First Day of 7th and 5th!

7:30 am

Mom is caffeinated, has a load of laundry going, and is pulling today's work out of the files...

 

 

8:15 am

Kids are up, dressed, and having breakfast.  Then Dude feeds all the animals while Super puts away clean dishes and gives the dogs fresh water.

9:30 am

Gomez is all settled in for the first school day!

We start by filling out a fun First Day Questionnaire.  This is one of several things we'll put in our Time Capsule (to be opened at the end of the school year.)

10 am

First Day goodie bags!

Some new school supplies, Tic Tacs, a cute little journal, a mini Slinky, thinking putty (a.k.a. Silly putty) and a note from Mom.

 10:30

Kids happily organize their workspace...then we head out for Nature Study.   (More on our Tree Study in another post.)

11:40

Lunch...and an impromptu science experiment.  Dude wants to see what would happen if:

 he measures exactly four inches of Silly Putty...

...uses a pen and the Slinky to hang the Silly Putty off the table for five minutes...

 

 ...and then measures it again.  Amazing what a couple of cheap toys can inspire!

12:30 pm 

A few math review sheets and a sorting activity.

 

Uh, Gomez?  Trying to work here...

1:30 pm

Grammar Voyage: the introduction.  Then a nostalgic voyage for me.  We read one of my childhood favorites: The Captain's Dog. 

Super is in charge of jotting down the adjectives and Dude records the verbs.  Until they get tired of it and just listen to the wonderful story.

 2:15 pm

Kids listen to Raptor Red while doing handwriting practice.

 2:30 pm

A snack and free reading time.

Wake up, Gomez, it's almost time for karate!

Other than the goodie bags, this is a pretty typical day for us.  We alternate between nature study, science, and history.  We do math, reading and language every day.  

Between karate, swimming, scouts and our homeschool group, there is usually something going on in the afternoon.  And Gomez always joins us for school!

Hope you had a great day, too!

UFO Solar Baloon

We had to do this experiment in between rainstorms!  Fortunately we had a few sunny hours on Saturday, so we were able to use the power of the sun...

 ...to warm up the air inside the balloon.

 

It got warmer and fatter...

...then lifted off the ground!

 Up...

 ...up...

 

...and away!

Hope you're having lots of fun this summer!

Earning Webelo Activity Pins

 Q: What do all these objects have in common?

 A: They all contain materials mined from the Earth!

 

On Saturday we held a "pin day" for Dude's Webelo den.  The boys earned their Geologist and their Artist pins.  For the Geologist pin, we were supposed to "collect 5 geologic specimens that are useful to people."

 I don't know about your kids, but my kids seem to come home with "geologic specimens" in their pockets every time they go outside!  In addition to these daily treasures, we got out our boxed rock collections.  We've had these around for a while.  No idea where I got them, but they are a decent little set from Geo Safari.  We have the sedimentary, metamorphic, and fossil boxes.  (I guess I missed the igneous set.) 

 

 

We discussed the many ways we use Earth's minerals and rocks.  Just for fun, we looked at a few samples under the microscope, including a certain rock that people need to eat to stay alive!  

 Then we tried the streak test for a variety of samples and we learned about the Mohs hardness scale.  Around here, this is part of the 5th grade science curriculum, so it was new information for our 4th graders.  (Just because I like rocks and hanging around in rock shops, I had samples for nearly everything on the scale!) 

 The kids were eager to do the hands-on activities, so I tried not to bore them with too much reading!  However, this book is a great introduction to the interior structure of the planet and plate tectonics.  We discussed how our Rockies were formed, what causes tsunamis, how fossils develop, and how scientists figured out what's inside the Earth.   

 

Then it was time for some fun art activities!

We discussed the three primary colors, then made all the colors we needed using just red, yellow, and blue.

There were giraffes...

 ...fancy faces...

...and Teddy bears!  Oh, my!

 Earning scout pins and homeschooling go hand-in-hand.  In fact, the Geologist pin was so much fun, 

I may turn it into a co-op for my local group!  We're looking forward to working on more pins this spring and summer. 

Magnetism Workbox

I put together this cool magnetism workbox, packed full of experiments and interesting information about magnets!

As my kids get older, I'm hoping to give them more independent activities like this. I think it's important for them to take more responsibility for their own learning.

I'm also hoping to have lots of independent activities ready so the big kids can stay on track once we're homeschooling with a toddler. (Still a ways off, but it doesn't hurt to prepare!)

Unpacking the cool stuff in the box...

...and doing the first experiment. I included several experiments from Janice Van Cleave's books (I own this one and this one.)

The kids had already correctly predicted what the magnet would and wouldn't attract. But it was fun to try it anyway.

As they moved through the activities, they checked them off the list. I didn't find a single source for the experiments and worksheets: I cobbled together this list from Janice Van Cleave's books, Evan-Moor's Teacher Filebox, The Mailbox's Science in a Box, and a couple of websites.

I used a few magnets that we already had (including the kids' Buckyballs) and ordered a couple of kits from Amazon. We had a set of buzz magnets (I think I got them at the supermarket) and a couple of magnets from Dude's Magic Penny set that he got for Christmas a couple of years ago. (In retrospect, I would not include the Rare Earth magnets that I ordered because they are so unbelievably strong, they tended to be hard to work with! However, this Dowling magnet set proved to be a good choice for our experiments.)

This was one of our favorite experiments. It's from a Janice Van Cleave book.

Make sure you tape it securely!

It didn't work exactly the way it should have because we used a magnet from the Magic Penny set and it's capped with plastic on each end.

Still pretty cool, though! It's been "hanging out" on our mantle for several days now...

Here are the magnets from the Dowling set. We sprinkled the iron filings on a plastic report cover and observed the magnetic field.

Then the kids wanted to make a ring of Buckyballs and see how the iron filings would behave.

And here is what happens if some of the iron filings "escape" from the plastic and stick to a magnet! Good luck getting them off!

All in all, my kids were very "attracted" to this workbox! (Sorry! Couldn't help it!)

This post is linked to Look! What We Did!
You can check out more great ideas there!