Wordless Wednesday - Our Week So Far

Experiments

Craft Project

Failed Cookie Activity

Tae Kwon Do

Swimming

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If you are visiting from the Hip Homeschool Hop, welcome! I am glad to meet you.

We are in 3rd year of homeschooling. I have one 6 year old boy. We are all about hands on activities and reading. We follow an eclectic plan, a little of this and a little of that. I am always looking for great ideas.

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Roman Pillar Sugar Cookie - FAIL

 

One of the activities listed in the Story of the World  history activity book  is to make a sugar cookie pillar crumbling to represent the fall of the Roman Empire.  I thought what a great activity for a Monday, school and cookies!  After reviewing why the Roman Empire fell and looking at pictures of what is left of the Coliseum today, we were ready to create and bake.

I did not make the cookie dough, I always make my own sugar cookie dough.  I thought using one of the premade rolls of dough would be easier to work with.   I was right about that, it was very easy to shape into different shapes, much like play dough.  What I didn’t realize Pillsbury cookie dough gets fluffy and spreads amazingly well.  All of LittleBit’s handiwork became one fluffy hunk of cookie.  He took it well and was more than happy to eat the cookie.  So, our activity was a fail in making cookies that actually resembled something other than a hunk of mess but it was a success we made our own ruins and they were yummy!

He made a gladiator with shield and ax, 2 pillars and lots of broken pieces of building and rock.  The sprinkles were small rocks and dust.

Our ruins

L.E.N.S Photo Challenge

The LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge

Home is where you heart is blog has a photo challenge. This week is about the properties of water. Click here to check out her blog.

I chose for my photo a penny full of water from our "How much will a penny hold" experiment. You can see my post on our experiment here: http://learninglaughterlove.blogspot.com/2010/07/easy-science-experiment-how-much-water.html
It is a fun easy experiment for kids of all ages.

A penny with 38 drops of water.

Superman and Science

A question, if you find your child awake at 1:00 a.m. reading about space shuttles and astronauts does that count as home school reading time? This is what happened last night at our house.

Here is the background information, this week in zoology we have been reading about aerodynamics and how God designed birds to fly. This bit of learning about lift, drag and thrust lead to the making of several paper airplanes to test theories. Also, a discussion of how jet planes and space shuttle work with the same basic theory.

Last night we watched parts of Superman Returns, he loves the parts where Superman saves the day. There is a part of the movie where a space shuttle is attached to an airplane as a method of getting it into space, naturally everything goes wrong and Superman rescues all. LittleBit had hundreds of questions about Superman, the plane, the shuttle etc. Seriously, it was non stop questions. Such as how does Superman fly, he doesn’t have wings? Where does Superman hide his cape? What is the science of Superman? Why use an airplane to put a shuttle in space? What happens if the airplane goes into space? Why did Superman fall from space, shouldn’t he have floated off? How come nobody can tell Clark Kent is Superman? Endless questions!

I was up late, went to check on the supposedly sleeping child and he was in bed with three different books on space, space shuttles and astronauts reading. He said he wanted to learn more about how it all works. I am all for learning but 1:00 in the morning, not the best time!

Since we are both going to be beyond tired today, I think reading at 1:00 a.m. should count toward home school. It just proves that learning happens everywhere, at any time, and from the oddest sources.

Edited to Add: Now we are planning a small trip to Huntsville, AL to the Space Center and Sci-Quest.

Our Homeschool Room

Our Homeschool/Craft/Office

Room with bookcases, tv/monitor, printer, craft supplies

Knowledge defines all we know, imagination is all we discover and Create.
(quote on the wall in vinyl)

Close up of the clay pots. They were painted and the ABC's added in vinyl cutouts

The closet doors were removed to add shelves ceiling to floor.

United States Walllie

Other side of room with daily supplies, dry ease board, calender, etc.

Farmhouse table, I purchased from Craigslist and refinished.

NOTE: These photos are from a while ago before the room was full of books and ongoing projects. You know it was actually clean!

I love this room and how light it is, I am always happy to go the office to work. After spending a great deal of time working on the room, I discovered my son prefers and works better doing school in the living room! It drives me a little crazy because I would much prefer to keep everything in one location and have school at a table but he works better in the living room with the informal setting. We will eventually get back to doing all of our schoolwork in the school room but for now we have school all over the place, kitchen table, couch, floor, coffee table, etc. The house and life of a homeschooler, I guess.

Wordless Wednesday - Week 2 of 2nd Grade

Books

Coloring

Air Pressure Experiment
Penny Experiment

Lego Gladiator Fight in  Crumbling Colliseum

(The Emperor is drinking Mug Rootbeer)