Water Experiment

After discussing how much trash we generate and where it ends up, we also discussed wasting other resources in our home such as electricity and water. This is a huge issue for me, because I have an internal reminder (that probably comes from my mom who grew up in East Germany) that dings every time the water is running for no reason or a light has been left on.

The first thing we did was make "Energy Police" badges. Then we put bright green light switch covers on our most-used switches that read "TURN OFF." Then I asked the kids, "What uses more water, a bath, or a shower?"

They both said, "shower." So Friday I had them both take showers, but we plugged the tub so that the water would collect in the tub. My son went first, and he took a REALLY long shower. The tub filled up, even more than if he had taken a bath. So when it was Anna's turn, I decided to time her shower. Even though we have a fairly low flow with our Showerwise shower filter [shameless plug] I was amazed to see that after only ten minutes, the tub was at the same level that she would normally take a bath.

This was a great way to show the kids how much water is used for showers. Our rule generally is that if you plan on taking a long shower, take a bath. If you just want to get in and get clean, take a shower. We also conserve water by not flushing the toilet every time. This is not on purpose; this is because the kids are afraid it will overflow on them, so they don't flush!

P.S. We did visit our recycling center but I haven't blogged about it because I forgot to bring a camera. When I have pictures to share, I'll write about our visit. This week: How our choices affect things outside our house (we have discussed the water cycle and will be focusing on the rainforests starting tomorrow.)

Earth Day Activities for School- Trash

During this month, we will be doing Earth Day related studies for science and social studies. I will share what we are doing in hopes that it will motivate you to share some earth-friendly thoughts with your own children!

We started this "unit" last week, with reading The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute (Anymore). Since we just finished learning about communities and neighborhoods, this was a great follow up story to lead into how we take care of our community. Because it is an easy concept to grasp, we are starting with "trash," and where it goes. This is much easier than starting with wasting electricity or water. Once they get the trash issue, it is easier to transfer their understanding of good stewardship to something that is not as concrete.

So how do you teach about trash? Good question! I remember when I first had a newborn and a toddler in diapers and how much trash it generated every week. One baby's diapers didn't phase me, but two...holy cow! I was moved to start using cloth diapers and life returned to normal. So it only makes sense for the kids to see how much trash we generate as a family. I have a book from The Mailbox called Environment. It is for grades 1-3. In this book, there is an activity called "Tons of Trash." For this activity, you are to collect a day's worth of trash all in one bag. I decided to go three days, and then take an average. Today is the 3rd day. Tomorrow we will complete the graph, showing how much trash we generate each day, how much it would be in a week, and how much for a month. Then we will go through the bag and look at each item, discussing how we could reduce the use or if the item can be recycled. (No food went into the trash).

This week we will also make a visit to our local recycling center. We will bring all our recyclables and talk about what we see there. We have lived here for two years and this is the first visit to the center! This is totally unlike me, but it took this long to find out we even have recycling here. In Georgia they picked it up curbside, so it wasn't much to think about. Next week, we will visit our local landfill. It is only two years old, and my children's dad had a part in helping construct some railings around the landfill offices. We had just moved here when he did the work, and we've never been to see it. Perhaps we will visit each year and see how much it changes!

Come back and see the other ideas I have planned this month!

*Various mom-owned businesses are running Earth Day specials. Check them out!

Thanksgiving Activities

We just arrived in Atlanta today, about 1,000 miles from home. And I can see the unused Thanksgiving projects that have been waiting for us to use since LAST Thanksgiving tucked away in our craft cabinet back home in Kansas. I am kicking myself. You know how you are driving further away from home, knowing that you forgot to pack something, and wishing you could just figure out what it is so you can move on to thinking about something else? Sigh. At least I didn't forget something that we can't live without!

Anyway, we will still be doing something for Thanksgiving. I brought some reading, handwriting, and math work to complete. And for Thanksgiving we will probably make our "Tree of Thanks" which is a brown tree with trunk and limbs. We make colorful leaves and write something on each leaf that we are thankful for. One thing that I like to remember is to be thankful all year. We do a pretty good job of this. But Thanksgiving is a yearly reminder for me to keep this up. Thankfully (see, I'm good!) my kids are still pretty thankful for the little things. I love how they get so excited! I see other kids who think they are too good for things. They can't enjoy the little things and can't even stop to say "thank you" when they have received a gift. These are the same kids who rip through their toys on Christmas day without even looking at them and get to the end, looking for more. If your child is like this, what can you do to help him appreciate what he has received?

Feel free to share what you will be doing this Thanksgiving. Maybe it will give us an idea for another project to do together.

The week after we returned from our trip, I got out our "Trees of Thanks". Here they are!

Veteran's Day

We have a very patriotic town, which maybe is typical for small towns. American flags adorned main street yesterday and today, and many houses displayed their flags as well. As I ran a quick errand and passed by Municipal Hall, I could tell something was happening. After enquiring, I found out that every Veteran's Day, the older school children do a report and display on either a family member who is/was a veteran, or someone else they know. The younger kids sing, and there is a speech. So Thomas, Anna, and I made our way, they on their bikes, me on my shoes, up to Municipal Hall. It was a very emotional tribute to those who have served, as each branch of the military had veterans who stood to receive an American flag from a child. But I came away with one thing I will never forget.

In the speech, Randy, one of our postal workers, provided statistics for how many people served in our military during each war, compared to the population of the time. By far, there are MUCH fewer serving the military today even though our population has exploded. What does that say about us? While many would blame the Iraq war and our poor leadership, it isn't that. Have we lost our patriotism? Are our children growing up to become apathetic? What exactly is it?

More than once I have looked at my son and teared up imagining him serving in the military and putting his life at risk. But today I reminded myself that if that is what God calls him to do when he grows up, there is nothing I can say or do to change his mind. After all, someone has to serve, and I know my son would be a good soldier and an excellent leader.

I remember reading an article recently about the "education" that schooled children receive in public school. It stated that the job most frequently taken by a public high school graduate was...get this...a Wal-mart employee! I don't know how true that is, and I wish I could remember where I found the article, but that would explain where all our would-have-been soldiers are- working at Wal-mart!

To those brave men and women who have served our country, and those currently serving, I offer a very gracious thank you on behalf of my children and me. The fact that we can homeschool without our government knocking down our doors makes me very grateful for the soldiers who have provided this freedom and the many other freedoms we enjoy.

THANK YOU!!!

Penguins!

At our local zoo, they have recently put in a penguin exhibit. Penguins seem to be VERY popular these days, thanks to movies like March of the Penguins, and Happy Feet. Since we learn about a different animal every couple of weeks for science, I decided we should learn about penguins. It is absolutely my kids' favorite exhibit at the zoo. So I figured that it would be easy to get them into this lesson. And it was!

It's so easy to find information and children's worksheets on-line. It literally took me less than 20 minutes to find enough on penguins that was age appropriate for my kids. Here is a great penguin site. There is a link on that page for penguin activities that you can pick from. Our final "assignment" was to pick one type of penguin and learn more about it. Here are the questions. We took our questions to the zoo, and observed the penguins (again!) and read all the information provided by the zoo about their penguins, which are Humboldt penguins.

Here is some information we found online at the zoo website if you are interested (the picture is mine):

Humboldt penguins are only found along the pacific coast of Chile and Peru in South America. The total world population of Humboldt penguins currently stands at approximately 12,000 breeding pairs, with about 8,000 pairs in Chile and the remaining 4,000 pairs in Peru. The wild population has undergone a decline with the major causes stemming from human interference. These include guano collection (used in fertilizer production) in breeding areas, egg collection, hunting for food as well as competition for available fish.
Humboldt penguins have a black and white underside, with a black band along the chest. Their body is plumper in the middle because of a fat layer that protects them from the cold. These penguins weigh between 9-11 pounds with a body length of 26 inches. Like all birds, penguins have feathers, but their feathers are modified to help them “fly” through the water. These outer feathers also act like a diver’s wetsuit and keep the cold oceanic water away from the soft, fluffy down feathers that keep their body warm. Strong, stiff flippers help them swim up to 7.5 Kph (5 mph).

We had fun learning about penguins. We did not go overboard, and did just enough fact finding, coloring, and creating to keep both kids interested and engaged in learning. Isn't that the key?

Afternoons at Homeschool

I often wonder what other families do when they have finished "school" for the day. We learn all day long, but only do school "work" for about two hours. On this particular day, I had some errands to run. As a treat to my kids (and the 3 year old that we babysit) the end of our errands included a trip to McDonald's. (Honestly, this was also a way to keep from cleaning up dishes AGAIN!) Our town is less than a mile from one end to the other, so literally our errands only took 15 minutes. Each child got a happy meal, which included a car that you put stickers on. Waiting for my slow poke daughter to finish her meal, my son and Aiden (the three year old) vrrroooomed the cars all over the tables and chairs and that's when I got a good idea. I suggested we could set up a ramp on our front steps and see which car would go the fastest.

After Aiden's nap, I quickly found two boards that I had in my office. I laid them on the stairs and the kids had a blast! I pulled out some other cars and trucks that we had in our toybox and they had fun watching which cars went the farthest. The little girl from next door came over, since she is in half day school. This activity went on for a while. I did not explain gravity, friction, mass or velocity, but simply let them observe. This was not a lesson. It was merely their way of having fun and subconciously learning something that will become important down the road.

With all the bikes, scooters, and skateboards in our yard, I was surprised that no one had tried the ramp yet. So after I suggested it, my son worked up some bravery and tried the skateboard (sitting down). It was so much fun, they spent the rest of the afternoon seeing if they could go further and further down the sidewalk. Yes, it occurred to me that other kids were inside doing their homework. That's just another benefit to homeschooling. NO HOMEWORK!!

What do you do in the afternoons?

Fish "On the Fly"

Do you ever wake up in the morning and think, "What are we going to do for school today?"

Perhaps just considering that freaks you out. Maybe you are a planner. I would like to be, but the fact is, I'm just not. So many mornings I wake up with this question. And you know what? It always works out for the best!

I opened up my son's language arts book and remembered that he had just read a story called "Fun with Fish" which had beautiful underwater photographs of all kinds of fish. He also has been asking to get his own fish, so I thought it might be a good idea to use this theme. We found a few resources that we have on fish, and read the information together.

The next day, I took that same information and put it into a chart. This is a great learning tool for visual learners who like to see information they have gathered in an organized manner. I was also able to phrase the terms I used with age appropriate words even though some of the resources were for older learners. We went over the chart. We also included my daughter, who is 4. (My son is 6). That morning I had seen our pattern blocks still sitting out, so I got the idea to create our own fish out of the blocks, and we could make up a story about them. The kids had so much fun!

Here is my six year-old's story and fish:

The Little Fish Gets Eaten

One day there was a HUGE shark. His name was Sharky. He had a little friend named Zoie. He and Zoie went hunting for fish. They didn’t catch any. So Sharky was so hungry that he ate Zoie. Then, he met another friend who was also a shark. Those two were best friends forever.

The End

It is important to note that before writing his story, he asked his sister what her fish's name was. You guessed it: Zoie. This did not go over well with the drama queen, who quickly fell to pieces upon hearing the story. I knew it would be a problem. But I couldn't decide...freedom of expression, or protect your baby's feelings? Hmmmm. Clearly I made the wrong decision. But I explained to my daughter that she could write her story about Zoie going to heaven and seeing our dog Jessie that just passed away. Instead, she decided to make Zoie a bigger shark who eats Sharky. And she changed her name to Melissa. Go figure! Here is a picture of her fish/shark, and her story is still in her head!

Notice the embellishments? Yep, she's all girl.

Anyway, we had a fun time with it. It was a good break from the normal day to day lessons that we do. And none of it was planned, so that makes it even better. I have learned that God plans everything, even the little "coincidences" of stories and lessons that are about the same subject or time period that are easily tied together. Really, you can't plan this stuff!

Home School is underway...

We started school the day after Labor Day, and I haven't posted because I've been SO busy. I am teaching my two (6 and almost 5) as well as a sibling pair which are 7 and 8. I am also watching a 3 year old and a 9 month old who are brothers. (See why I've been so busy?!) Life would be so much easier if it were just my two, but the two older children really needed a Christian environment in which to learn, and God told me I was the one to fulfill that need. Sometimes God asks us to do things which are not easy, and boy is this one of them!

We have done a couple of activities that I wanted to share because all of the children loved them. The first was last week, when I was out but had a "sub" fill in for me. Each child received a brown sandwich bag with his/her name on it. Inside the bag was a little figure as well as instructions they were to use to build with blocks. Here are the instructions:

Thomas: Build a house for this little man using only blocks that have not been painted. Anna: Build a house for Snoopy using only blocks that have been painted. John: Build a house for your spider using only blocks with curved sides. Vanessa: Build a house for your bear using only blocks without curved sides. I knew this was a hit because they kept wanting to do it over again! Unfortunately, I didn't think to have the sub take pictures so I don't know what the houses look like, but I will have to do that in the future!

The other activity, we did today in honor of 9/11. We talked about the flag, what it meant, and we put our American flag out where our Snoopy flag usually hangs (that reminds me, I need to bring it back in...) Then I gave each child a red, white, and blue piece of paper. They could make anything they wanted, but could only use these three colors, scissors, glue, and paper punches. We later added white and red string as they were "needed." I ended up getting three variations of our flag, and one plane, which pulled an American flag. They were all unique and each child definitely used their own ideas for his/her project. I love open ended crafts like that. They were all given the same tools, and three different projects emerged. In most schools, children are given the same pieces/parts to assemble and they all pretty much have the same outcome. Not my idea of "art!" Anyway, I hope these ideas are useful to some other homeschoolers out there!

Why Older Kids Should Still Play with Blocks

After four years of college, and two years of teaching middle school students, it took having my own children to realize that older children should still be playing with blocks! I don't know how many parents actually sit down with their children and build with blocks, but as an adult playing with blocks, I realize the many thinking processes that must occur in order to build anything. Many people recognize that if you stop drawing at a certain age, when you try to draw as an adult, you draw at the level you stopped drawing as a child. Building is the same way! I found it very difficult to build what I wanted to build and realized my brain was using muscles that it remembered using at one time, but hadn't exercised in a while. How enlightening this was!!

So then I began wondering why middle school students- or elementary school students for that matter- aren't given blocks with which to build. Some children are encouraged at home to graduate to more elaborate building materials like erector sets and Girder & Panel. But many children, once entering school, have so much homework and extra-curricular activities to do that they have little time left for simple play. And any time that's left over is often filled with video games and television- hardly the best brain enhancing activities! So if the schools are not incorporating building activities into the very busy day of schooled students, is there a reason? Unfortunately, it is NOT because there isn't enough time. It's because administrators and teachers do not sit down and play blocks with their children, realizing the many benefits of this activity.

The educational system makes changes to standards based on what they think they know. Right now, the trend is to get kids in earlier ("kindergarten"), make them spend more time in school, and cram as much into them as possible in order to pass standardized tests. And unfortunately, because these tests are on paper, most of the training ("learning") is done on paper. Educational researchers who feed their information ("crap") to administrators and teachers are too busy trying to change the wheel rather than stopping for a second and using common sense, or even getting down and playing with blocks now and again.

For similar reasons, art and music programs are disappearing from schools. They "can't afford" them, or so they say, but what they don't realize yet is that we can't NOT afford them. I have a friend who teaches early elementary who has a piano in her classroom. She notices a big difference in math abilities in the students who take piano lessons from her. This is not news, and people have been arguing for years just this point to keep the music and arts programs alive and well in public schools.

I wonder how many future architects did not meet their potential because they were stifled by those who are supposed to know better. How many children grew up without the ability to think in a certain way because their blocks were taken away in pre-school? Whether you use simple wooden blocks, Legos, Lincoln Logs, or Tinker Toys, at least one of these (and preferably a variety) should be available for both boys and girls. As parents, we should get down on the floor and play with these toys to demonstrate to our children that you are never too old to build! In addition, when children do play on the computer, incorporate some digital building programs that will help them envision three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional screen. This will be a necessity when they grow up and find technology in every field imaginable, including architecture, and perhaps your child with his incredibly astute thinking skills will be the next Frank Lloyd Wright!

Algebra for Four Year Olds

A few days ago, I was sitting in McDonald's with my children, waiting for them to finish eating. Out of boredom, I developed a great little game that they have enjoyed playing. I put my hand behind my back and said, "I have 3 fingers up behind my back, and two up here (holding two up). How many do I have up all together?" My four year old looked at both of her hands under the table and set them up and counted. "Five!"

The game continued and I actually saw right there in McDonald's, my four year old "get" counting on. She finally stopped counting ALL of the fingers and started with one number and then counted on the rest. After a while, I asked questions like, "If I have 5 fingers up behind my back, and I need to have 8 fingers up, how many do I need to put up on this hand?" And of course, they both got these every time.

Now, my daughter will be five in three months. Because she has a November birthday, she does not meet the cut off for starting kindergarten this year. She is learning to read, she is figuring out missing addend problems, and her skills test all showed that she is on a 5-6 year old level (that was at age 3). Imagine if I were depending on public schools to educate my child! Not only would I have to make her wait an entire year, I know that kids coming out of our local kindergarten are not even reading. After having taught my son to read last year, I just can't imagine why children are not reading out of kindergarten! Even an average child should be able to read to a degree.

Anyway, we still play the game everyday, and my daughter loves asking ME "finger problems!" She has figured out that she has to check to make sure I'm right! And yes, we will be doing kindergarten this year, because unlike the school system, I have common sense!

P.S. I almost forgot. One of the problems I gave was to see how my son would handle it. I said, "I have 100 fingers up behind my back, and 5 up here. How many do I have up?" He answered 105, but then I asked him, "HOW can I have 100 fingers up behind my back?!" We all got a laugh out of that!

Teaching Habitats

When we learned about mountains and valleys, of course a shoe box came to mind! We built this model this past winter, I believe, and the kids had so much fun with it. It's amazing how "trash" can become so useful if you think about it! We used a brown paper bag and a shoebox to build the mountains. We used cotton for the "snowcaps." We got pictures of different animals online and colored and cut them out. The water is just blue paint and some clear wrap on top of that. The trees and shrubs are simply green construction paper cutouts. We never did put fish in the water, but we still have this project to add to when we want. Please feel free to share other ways in which you used shoe boxes and/or taught about different habitats. We'd love to hear them!

Click on the pictures if you'd like to see a larger image!

Our Tadpole Project

We have gotten more than our share of rain in Kansas and when you have puddles, you have tadpoles! Our friends collected some tadpoles from their wheat field and we were fortunate enough to obtain eight (yes EIGHT!) tadpoles for our "Planet Frog" habitat that had been sitting empty for close to two years. It didn't occur to me at the time that we might actually get them all to the frog stage without losing any, but now, I'm wondering what we will do with eight frogs! The first picture shows my son and daughter watching the tadpoles that we just brought home.

And here is a close up picture of the tadpoles and what they looked like on June 11, 2007. (Click on the picture to see them up close.) They weren't very small, but we didn't know how long it would take for them to morph into frogs. After reading extensively online, we learned that some frogs take much longer than others. We also learned that distilled water was good for the tadpoles' habitat, which was good since we have lots of that on hand! We tried collecting rain water but it was a pain! The Planet Frog habitat proved to be too small for the eight tadpoles because we had to change the water almost daily. So we split them up into two Pyrex dishes and put some rocks from our yard into these dishes. The tadpoles liked to swim under these as much as they could at the edges.

After we had the tadpoles for seven days, guess what appeared? That's right: LEGS!! Well, back legs anyway. The tadpoles still use their tails to get around, and the legs are just sort of there as if the tadpole doesn't realize it. The tadpoles didn't all get their back legs at the same time. In this picture you can see how one has more legs than the other, and some of the tadpoles had nothing at all. You might be wondering what to feed a tadpole. We were told they eat fish food, so we got the only kind available: tropical fish food, which they seem to like.

Seven days after the back legs appeared, we spotted some front legs! After hearing that tadpoles in captivity had to get a certain hormone in order to develop their front legs, I did some research on-line. Apparently, the stress of a puddle drying up (for example) releases a hormone which causes the tadpole to turn into a frog, because if it didn't, the tadpole would die without the puddle. So by the time the puddle dries out, the tadpole needs to have all legs to hop out. So what we did was place the "almost frogs" into the shallow glass Pyrex pan, and let the water naturally evaporate so that the hormone would be released. It must have worked! Once the front legs appeared, we noticed that they use these while swimming, and of course, the tail begins to disappear.

Once the tails were disappearing, we knew that we needed a bigger habitat for the frogs, and one that had a top. We went to PetsMart, where we got a new habitat and their new food: crickets! I sort of doubted that these tiny frogs would eat the crickets almost as big as they were, but the young man sounded knowledgeable so I went with it. In this picture, you can see how the frogs are losing their tails at different rates. We also noticed that the frogs were developing in pairs. At this point, we had three habitats going: one for legless tadpoles, one shallow dish for "frogs in training" and the frog habitat. We had an assembly line going that seemed to produce healthy frogs! (Or are they toads? Hmmm) The picture of these two frogs were taken 17 days after we brought them home. Time sure flies!

I'm still not sure about the crickets. We left a dead one on the rock for a "frog in training" so he could sort of check it out. I think they only eat them when we aren't watching them (or are they getting out of the habitat?) because they are disappearing, but we aren't sure where they're going! It has now been 25 days since we've had the tadpoles, and the frogs have gotten pretty active.

Yes, I AM wondering what I'll be doing with eight frogs, and I've only promised that we can keep two. The rest we will probably set free somewhere, like the turle that we set free at our lake. The kids only had that turtle overnight and still talk about it (they named it Snappy). We had a frog show up in our backyard one night ("Donut"), and I felt so bad for it that I made the kids let it go in our garden. My 4 year old daughter broke down! She could not stop crying; it was such a pitiful sight. But it made me feel good to know that she has such a BIG heart!