More Bubble-ology

We continue to have a lot of fun while learning in my GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and Science) class at our co-op. A few weeks ago, we experimented with which dish soap made the biggest bubles. To do this, we blew bubbles on a table and then measured the circumference of the bubble when it popped. The soapier you get the table, the easier it is to see the circumference! (And, what a mess!!! But, it is FUN!)

(GEMS has a great orientation video you can see at this link.)

Bubble-ology

This year I am teaching 4 classes at our local co-op. Yes, four! Well, two of them are the same class - it was just too big so we had to open a second session. I'll be telling you more about my classes, but for now I wanted to introduce you to my GEMS class.

GEMS stands for Great Explorations in Math and Science. In this class, we will be doing various units created by GEMS. Our first unit is Bubble-ology.

My class is for 5th-7th graders. We have a limit of 8 students per class and this one currently has 7 students. Bubble-ology is a great study about... bubbles! For the first class, we were trying to make bubbles out of various items that you can find around the house. I was amazed that one girl made bubbles out of paper towels! She just rolled it into a tube and was able to blow bubbles! Creative!

Our co-op is at a house in the country. We have 7 rooms (I think) and this is my room. Since I only teach 2 hours on Tuesday and 2 on Thursday, I share it with a few other teachers. I think this was the dining area - it is right behind the kitchen. It has a tile floor and a sink since I teach messy classes.

Our favorite new bubble-maker is a fly swatter! Alex & I played with the bubbles at home and here she is demonstrating the fly swatter bubbler. (It was brand new.) I'm excited about this class and the kids had a great first day!

GPS Camp

First of all, thanks again to everyone who is sticking with me through the summer! I really am still having trouble getting motivated to post. And, I'm working out HARD! I'm working towards a 5K in October and a sprint triathlon in April and putting in lots of hours training. I am learning to "run" (jog) and made a new personal best yesterday - I ran for 5 minutes straight! I'm also swimming, cycling, lifting weights, and other types of activities. I'm really feeling great!

Ok... back to the blog! Alex is in a GPS camp at our co-op this week. Well, actually she's home sick today, but we hope she'll be ready to go back tomorrow. (She was vomiting last night, but no fever or other symptoms.) Anyway, yesterday they learned some of the fundamentals regarding longitude and lattitude and satellites. At lunch, he explained to me (and others) some basics about GPS and satellites. Here is some of what I learned:

• 
  
  satellites were originally intended for military applications and first launched in 1978
• 
  
  there are 30 satellites which each circle the globe every 12 hours
• 
  
  GPS receivers compare when a signal was received to when it was sent to determine how far the receiver is from the satellite
• 
  
  each satellite has a unique "sound"
• 
  
  each satellite is built to last about 10 years, but the oldest currently up is almost 20 years old

Alex's camp lasts 2.5 hours a day. After learning about the GPS systems, they went out on our property (I think it is 4+ acres) to find a site the teacher had programmed. Then, the 3 groups of 3 each were to find a different location where the teacher had hidden a box.

I helped Alex's group and we found this box of goodies. There were instructions telling us how to trail blaze. There were specific instructions, but we basically to use the materials in the box to make a trail (300 paces long!) that the other teams could follow. This proved to be pretty hard for us! One boy on Alex's team led the way and he was out of all of our rocks pretty quickly. We then decided we needed to pick up our rocks and use them more sparingly and mark our team number on them (as other teams would be crossing our path, too). Well, time ran out and we never finished, but we learned a lot! We are both disappointed to be missing today's camp. 

I think today we will watch the following brainpop videos: GPS, satellite, and longitude and latitude. I also borrowed a book from the teacher titled "Let's Go Geocaching" by John McKinney (a DK Reader).

Monday Memories - Frogs & Frog Bread!

This week's Monday Memory comes from our co-op with Mrs. S and her two girls, too. We spent a day studying amphibians. We discussed amphibians, the lifecycle of a frog, and the difference between a frog and a toad. My favorite website was All About Frogs and my favorite books were Amphibians Bev Harvey and Frogs by Gail Gibbons.

From the All About Frogs site, we made some froggy bread! It was a lot of fun and turned out a little chewy, but good! And, we got to work in some math (if we need 6 cups of flour and there are 3 of you girls, how many cups should each girl add?). And, since we're studying microbes in our human body study, we talked about yeast and how it makes bread rise.

Here's Alex (over 3 years ago) measuring some flour.

 And here she is making her frog bread. We really had a lot of fun with this study!

We had so much fun that Alex and I made turtle bread, too!

She even added green dye to her butter!

Monday Memories - Impressionists

Since I've now been blogging for almost 5 years, I thought I'd start a new weekly post called "Monday Memories." I'll use these posts to highlight some of my favorite activities from earlier years. I hope you enjoy these memories, and maybe you'll find a "new" post and a new idea to use! (If you'd like to create a weekly "Monday Memories" post, too, please let me know! If we have enough interest, I'll look into creating a Mr. Linky or something.)

Three years ago, we did a co-op with a sweet family, Mrs. S and her two girls. One daugther is Alex's age and the other was a few years older. Mrs. S and I took turns teaching various subjects. We spent several months studying the Impressionists and it was one of my favorite studiest of all times. Since then, Alex and I have went to a lot of art museums - from Houston and Dallas to Chicago and NYC. And, we are always able to recognize a lot of the artists and pieces of art because of this study.

Mrs. S used to decorate cakes and she had an assortment of equipment. She came up with the wonderful idea of decorating brownies Impressionist-style. She taught the girls (and me) about decorating and how to use the bags.

Hopefully you can see that some used dots to make our artwork while others smeared the background.

Alex smeared her background and then painted a bridge and flowers. It looks like a Monet!

Mrs. S also taught us about Mary Cassatt and how she was greatly influenced by Japanese prints. She had bought a brayer and taught the girls to make prints using foam paper and a stylus.

 

Alex made a tooth print. She was about ready to loose both front teeth and was fascinated with teeth. 

This is another great idea from Mrs. S. She bought artificial water lilies and floated them in the pool. We took canvases and watercolors outside and painted.

Here is Alex with her watercolor of waterlilies.

I had never used chalk pastels before and we spent some time learning how to use them. This is my Degas-styled drawing of a ballerina.

And, Mrs. S taught us about oil painting. I did two paintings and this is my second. I was trying not to blend the colors too much and really was pleased with how this turned out.

I hope you enjoyed this first edition of "Monday Memories." Next week, I'll share with you another of my favorite homeschooling memories.

Rocket Launch

Yesterday, one of the classes at my daughter's co-op launched rockets.

Getting ready to launch...10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

 Blast Off!!!

Several rockets were launched and one of them headed towards the trees by the pond.

Oops! Now, how are we going to get that down???

And another landed in teh pond where students and a teacher worked trying to fish it out.

As far as I know, we still have a rocket in a tree and a rocket in the pond. And they were shooting from a pretty large field. Oops!

Making a Comic Strip

I subbed for one of my daughter's co-op classes today. The class is using SOTW (Story of the World) I and today they were discussing the legend of the empress Lei Zu and how she discovered silk. I loved the assingment the teacher left for the children, and I honestly don't know if it was in the SOTW teacher's guide or if the teacher came up with it herself. She just left me the lesson plan.

The children's assigment was to read the legend and then create a comic strip of 5-9 frames telling the story. I enjoyed drawing alongside the children! The comics are supposed to be in color, but I haven't colored mine yet. Anyway, I thought this could be a great activity for many lessons - especially if you have children who love comics or love to draw! And so, I thought I'd share my comic with you...

Ugh!!! I've been trying to download these photos off & on all day and having the worst time getting them to load in the correct orientation. I have a Canon and I read that it is sometimes the problem. So, I did as they said and resaved the photos with a different program. I got 2 more photos with that, but I can't get the others. Anyone have any advice?

Favorite Co-op Class?

I want to teach a class at my daughter's co-op in the spring. Actually, 2 classes - possibly even 3. I've been struggling with the decision of 'what' to teach to 4th-6th graders. So, far I've thought of:

• Nuts About Nature based on Melissa's co-op study
• Think! based on the Think! website
• Nim's Island based on Liberty Hill House's posts (I'd need another literature study for 2nd 8 weeks)
• Jungle Book study based on Little Blue School's posts
• Getting to Know...Famous People study based on Mike Venezia's books - we'd read a different book each week and I'd come up with activities to do - sounds like fun, but the most work
• European Vacation where we'd take a few weeks to a month per country and explore various European countries - I love what Fireside did with Italy and Renaissance Mama did with France recently
• Where in the World is Mrs. Waffenschmidt? class - perhaps mapping and creating notebooking pages as some of you recommended when Alex & I started this before
• Journey North class based on Journey North's Mystery Class

So, I'm really torn and having a hard time figuring out what I should do. I want it to be lots of fun. I also know that the 2 things I think Alex needs more of are science and geography, so this should play into my decision. I like the idea of creating my own study, but this is also more work.

Do you belong to a wonderful co-op? Do you have a favorite co-op class? I'm just really struggling with this and would love some input. Thanks!

Staying Busy

Whew! We are having fun, but staying pretty busy right now with end of the year things!

• I had my piano recital a few weeks ago. I was nervous, but did OK.
• Alexandra has started "summer" swim team and that meets 5 days a week, including at 6:45 on Saturday mornings! (She's taken off the past 2 summers, but we're both enjoying doing it again this year - it just keeps us busy!)
• On Monday, we'll finish up a 7 week, post-Classical Conversations, co-op and I am teaching a great class on Inventors. (I'll post ASAP)
• Alexandra has her Classical Conversations Awards Banquet and Choir Recital next Friday - and I'm the accompanist! So, I'm busing practicing!
• We are planning a BIG summer trip - I'll tell you about soon - but I've been researching places to go, things to do, etc.
• And, we our having a family reunion at the end of June. I've done genealogy for over 10 years (though not much since Alexandra was born) and I'm busy getting my information together so it can be shared with the family. (The photo above is of some of my husband's family taken in 1880!)

So, I have not forgotten my blog friends! I hope to have lots of interesting posts coming soon. Thanks for waiting around for me! :-)

Louisiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark

We have started a new co-op with another Classical Conversations family. Basically, we will be studying about Westward Expansion and pioneers. For a "spine", we are using Great Pioneer Projects You Can Build Yourself by Rachel Dickinson and Learning Through History's magazine, Westward Ho!

In the past, Alexandra and I had worked through most of the small book, "What A Deal!" The Louisana Purchase by Carole Marsh. I wish I would have got this book at again as we would have made some Mississippi Mud Pie or built a raft of pretzle rods.

I also have the Kaleidoscope Kids Book, The Lewis & Carol Expedition, which has lots of great projects in it. But, I just wasn't up to it! I was literally putting together this first study the morning of our co-op.


So, what did we do?

• At Enchanted Learning, we read about the Louisiana Purchase and took a quiz.



• We also read about Lewis & Clark at Enchanted Learning.



• We watched Schoolhouse Rock's "Elbow Room" (shown above).



• We colored a map of the Louisian Purchase.



• I think I found this part the most interesting - we discussed the Westward Journey series of nickels that the US mint released in 2004-2006. I was able to find 4 of the 5 coins at our house and especially enjoyed the coin that has a replica of the Peace Medal the explorers gave to Native American chiefs. "It shows the hand of a Native American and the hand aof a European-American clasped in a friendly handshake below a crossed pipe and tomahawk." I'd seen these coins before, but hadn't really paid any attention to them or what they meant.



• Lastly, I still hope to complete this one: Over the past year and a half, Alexandra has earned 3 Junior Ranger badges. Well, you can earn a Lewis and Clark Junior Web Ranger by doing research online (or in a book), filling out this form, and mailing it in! I've printed it out, I just need to set down with Alexandra and do the work now.

Our next stop in history - The Oregon Trail.

Turtles

We are still doing our weekly science co-op with 2 other families and I've really neglected posting about it. We are doing Exploring Creation Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures. I am thankful to have 2 other creative moms to teach with and we really seem to compliment each other in our teaching strengths. And, we have a great group of 8 kids! I'll try to do better keeping up with our (usually) weekly meetings, as I think we have some great resources to share.

This post on turtles is from back in December and it is only from one of our 2 meetings. Here are some of the things we did:
From this site we drew our own diagram of a turtle's carapace. We also discussed scientific terms like "vertebral", "costal", "dorsal", etc.


We played an Adventure Game from Euroturtles. It's a great survival game which demonstrates how hard it is to survive as a turtle. Not all of your baby turtles will survive in this game! (Since we have so many kids, I made a large board for this - you could even do a chalk drawing outside - and we only played 4 kids at a time.) This game can also send you "backwards" and we were very proud of one of our little girls who kept being sent back yet stuck in the game. It was a great lesson in sportsmanship!

You can also play this game online! You can play the full version which starts with the mother turtle trying to lay her eggs on the beach, or the shorter version which starts after the eggs have hatched. After trying these games of chance, you might try the Brain Game version where you get to make some decisions and see how they affect your turtle.


While half (4) of our kids were playing the board game, the other half played Once Upon a Beach (scroll down to page 9). This is another neat game where you learn how hard it is to survive as a sea turtle. And, again, not all of your baby turtles will survive!
We made our own paper plate turtles from this site. I actually just threw these out yesterday and didn't realize I hadn't taken any photos. They turned out so cute!

Lesson 1: Aquatic Animals

I missed the 2nd meeting of our science co-op, so the other moms painted Alexandra's box for her Ocean Box. The Ocean Box is a year-long project for Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures. You are basically adding one sea creature to the box for each chapter you study.
So, for part of our 3rd meeting, we worked on finishing our Ocean Boxes so we could start adding the creatures. One of the moms brought the ingredients for salt dough. The kids each made their own dough and after much kneading they put in their ocean floor.

The also decided to add a small island to the top. One of the things we'd discussed this week was the ocean floor and its parts - the continental shelf, continental slope, continental rise and abyssal plain. So, we designed our Ocean Box floor with those areas.

Cells

This year we are doing a science co-op with 2 other families with a total of 8 children. For our curriculum, we are using Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures. But, the other families had been working with cells, so our first meeting finished up their cell study.

We meet every week and each family is expected to study the material ahead of time. Our time together is for show and tell time, review, and doing projects. The moms take turns leading the group - sometimes one mom will do most of a meeting and at other times we each take a turn.

For this first session on cells, I was in charge of showing the kids real cells. I used a toothpick to scrape cells from the inside of my cheek and stained them with some methylene blue. The slides turned out well and each child was encouraged to look at his/her own cells. I took a photograph by placing my camera at the top of the microscope and just taking a photo. I was amazed at how well they showed up. (Thanks, Robin, for the idea!)

I also reviewed the organelles of a cell while the children drew in their notebooks. Then, another mom made these incredible candy cells! She came up with some great candy to make the various organelles and we placed them all in a jell-o cell.

The jell-o didn't stay together as well as we would have liked, but it was still a great model. And, the kids learned a lot about cells and were great at answering our questions!

This Week's Wrap Up

We've had a busy week. (As usual, right?)


On Monday, we watched the baby of one of our neighbor's. We babysat for 6 hours to a 9 month old boy. Alexandra was SO helpful and I got to brush up on some baby skill as we await our new baby cousin in a few months. Alexandra even fed him his bottle and rocked him to sleep!

On Tuesday, we stated a kit about electricity. We used static electricity to pick up small pieces of paper with a comb and also to bend a stream of water - VERY cool!!!



On Wednesday, we went to our small co-op and the mom & girls taught us how to loom knit! We are working on purses using wool yarn that we will then felt. I'll tell you more when we get to that step! We also had some fun with fractions at Mathwire.

We also played a new math fraction game, Closest to 1, which I found online but can't find right now. Each person is dealt 3 cards (take out J's, Q's, & K's). Then, make as many fractions as you can (you should make 6) and record each of them on a slip of paper. Then, calculate the decimal equivalent to the nearest 100th and write it down on the slip of paper. For example, 4/5 would be 0.80. I like going to the nearest 100th because then you can compare it to money! For difficult numbers, use a calculator. This is a good time to reinforce that the line in a fraction, like 1/2, means "divided by." After each person has their 6 answers, they should put them in order from smallest to largest and then determine which of their cards is closest to 1.00. (Again, use the concept of money, even draw a dollar sign, if this helps.) Then, compare your "closest" card with your opponents and whoever's is closest, wins! We played this several times and Alexandra really enjoyed it. She even wanted to play it at night!

On Thursday, we prepared for our Friday's book club by making a model of the Empire State Building with a "giant" peach on top. Then, Alexandra wrote a newspaper article about the amazing event from the book, James and the Giant Peach.




And, on Friday, we went to the book club and the girls made peach cobbler as their group acitivity. It was really good! They also shared their projects and had a group discussion.

Afterwards, Alexandra and I went clothes shopping and then she went to a Friday night out event at her gym while my husband and I went out to eat and then I went to Barnes & Noble. I got a book for me, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and a book for Alexandra that she really enjoyed from the library last week, The Matchlock Gun.

Who do you look like?

Last week, we restarted our co-op from last year with Ms. S and her 2 daughters. We are scheduling most of our studies around exhibits coming to our local museums. For this first study, we were preparing for a visit to our museum which is hosting an exhibit called Genome: The Secret of How Life Works.


Genetics is probably my favorite branch of science. But, trying to figure out how to teach it to young elementary students was quite a challenge! I started with a book called Grandfather's Nose: Why We Look Alike or Different. I actually only read about half of it. Then, I read Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Pea. During both books, I'd stop and explain some of the more difficult material.

Then, we went to the dry erase board and I taught more about dominant and recessive genes and what happens when you cross something like a tall plant with a short plant, or TT x tt (you get all Tt) or if you cross hybrid tall with a hybrid tall, Tt x Tt (you get TT, Tt, Tt, and tt). We even did some Punnett Squares!

The girls were really catching on so we moved to a cute person activitiy that I found at
Science Kids at Home. You actually flip a coin to get various dominant and recessive genes to find out what mom (Ms. S) and dad (me) look like. Then, we flipped coins to see what each of the 3 girls looked like. (We could have cut out a face shape and cut the pieces out better, but I was wanting to move a little more quickly.) Nice face, huh?


We'll be meeting twice a month and I'll be covering more about genetics at our next meeting. Then, we'll be going to the museum exhibit together.

Tulip Mania & the Still Life of Van Huysum

Today, I taught our co-op about the incredible Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1600's. I read the book The Great Tulip Trade about this fascinating time. Tulips became so popular, that one bulb could trade for a whole year's salary! Then, there was a big tulip "crash" and the bulbs were worth practically nothing. Some people lost all their money. The girls really enjoyed the book - and the strange story.

I then talked about the Dutch painter Jan Van Huysum. He was an incredible painter of still life - primarily flowers - and they are currently having a large exhibit of his work at our local art museum. A few interesting things: he sometimes dated his paintings with 2 years as he waited for the correct flowers to come into bloom; he wasn't concerned about the correct size of the flowers he painted; and most of his paintings have various "bugs" (flies, butterflies, snails, etc) "hiding" in his painting. I went to the exhibit last week and it was fun to hunt for the bugs.

Lastly, we tried our own still life painting of a bouquet. I had bought a flower bunch from our grocery store, but I thought they looked really bad when I tried to arrange them. So, my friend Ms. S helped me out and I think we both discovered that we were better at flower arranging than we thought. I think it turned out very pretty! Looks pretty enough to give as a gift!

Painting flowers was a little harder than I thought, but I once again enjoyed the process and am ready to try it again some time! That's my bouquet above - I took some creative license and the flowers aren't exactly like the ones in our arrangement. There are things I would change... but maybe next time...

Circulatory System

I taught our co-op today and we learned about the circulatory system. Mostly we followed these PSO Lessons. When we got the stethoscopes out, we even listened to our dog's heart. We also dissected a heart (well, the 2 younger girls went to play). And, we made candy blood like we'd made back in September.