This week we learned about world population. For our activity, we played this game called "who sliced this pie?" Where you divide the world's population into 30 students (or paper dolls for us homeschoolers) and then give treats to each group to represent 1) the distribution of food throughout the world and 2) the distribution of wealth throughout the world.
It is an awesome demonstration of how uneven the population and wealth in our world is. My kids kept on saying how we should share and how unfair it was. WHOO HOO they got it!
We also learned about government. We had already talked about democracy awhile ago and looked at a few campaign adds by Obama and Mitt Romney. I couldn't find any good ones for Steven Harper, but then I read about how the people don't actually elect a prime minister. I have a lot to learn about Canadian politics!
To talk about monarchy, I had the kids "harvest" little candies off the ground and then they had to bring it all to the "Queen or King" who decided how much candy they got to keep. (Usually one piece) and if they ate any of the candy without the royalty's permission, you got "beat" with the scepter. I then briefly mentioned how dictatorship is basically the same but instead of being born into power, the army gets you to power.
Don't worry, they "beatings" involved a lot of laughing.
We also talked about revolution. For our activity, we played UNO and after a couple rounds we changed all the rules.
We also have finished memorizing our mountains song:
For science, we started learning about space exploration. We talked a lot about the need for thrust, and showed how a balloon rocket has thrust:
We also had a few gravity experiments. One that was cool was to have a jar inside a jar with balloons wrapped around the tops. when you lift up the balloon of the big jar, the little jar's top lifts up too. Just like how things without gravity would lift up.
We watched some youtubes about real astronauts. A few years ago, Maxwell was on an astronaut kick, and we had an impromptu unit, and at that time there were hardly any youtube movies showing real astronauts. Now there are hundreds, all thanks to Chris Hadfield. He is AWESOME! I have to admit, I'm proud he's Canadian.
We had this meal after watching this video:
And I would also like to share some Photos of my boy's robotic's club. My friend Cayleen does such an excellent job. She's so cute. She puts on her long white "lab coat" every class time. My boys are learning programming and engineering. So incredibly practical and fun!!!!
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