Science is Fun!

When Amber and Krystal attended dance for the first time their teachers asked them to share what their favorite subject is in school and I thought, "Oh no, they have no idea what subjects are," and I was right. Although most of my posts are separated into subjects (so that I can look back and say, oh yeah, we did cover that in grammar, or we did do that for science), our school is not set up like most schools where you do one subject, then close the books and move on to another completely unrelated subject. I try to have the day just happen naturally and the kids don't even know they are doing "grammar" or "science" they are just having fun.

For example: While watching the video about the Byzantine Empire, we were taught about their secret weapon, Greek fire. No one knows for sure what Greek fire is, but they do know that there were only three ways to put it out; smothering it with sand, pouring vinegar on it, or urinating on it, he he. While talking about this we decided that Greek fire must be some sort of base as vinegar and urine are both acids and that the acids must counteract the base. So, we decided to do an experiment exploring acids and bases in the kitchen. We made an indicator out of red cabbage water and put it into 7 different bowls. Then we mixed in various kitchen ingredients like lemon juice, vinegar, milk, honey, club soda, Tabasco sauce and baking soda to see what would happen. We found out that the acids turned the purple water into a bright pink and that the bases turned the water a bluish color.

That experiment was fun and educational, but we didn't stop there. What do you do with extra lemon juice and cabbage water? Write your spelling words in invisible ink of course. Here the kids are painting their spelling words with lemon juice, then letting it dry to become invisible. After it dries, they covered it with the cabbage water and the lemon juice picked up the color to make the words reappear. Presto!Also, as we have been reading the Trumpet of the Swan, which officially counts as part of reading, we have come up with many different activities to include such subjects as grammar, science, math, writing, art, language arts, scriptures, music, vocab, etc. For example, while reading on Thursday we found a complex math problem that involved money (something Jared happens to be working on in math) and decimals. The problem included adding and subtracting several large and small amounts to each other. It proved to be challenging, but he stuck to it and in the end got the same answer as the book. Also, his science/writing/art project about swans is almost complete, I love that he has been working on it every time he has a spare moment rather than playing with his legos. This has proved to be a great read aloud choice for our family.

We finished the book today, just in time for book group. At book group we first learned about how authors will sometimes write about themselves or write about stories from their lives. We read a Patricia Polacco book that illustrates this point. The kids discussed characterizations, plot elements and their favorite parts of the book. Then, they each wrote an article for a newspaper about The Trumpet of the Swan which will be compiled into a paper copy for each person for our next meeting. Finally, they worked on their home ec. skills and made homemade crackers from wheat and oats because swans like to eat grain. Here are all the happy grain eaters, ready to start the next book and the next adventure.