putting milk in a pie plate, adding food coloring, and then dropping dish soap in. The kids thought this was VERY cool, and it was SO EASY!

At the end, I gave them a little quiz.

What other planet (besides Earth) could possibly sustain life?
What planet is closest to the sun?
What is the biggest planet?
Which has rings?
Which is hottest?
Which is coldest?
Which is not really a planet?
Which has most moons?
What is the circular path each planet follows called?
All planets revolve around what?

If I had it to do over again, I would go more into the other aspects of the solar system...comets, asteroids, asteroid belt, milky way, etc. But there is only so much time in a day.

Finally, we made our own solar system out of balls and clay. This was their favorite part. Seth had been begging all week. I bought the crayola modeling magic clay stuff. It was super easy to work with...doesn't get stuck in everything like clay can...and it mixes really well, so we could make our own colors. Hannah spent a lot of time on the Earth. I think she did a fabulous job! This was before she added the clouds...

Post-Lesson Knowledge:

Hannah: The sun is a star, not a planet. (glad we cleared that one up!) Pluto is not really a planet. Some planets are just made of gases, so you would just sink through them. Mercury is both freezing cold, and burning hot. Our atmosphere doesn't trap heat or cold, so we can live here...

Seth: The planets go around the sun. The sun is not a planet, it's a star. Mercury is closest to the Sun.

Just a little note. Between Seth saying "The Sun has gas," the repeated use of the word Uranus, and Seth's insistance that Venus is pronounced Wee-nus, I think this lesson was a young boys dream. Potty joke central...and all in the name of learning.

Next week? Turtles and Tortoises.

Rockets:

2009-06-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

Seth has been itching to learn about rockets. I checked out a book called The Jumbo Book of Space...which is VERY cool and I will use it again for next weeks Solar System lesson.

The lesson sort of expanded from rockets to space vehicles in general. Here is what the kids knew at the beginning of the lesson:

Hannah: The space shuttle is kind of like the Vomit-tron at the fair. The rockets carry the space ship off the earth.

Seth: I saw a movie at preschool that had a spaceship with the jets and the spaceship came off the back and it was small then.

So we talked about how rockets worked...and how when the fuel burns off one section and it breaks off, etc. We talked about space shuttles, satelites and the space station. We talked about astronauts, space suits, and orbits. We talked about how the first rockets used gunpowder. Now they use fuel. We talked about how space shuttles piggy back on rockets and detach after they break through the atmosphere. We talked about the history of living things in space. We covered a time line of major events in space.

We did an experiment with balloons...seeing how the air escaping out of the balloon was much like the air released from rockets as the fuel burns. We launched a cup using a long balloon and a short balloon.

And at the end we colored and put together these rockets...left over from their space themed birthday party 3 birthdays ago. Can you guess which one is Hannah's?It has now been launched.

What they learned:

Hannah: People actually live up in space sometimes. The first rockets used gunpowder to launch. A space shuttle blew up and killed 7 people.

Seth: Rockets are launchers. The first living thing in space was a dog, and he died. A space station is a place where they live in space. Rockets use gas to take off.

Next week: The Solar System.

An Introduction, and Magnets

2009-06-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

In an effort to prevent "Summer Brain Mush" syndrome...I have decided to reinstate summer school. We did this last year, and the kids had a lot of fun. They looked forward to it every week, and as soon as school got out this year, they started asking for it again.

I let them choose what they want to learn about. It's not so much about learning things they would otherwise learn at school...it's more about helping them to love to learn. We do cover the basics as well, but our main focus each week is on some random aspect of life that has them wondering a bit...

So...after talking to a couple of other moms who want to do the same thing...I decided to start this blog. If you want to contribute, feel free. E-mail me and I will add you to the contributors list. It's just a place to share what has worked...what didn't work...what you might want to try, etc.

Here's a little overview of what we do. We start with some basic stuff...working on letters, letter sounds, handwriting, sight words, etc for Seth...and sentence structure, analogy, creative writing, and handwriting practices for Hannah. Then we move on to a little math. Hannah gets National Geographic Kids magazine...so I have her pick something she learned from the magazine, and teach us about it. Then we start the subject for the week. First I ask them what they already know about that subject. I keep a notebook for each of them and write what they already know at the beginning of the lesson. Then we go through the information that I collected for the week. We read library books, look stuff up on the internet, etc. After the lesson, I ask them what they know again, and record it in their notebooks. If they have learned several new things from the lesson, they get a sticker. Finally, we conclude with some kind of project. Sometimes it's an art project, sometimes it's a science project. Sometimes it's both.

And so...here is our first week of Summer School.

Subject: Magnets.

What they knew:

Hannah: "You can make a magnet by taking a magnet and something that's not a magnet, but made of metal and rubbing it together to make it a magnet."
and
"Stuff sticks to them."

Seth: "If they're not made out of metal and special stuff inside, then they won't stick."
and
"If they have the special stuff inside then they will stick."

We talked about:

what types of things are magnetic
how magnets have poles
how unlike poles attract and like poles repel each other
how steel objects can be turned into magnets
a magnet that is free to turn will ultimately line up with it's poles in a north south fashion
how the earth itself is a magnet
how the earth being a magnet causes compasses to work
how the first magnetic materials were discovered
common household items that use magnets
different types of magnets

And we experimented:

We tied a bar magnet to a string and let it dangle. It lined up pointing north/south. We played with a bunch of different types of magnets, and watched the like poles push each other away, and unlike poles suck together. We put a bunch of items in a box and guessed which ones would be magnetic (i.e. toothpick, christmas light, paper clip, screws, pennies, plastic game pieces, etc.) They discovered that certain magnets were strong enough to stick together even with their lip in the middle of them. Oh joy.

PSA: No children were choked by magnets in the making of this blog post...

Then we painted:

We put a magnetic marble on top of a paper plate with some paint. Then we took our magnet wands and held them underneath the plate. The kids LOVED watching the marble move as if by magic. The marble would spin, but not roll, due to the pole attraction on one side, and it made for some cool splattering.

At the end, this is what they had learned:

Hannah: "Magnets are made from Iron, Nickel, Steel and Cobalt. They have poles. They can be different shapes. They have a magnetic field."

Seth: "They stick together. They can stick to only certain kinds of rock. Lights have wires that are magnetic. If it spins, it will stop pointing North."

Next week: Rocket ships, and other space exploration vehicles.