What Do You Do When Your Kids Love Science?

You roll with it!

We are a very science-centered family. Maybe it's in our genes?? I mean, when the dad in the family is a doctor, there's a ton of biology floating around in many of our conversations! On top of that, he's been studying for his diplomates in chiropractic neurology and clinical nutrition. Biology, chemistry, bio-chem...makes for very interesting conversations! And he isn't the only one...

Brandon's obsession is chemistry. He reads books about it. He watches chemistry videos. He just can't seem to get enough of it to satisfy his curiosity! So it was only fitting that he was gifted chemistry related goodies for Christmas :) Here are a few of his goodies; hopefully the links work!

and from Kristen:

And other fun things:

The Element's Vault is a book with the most beautiful pictures of the elements. And it has 5 elements included inside! This was a selling point for me because Brandon has been working on collecting as many elements as possible for his own table of elements:

He drew that himself and has been working on collecting elements bit by bit. And his favorite so far:

That's pure gold which came with that book :)

 He and Todd have spent some quality time together working on that thing! They're so close!

And the chemistry sets look like this:

 in our basement/chem lab ;)

And our kids have pretty much looked like this:

since Christmas ;)

Starting Our Day

Nicholas has a new passion....geology. Over summer break, Brandon did quite a bit of reading on this subject and shared it with Nick. They spent so much time looking up gems found in Ohio and learning about the different rocks and minerals in our area. This is what sparked the little trip we took to go gem mining earlier in the fall. It was one of the best family field trips ever! Since then, Nicholas has nearly become obsessed in his new-found love of rocks and all things related! He almost always has a rock of some sort with him or one he's trying to identify. He loves discovering something about a rock and then telling whoever happens to be around what great new fact he found out!

A few weeks ago, on a trip to the library, Brandon found a book on geology for Nicholas. Brandon hangs out in the science section of the library attempting to fuel his own chemistry obsession ;) but he happened to see a book about rocks and minerals and grabbed it for his brother. So sweet! I love it when they do things like that! Not that it happens all that often...

So yesterday, we were getting ready to head to the grocery store and Nicholas asks if we can also go to the library. Why? He wanted to see what other geology books they have. How could I say no to that?!? :)

He spent all evening with the books he found and was even reading through them in bed last night. There was an experiment in one of them that he could hardly wait to do...rock candy :) He was awake shortly after me this morning, so we got started early:

 As soon as we got that sugar water all mixed up, he was back to the books.

One of my favorite parts about homeschooling: doing science experiments before the sun comes up, then watching my kids curl up with a book about rocks :)

"A House for Hermit Crab"

Megan and Nicholas have been studying the Apologia science book, "Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day" for science. Really, it's mostly Nicholas; Megan will occasionally sit in but usually I read related picture books and/or do a more hands-on craft or project with her. (Or head to the zoo! Which is coming up now that fall is here.)

For the last two weeks Nick and I have been reading about crustaceans. We have had so much fun reading about some of the amazing creatures God made! For Megan, I chose "A House for Hermit Crab" by Eric Carle and found the cutest craft to go along with it! (I've been harboring a secret...I'm a Pinterest addict. For anyone not yet aware of this new "site", it's an online pin board onto which you can "pin" ideas from other sites into categories. It's the very best way to organize all those great ideas I find on other blogs. I heart Pinterest :) It is by invitation only so if you'd like an invitation to this fabulous site let me know and I'll send it!)

I Heart Crafty Things  is the blog that has the original and more detailed instructions. Check it out!

My condensed version:

In making our hermit crab, the first thing we did was paint a little hand red and smoosh it onto our paper for the crab:

 Oh Megan... ;)

Next, I got out the cheap paper plates, the ones that aren't good for anything except crafting ;) then we cut out a small section along the edge (sorry, I didn't photograph each step, but you can click the link above to see each step or you can kind of see it in our finished pictures). With a permanent marker, I drew the swirls for the shell, then the kids used watercolors to help the shells look more like the ones in the book.

 I drew the stem for our sea anemone, the coral, the snail, and the starfish free-hand and they cut them out and decorated them. For the sea anemone , we used strips of tissue paper to finish it up. For the lantern fish, I printed off a clip art fish then they colored that and cut it out.

 We used pipe cleaners and googly eyes for the eyes. I had to hot glue them on, everything else stayed on with Elmer's.

We made a mess but it was a very fun project! And it holds a bit of truth too since hermit crabs will often stick a sea anemone on their shell! When they outgrow their shell and need to move to a bigger one, they take their sea anemone along!

Co-op!

Our co-op started back up yesterday. To say our kids were excited would be an understatement ;) And they were not disappointed! They all LOVED their classes and getting to see their friends again (some of which they hadn't seen all summer). It truly is a good group of people that we are in this home schooling journey with and we wouldn't trade it for the world!

Todd and Kristen are both teaching at co-op this semester! Neither of them are there all day long but it's so sweet to be able to see them both there sharing in our day with us :)

Todd's class is called "The Dangerous Class for Boys" and they are doing some of the projects in the book "The Dangerous Book for Boys" as well as others he's found along that same theme. (That would be the theme that these projects appeal greatly to most boys but not to many girls ;)) Nick is in there and is really loving the fact that his dad is the teacher ;) They made a battery out of quarters for the first week and it seemed to be a big hit! He has big plans for the rest of the semester. I think he's having as much fun as the kids!

Kristen is teaching "Learning Through Picture Books". She has ten kids in there but none of ours since her class is 2nd-3rd grade and we don't have any that fall into that category. This is perfect for her as she is such a book fanatic! She's had so much fun setting up her lesson plans and checking out about a million picture books from the library! It wouldn't surprise me at all if she ended up writing picture books one day.

Brandon is taking: Civil War, Logic, Biology, Uncle Tom's Cabin (another class with a play), and Nature. At the end of his first day, he couldn't even pick a favorite! He loved them all! The had their auditions in Uncle Tom's Cabin yesterday and hopefully he'll get one of the roles he's trying for. He loves acting which is so funny to me considering how much "stage fright" he had only a couple of years ago!

Nicholas is taking: Recorder, gym, Nature, Dangerous Class for Boys, and Logic. Again, I'm shocked. Nick WANTED to take recorder. No, seriously. This is the same boys that complains if the radio is on in the car. I don't get it, but I love it! And you know what? He had a great first class and has practiced!! Speechless...

Megan is taking: Nature, art, music, Addy (a class about the Civil War based on the American Girl books about Addy), and gym. She also had a great first day and had trouble choosing a favorite! Addy has managed to emerge as the favorite though :) There's a play in that class too so we might have another actor (actress, whatever) in the house! Her teacher (my good friend, Margot) is trying to write in a few extra parts with a couple of lines so more girls can get parts if they want. So sweet and thoughtful!

It was so nice for me to catch up with friends too! Home schooling can be an overwhelming undertaking. Having such wonderful people in my life, people who I have so much in common with, truly blesses me. I thank God for our co-op :)

A Glimpse of Our Rather Unschooly Week

Last week we started hitting the books again. I have so much to post about what we're doing this year! But this is not that post ;) Last Friday, Nicholas had a minor procedure done on his foot. He's fine! But we took it very easy over the weekend and that sort of continued through the rest of the week. We did get around to a few things...reading mostly, but most of the week was spent doing a few "chemistry" experiments. That means we made a lot of stuff ;) Here's some of our fun:

We made home-made bubbles. I wish I'd used the glycerin recipe, but I wanted to use up the corn syrup that's been sitting in my pantry for-e-ver. I think the bubbles would be a little tougher with glycerin though. Maybe I'll try to add some to our mixture.

We made play-do. I used a recipe from a book but there are many on the internet. I don't care for the smell so I usually add spices so it smells like gingerbread (yum!) but they turn the play-do brownish and this time we wanted colors. Vanilla essential oil to the rescue! Now it smells yummy again ;)

We made sidewalk paint. It's so easy! Equal parts corn starch and water then add food coloring. When you first add the water a really neat reaction happens. It becomes as hard as a rock! Very, very hard to stir. Basically, the mixture hardens if you are rough but becomes like liquid if you are gentle, so stir very slowly and it will calm down a bit ;) The kids were surprised that when they painted it on the sidewalk it was clear. They were so disappointed! But after it starts to dry, it darkens considerably. It only takes a minute or so.

 

 

 And just to prove we did crack open the books a bit:

:)

Wrapping Up Last School Year

I have a confession: We started our 2011/2012 school year, which marks our 11th year homeschooling, before we wrapped up last year. In my defense, we started earlier than I was planning and much earlier than we ever have, but I was also procrastinating. Our shelves had become a landing place for every book, notebook, boyscout manual, and potential teaching tool that I ran across this summer so sifting through that hot mess was not something I was looking forward to. Finally, I just called our assessor and made the appointment. I knew with a deadline of sorts, I'd get it done ;)

And I did! We lugged all our stuff out to our assessor's house last week. Now we can finally put last year's work away and move ahead with this year!

Mary is so sweet. She been doing our yearly assessments since the beginning and the kids just love her! She use to come to our house, but last year she needed us to come to her. The kids had such a great time at her house, we decided to do it that way again this year. Here's why:

 Mary has ducks! She doesn't just have ducks; she rescues ducks! Our kids love to see who she has staying with her :)

 This beautiful girl was abandoned at a park. you can tell she was someone's pet because she is still so tame.

 The gorgeous guy following her is her boyfriend ;)

 He has the most beautiful feathers. This photo doesn't capture the iridescent quality or the stunning shade of blue on some of the tips of his feathers.

 In the background, you can see the pond that Mary's house backs up to. Last year, one of her ducks went out for a swim and was attacked by a turtle. After that, she 's been concerned about letting them out there, so she built them their own "pond" with a swimming pool liner. Genius! They love their little "pond".

It was a sweet visit and the kids received lots of praise and encouraging words from Mary for the work they did last year. Now on to the next, our 11th, school year!

Nature

Last week, I spent my time planning our upcoming school year. I'm really getting excited about some of the things we'll be doing! One of our new additions is a real nature study. Every year I buy the kids a new sketchbook and make plans for nature journaling, but, although we make it out several times to specifically study nature, their sketchbooks usually have more cartoons drawn in them than anything else ;) I'm planning for this year to go a bit differently. 

First thing I did was tell them, "This sketchbook is for Nature Journaling  only!" (I couldn't really blame them for all their lovely cartoon sketches when I hadn't really told them it was a nature journal, now could I?)

Second thing we did was head to the park on a nature walk! It's amazing how many things you notice when you are purposefully setting out to notice things ;) Here's some of our day:

The bad part of our day was that every time we stopped to look at something, the bugs caught up with us! I didn't even know we HAD that many bugs in Ohio! 

It was a good start to what I'm planning to be weekly journaling.