Ice, Ice, Baby

With learning about dry ice, the Ice Age, and "c" stands for Cold ice, it was an icy week at the McKay household.

Science was AWESOME!  And that's even what the kids said :)  Seriously, it was the funnest science day ever.  We learned about the changing states of matter.  We changed ice to water to steam and back to water again. Then we talked about what would happen if something was both a solid and liquid and brought out the cornstarch and water.  EVERYONE loves cornstarch and water.  While they were playing with that, I was showing them how every liquid has a different boiling point.

Then I had them pretend to be a solid and crunch down into a ball, a liquid where they stood up straight, and a gas where they went crazy, and talked about how molecules expand as they change states.  This led to mixing a liquid (vinegar) and a solid (baking soda) to make a gas that expands enough to blow up a balloon.

And of course, we got out the DRY ICE!! A solid changing to a gas....cool.  It is way hard to find dry ice in Canada.  After making about twenty phone calls I found it at a welding supply shop.  I now understand Dustin's delight at being able to buy dry ice in the grocery store in the States.  I've always taken it for granted.

Maybe I should not share our finale, but it was every one's favourite....dry ice bombs....being married to Dustin of course I knew how to do this, and how better to prove that matter expands as it changes into a gas?....expanding soooo much that it explodes!  I did not know how effective these bombs would be.  I now have little craters in my back yard, and I'm sure my neighbours think a gun was going off...all in the name of science!  This was all that was left of one of the pop bottles....

This week we learned about the ice/stone age.  I've always been fascinated by how artistic the oldest of man's preserved paintings are.  Books I found that were awesome were "Discovery in the Cave" by Dubowski and Barnard (I've always loved the true story of the discovery of the Lascaux caves.)  and "Stone age Boy" by Kitamura....very cute and informative.

I love learning about the Chauvet caves and the Lascaux caves!!!  Were these dumb men just evolving from nothing?  NO! These were children of God being inspired to create!

And we were inspired to create our own cave paintings....In a fridge box...jammed with six delighted kids.

We also spray-painted over our hands using straws.  At first we did it too watery, but it worked in the end.  I think I swallowed some paint though!....we also painted rocks.

In preschool we learned that "c" is for cold...

And for field trip we went to a lake and enjoyed fall colours..how wonderful that it's still warm!

Dead Dinosaurs

We excavated our homemade dinosaur fossils.  Maxwell was very excited about this and kept yelling "Let's excavate!"  I don't think I learned the word "excavate" until Jr. High.  Hyrum had a different approach.  He would say "Help, I'm stuck!" in a little voice for the dinosaurs, and then say "I will help you!" in a deep voice at which point he would hammer them as hard as he could with his mallet.

Can you see our "sabre tooth" tiger we threw in there?

We acted out the extinction of the dinosaurs.  There are many theories (scientists sometimes crack me up on how sure they are about things that are so unsure.)  First we were mammals eating the dumb dinosaur's eggs (jelly bellies.) Then we acted out the dinosaurs all getting sick.  Then we hit them with a soccer ball meteorite.  And then the planet heated up, resulting in a lot of VOLCANOES!!!  (The volcano theory was the hit of the day.)

We had a P.E. day this week.  The homeschool organization threw a field day.  Maxwell tried hard, and in the end they gave the little kids lots of ribbons regardless of winning, which I liked.  He did get fourth in throwing frisbees.  Ultimate frisbee champion in the making!

 In devotionals we learned that Russell M. Nelson was a heart surgeon...

And for our field trip we went to the WEST EDMONTON MALL!!!  It used to be the biggest mall in the world.  Maxwell got picked during the sea lion show as the volunteer who threw the sea lions rings.

We went to everything (including the "largest indoor amusement park in the world") except their "largest indoor water park in the world."  We had tons of fun, and were all tuckered out by the end.

DINOSAURS!!!

Yes last week we studied dinosaurs, much to the delight of our boys.  Maxwell, after having read many dinosaur books to him, looked up at me with wonder and said, "Mumma, are you saying that dinosaurs were actually REAL?!"  He knows dragons and fairies are not real, so this revelation was really exciting to him.  He kept talking about when they would be resurrected and how much fun that would be.

I had wanted to make footprints in clay and imprint them with plaster, and then I found the PERFECT book for this activity at our library.  It's called "Let's Go Dinosaur Tracking!" by Schlein and Duke.  It talks all about tracks made by dinosaurs and how we found them and what we learned from them.

The Imprinting worked pretty good, but the toes and fingers cracked really soon.  When I do this again, I will make the moulds deeper.

Our "dinosaur" tracks getting preserved....

Another great book I found was "Dinosaur: Digging Up a Giant" by McGowan and Broda.  Which explained how you find dinosaurs and put them together for a museum.  It was very simple and cute, and led into our next activity which was making a fossil that we will excavate next week.

We had our dinosaurs and bugs die and get stuck in "mud" that we made.  We then covered them with a layer of sand, another layer of mud, a layer of dinos, sand, and a layer of mud again, etc.  Our "mud" was one part water, one part vermiculite, and two parts plaster paris.  It worked really well, and we talked about what really happened to the dinosaurs as we did it.

Science actually happened this week, and even though I don't think I explained anything very well, I think the boys had fun and learned at least something.  We talked about matter and how all matter has mass and volume.  The funnest experiments were the ones proving that air was matter.  We tried to blow up a balloon in a bottle and then put a hole in the bottle and forced the balloon to stay blown up inside of it.  We also weighed air.  We made model molecules of solids, liquids, and gases as well as a few other experiments.

Preschool was awesome.  I was right about Hyrum; he needs one on one time.  Last week was horrible with his friend here, but this week he really excelled.  We talked about the letter "B" and sang "ba, ba, ba, buhhhhh" to Beethoven's music while "conducting" it with a ribbon-wand.

We sang songs, read books, and practiced letters.  It was really rewarding.

For our field trip we flew kites.  It was a PERFECT day to fly kites, and everyone, including Daniel, had tons of fun, I got a work out, and friends and cousins who saw us joined in the fun.

However, after dinner that night, Dustin convinced us to leave RIGHT THEN for our mini vacation that we have been planning for next week, and we had a much funner field trip the next day....

THE ROYAL TYRRELL DINOSAUR MUSEUM!!!

Apparently, Alberta is the capitol for the world when it comes to dinosaurs (very convenient for us :)

Drumheller, in the badlands of Alberta, has the world's largest dinosaur museum, the world's largest dinosaur statue, and is just plain cool to visit.

It was really neat that we had already talked about fossils, bones, prints, palaeontology, extinction etc BEFORE we went, so that everything we saw reinforced what we had already learned.  Fun fun!

School is in Session!

Yes, School has started in our household.  It had its successes and failures this week.

Monday was perfect.  We had fun and were productive.  With this blog, I usually share the history/science/fun things and don't really share the math, reading, devotional stuff that we do daily.

Since we are learning the ancient history of our world this year, we began at the beginning....the Very Beginning:  The creation.  We made creation collages complete with baggies of water and tiny flashlights for light.

We also talked about the garden of Eden, and made leaf aprons.  Aren't they the cutest Adam and Eve ever?

Now for the fail part.  On science day, I ended up having a meeting with the school district homeschool corespondent, and a meeting with Hyrum's speech pathologist, so science was sadly cancelled.

Preschool....well preschool didn't go over to well.  We went to the library and then I felt rushed because we had a friend over, and Hyrum didn't want to do anything.  We made monster masks, but Hyrum's was pathetic because he wasn't interested.  When Maxwell came home, Maxwell made a super deluxe mask out of the supplies left out....man!  I hope that Hyrum was like that because of the friend and the rush and is not like this in the future.  Maybe Maxwell has spoiled me with being the oldest.  He naturally loves to do any craft I half way suggest.

For Field trip we went to the creek...actually, we went to the creek three times this week....well come on!  It's still summer weather, right?!

My Curriculum This Year

In the mornings, Dustin and I (and by default the whole family) listen to Pimsleur to help us adults (and hopefully the kids) learn spanish. It's an oral program that repeats and repeats and slowly builds.  We have a friend who learned by using it, so we have some hope.

For math, I'm doing a sort of hybrid of two different programs.

First,  there's RightStart Mathematics, which is an abacus based math program.  It is supposed to be the way the Japanese children learn math.  You are not supposed to count.  You are supposed to group to the nearest five, and then be able to add, subtract, and see number values.  I know I can't describe it very well, but the theories intrigue me.  I got all the manipulatives that go along with it, and we've already had some fun.

However, there are hardly any worksheets.  This is a mostly "mom and me talk, explore, and play math games" program.  That is great, but really, (and I know that this might sound odd) once my kids can read well, I want them to be able to teach themselves math.  And, when it comes to math, I think busy work is not a sin and can be needed even.  I WANT worksheets, so they can do their math while I clean. Saxon Math is quite the classic when it comes to math programs.  I remember using it as a kid and liking it (I love clear cut systems with answers you can prove thus I loved math.) And Saxon has TONS of worksheets (perhaps too many!) and is very explanatory in their books.

Also, I haven't heard the greatest stuff about RightStart Math after level A and B, so I figure RightStart math is just that....a right start in thinking about math in a different way in the beginning.  Basically, I want them on Saxon after the first two years of RightStart, so for those first two years, I'm doing RightStart lessons and Saxon worksheets.

For Devotionals, I use the Gospel Principles book and the Friend as my main guides.

Then for reading, I'm using the Language Arts Through Literature program.  It has books like the "Bob books" but it also has instruction for me on how to go about using them.  It also has activities and fun stuff that I think Maxwell will really click with.

For Hyrum I'm using mostly Leapfrog ABC stuff or stuff that I just make up.  Hyrum is going to be doing speech therapy this year, so what they suggest is probably what will fill our Reading time.

While one child is reading, the other is learning Spanish from Little Pim which is like watching Baby Einstein, but in a different language.  Maxwell's actually really excited to learn Spanish.  I heard him telling his friend the other day that when he grows up, he's going to live somewhere where they speak Spanish.

For Devotional organization, History, and Science we are using The Four Year Plan by the Eberts, who, although I have never met them, I love.  I don't use their program quite like they designed it, but it's meant to be flexible.  I don't do English like they suggest at all since Maxwell is not at that stage.  In fact, I just glean the English section for more History ideas since their English goes along with their History.

The Four Year Plan (like the name suggests) rotates subjects every four years, and is meant to go along with the Seminary schedule.  It is meant for families to learn all together regardless of age.  This year covers the Old Testament, Ancient History of the World, and Chemistry.  This year's book is called "Going in Circles."  On it, Teri Ebert says "Parents often suspect they are going in circles;  we know we are!  We simply choose to design the circles ourselves."  Like I said, I love her.

And finally for preschool I made up my own curriculum, so no link or picture, but the basis is that I concentrate on one letter a week and we do activities about that letter. OH!  I almost forgot:  Laurie Berkner.  I love her songs and we always have lots of preschool fun dancing and singing to them.

So that's my plan...subject to change without warning :)

History This semester

Yesterday was the first day of School for our town.  It was also the first cold day for a long time.  It seemed fitting.  I spent the day visiting and relaxing.  I've decided to start school on the first Monday of September. I know that day is a holiday, but since I have a husband that is his own boss, and I homeschool, silly holidays like labor day are meaningless to us.  So Monday it is....am I ready?  I hope so.

I thought I would write down this semester's ancient history plan, because I'm so excited about it. (And if I loose my paper, I would like a backup of my plan.)  Note:  I will not follow this perfectly.

September we're studying:

creation
dinosaurs
ice age
cave men

September's activities:

creation collage (finding flashlights for light, leaves for plants, feathers for animals  etc...)
creation colouring pages and starting timeline
make fossil plaster blocks with dinos and things inside
make fossil casts
excavate fossil blocks
cave painting in huge box
spray tempra paint over hands and paint rocks
volcanoes!

October we're studying:

Mesopotamia
Ancient Egypt
Israel

October's activities:

bas reliefs
crescent rolls and weaving baskets
sandpaper pyramids
mummies
king tut headdress
cartouches
moses in the bulrushes and parting the red sea
make Jericho's wall with cups and go around with trumpets
Slingshots, star of David, and crowns

November we're studying:

Persia/Arabia
Africa
Ancient India

November's activities:

Marbling
pitas and turbans
make magic lamps
oral bard and toe puppets
make african masks
batik cloth
decorate masks
Draw silhouettes w/ many arms and paint it blue
Taj Mahal mosaics in clay

December we're studying:

Ancient China

December's activities:
(December is only three weeks...Christmas)

Make paper
lanterns/paper dragon puppets
potato stamps/calligraphy
Yoga/Martial arts
origami
make fortune cookies

Doesn't this all sound so FUN!!!  We're doing all this, but that leaves the last half of the year for Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Medieval ages (complete with camelot!), and Renaissance.  YIPEE!  I love my job. :)