Life seems to be comprised of disparate pieces right now. I'm not seeing a unifying theme, just little bits and pieces jumbled around.
Thalia is supposed to start her new ballet class tomorrow in U City. It starts at the same time she is dismissed from the ACT, which she's taking in an entirely different place that's at least half an hour away. So I've had to call the head of the ballet department AGAIN to say if she shows up at all it would just be for the last few minutes, which is likely not worth it. This is a place with a major, major phone tree, and never a live person with which to speak. So I'm emailing this woman (not even her teacher, who I've no idea how to get hold of) or calling her repeatedly, leaving messages. She must think we're totally troublesome twits, and the class hasn't even started yet. Sigh.
But we have all the proper attire. Except Annabeth's tights ended up not fitting for HER ballet class, which is at a different school. So we'll need to trade those in. More niggling details. And the time of her tap class might change. Or not. The teacher is amazing though -- if you're in the area and thinking about tap, this is the place to be.
The ACT ... do we have number 2 pencils? Correct calculators? Somehow I thought she had the earlier dismissal (12:15). But, no, it's 1pm. So, from 8am to 1pm she's testing. Blech. Really, it's just a trial run. We've put various school things on hold so she could prep for this. I'll be glad when it's over and we can move forward. We had talked about a birthday party this weekend, but she decided she'd be too wiped out.
While straightening up bookshelves last week prepping for the appraisal I realized how much Waldorf curriculum I have on the shelves that I'll never look at again in my life. I'm listing the books online for sale. So far 2 books have gone, which is nice. It's a weird time of year to sell curriculum, though. I figure I'll just keep re-posting it until it goes.
Oh, and other odd online thing -- the place I'm posting the books, which is a homeschool forum, suddenly has a plethora of questions about Irish Dance. Which I've felt compelled to answer, since it's confused newbies. "If my daughter isn't starting until now, when she's 12, how quickly can she move up?" Um, it depends on how hard you work at it, how much you compete. Here's how it works, blah blah blah. "How can I tell if it's a good school?" Well, what you consider "good" someone else might consider "living hell", so, again, it depends on what you want to accomplish.
I've done nothing, absolutely nothing, towards next week's co-op science class. Too focussed on the appraisal and the ACT to think that far ahead. I should do a little towards each event each day, I know, but I tend to get obsessive and focus on one thing at a time.
Actually, last week I was mostly obsessed with Girl Scouts. Weren't the new books supposed to arrive at the Council shop this week? I need to call and get Annabeth signed up as a Juliette, and ask how she's supposed to do cookie sales. She might have to be part of a troop for that, which I consider sort of silly. Does the troop get the money? Can we pick the troop? I have a sneaking suspicion that I won't find out on my first phone call, and it will take a while before I find someone at Council who actually knows how this works. So I keep putting it off.
And today we're going to try to pull a mirror off of the bathroom wall -- it's been glued there for 30 years. I've been reading online horror stories about people getting major injuries from the broken glass when they attempt this, which hasn't been a really good lead-in to the project.
Then tomorrow the ACT, and maybe swing by the feis to offer Thalia's solo dress(es) for sale. This was going to include a drive by U City as a scouting mission, but maybe now I won't do that after all. I need to rethink how tomorrow will work, now. Assuming we haven't all been hospitalized for flying mirror shards piercing our bodies, severing tendons, etc.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Random Bits
What we've been up to that we've been too busy to write about:
1. Refinancing the house. Lots and lots of paperwork. When we got the original loan we basically said, "Hey, we'd like some money, and we promise we'll pay it back!" Or something like that. In the intervening years the loan procedures have tightened up a lot, and we need to provide copies of our last dental check ups, along with affidavits detailing how many clean pairs of underwear are currently in the dresser drawer. So, lots of signing of papers, delivering of papers. An assessment of the house, which means it should be relatively clean, which has meant lots of cleaning. That's what we spent the Labor Day weekend doing -- cleaning, throwing out stuff, taking stuff to Goodwill.
2. Signing up for classes. Life was simpler when we just signed up for a boatload of Irish Dance classes, and then tried to figure out how to fit in piano lessons. Now we're figuring out where and when to take ballet and tap and voice and musical theater and piano lessons. Also, assessments for which level of tap and ballet. And what is the dress code at THIS place and THAT place? Yeesh.
3. Signing up for Girl Scouts. Or not, as the case may be. Thalia had thought she'd stay in until she completed her Gold Award, which she had sort of thought she'd storm through this year. But now Physics Class has happened, and, well, when you take physics pretty much all you have time to mess with is physics (well, and all of that stuff mentioned above, plus babysitting one morning per week). So, we'll see where we go with this. In the meantime, much weirdness has occurred in Annabeth's troop. I had sort of heard about it last year, but ignored it, figuring it didn't involve me (thankfully). Now, however, the repercussions are hitting, and it DOES involve Annabeth and some of the other girls (the weirdness was a parental thing, as is so often the case). So it looks like she's going to be doing this year as a Juliette, which in this Council is known as PEG. Looking on the bright side, this means we can pick out the Journey we want to do, do it how we want to do it, then move on to the Silver Award. I look forward to going at our own pace, which should be more streamlined. But she's disappointed that she won't be camping with her friends. Current plan is to return to the troop next year, which is why we're even bothering to do anything at all this year. The Journeys have no intrinsic appeal, and we wouldn't mess with them if we didn't see extrinsic reward -- in contrast, the old badges were pretty cool, and we would've done them whether we needed to or not.
4. Hot weather. Dry heat. At the beginning of August we had hot and humid, and at the end we had dry heat. I've decided that once you're over 100F or so, it doesn't matter if it's humid or not -- either way you're miserable.
5. Gah! Cool weather! Annabeth needs long pants! To my knowledge, long pants are not manufactured and sold in her size. She really really really wants store bought pants -- the charm of homemade has worn off. Alas, it's the only way to get pants that fit her. Time for panic sewing!
1. Refinancing the house. Lots and lots of paperwork. When we got the original loan we basically said, "Hey, we'd like some money, and we promise we'll pay it back!" Or something like that. In the intervening years the loan procedures have tightened up a lot, and we need to provide copies of our last dental check ups, along with affidavits detailing how many clean pairs of underwear are currently in the dresser drawer. So, lots of signing of papers, delivering of papers. An assessment of the house, which means it should be relatively clean, which has meant lots of cleaning. That's what we spent the Labor Day weekend doing -- cleaning, throwing out stuff, taking stuff to Goodwill.
2. Signing up for classes. Life was simpler when we just signed up for a boatload of Irish Dance classes, and then tried to figure out how to fit in piano lessons. Now we're figuring out where and when to take ballet and tap and voice and musical theater and piano lessons. Also, assessments for which level of tap and ballet. And what is the dress code at THIS place and THAT place? Yeesh.
3. Signing up for Girl Scouts. Or not, as the case may be. Thalia had thought she'd stay in until she completed her Gold Award, which she had sort of thought she'd storm through this year. But now Physics Class has happened, and, well, when you take physics pretty much all you have time to mess with is physics (well, and all of that stuff mentioned above, plus babysitting one morning per week). So, we'll see where we go with this. In the meantime, much weirdness has occurred in Annabeth's troop. I had sort of heard about it last year, but ignored it, figuring it didn't involve me (thankfully). Now, however, the repercussions are hitting, and it DOES involve Annabeth and some of the other girls (the weirdness was a parental thing, as is so often the case). So it looks like she's going to be doing this year as a Juliette, which in this Council is known as PEG. Looking on the bright side, this means we can pick out the Journey we want to do, do it how we want to do it, then move on to the Silver Award. I look forward to going at our own pace, which should be more streamlined. But she's disappointed that she won't be camping with her friends. Current plan is to return to the troop next year, which is why we're even bothering to do anything at all this year. The Journeys have no intrinsic appeal, and we wouldn't mess with them if we didn't see extrinsic reward -- in contrast, the old badges were pretty cool, and we would've done them whether we needed to or not.
4. Hot weather. Dry heat. At the beginning of August we had hot and humid, and at the end we had dry heat. I've decided that once you're over 100F or so, it doesn't matter if it's humid or not -- either way you're miserable.
5. Gah! Cool weather! Annabeth needs long pants! To my knowledge, long pants are not manufactured and sold in her size. She really really really wants store bought pants -- the charm of homemade has worn off. Alas, it's the only way to get pants that fit her. Time for panic sewing!
Monday, August 29, 2011
Co-op Science Week 2
First, review concepts from last week: hypothesis, constant, variable
Next, introduce Galileo. The kids in this group who are also taking co-op history will be studying him later in the fall -- the co-op history class for grade 3-5 is using Story of the World 3, Early Modern Times -- mention this to the kids. Ask what the class already knows about Galileo. One boy mentions that he worked with gravity. Explain that he also worked with pendulums and telescopes. He's considered one of the father's of modern science.
For pendulums, describe how he would watch the chandeliers swinging in the chapel and wonder about the period (time to swing back and forth). Point out to the kids that Galileo didn't have a watch since they hadn't yet been invented, so he sometimes used his pulse to measure elapsed time. Draw a picture of a pendulum on the board, and ask the class what things we could vary to see if we could change the period. The kids came up with length of string, how far we pull it back, how much the bob on the end of the string weighs.
Set up pendulum on edge of table by using string, electrical tape, a paper clip, and hex nuts. Use iPad stopwatch function to time a minute's worth of swings while counting the number of periods (it's really, really hard to time a single swing with a stopwatch, so I chose to do it this way). Record results. Pull pendulum back higher, count, record (actually, I let the kids do this part); add more weight, count, record; shorten string, count, record. Discover that the length of the string is what governs the speed at which the pendulum swings. Write Galileo's mathematical equation on the board and explain it briefly to them (many blank faces while explaining pi and square roots). Mention that another way to change the period is to go to, say, Jupiter where the gravity is different ... digress into discussion of why this isn't a viable field trip option, and why H claims if we went to Jupiter we'd be "stuck". And quick mention that Jupiter is so big its gravity makes the sun wobble (bonus material!).
For gravity, discuss the question of whether heavy things fall more quickly than light things. Drop feather and hammer as example. What would happen if we ruled out air currents? Hold up ping pong ball and golf ball; drop simultaneously on the table (which is loud). Show Youtube video of hammer/feather drop on moon during Apollo 15 mission (which the high school physics class at co-op ALSO watched this week).
Discuss that Galileo didn't have slow motion cameras, etc., to use to figure this stuff out, so he did a lot with incline planes. Discuss problems of friction, and the advantages of waxing a slide on the playground. How does all of this relate to sledding in the winter? (We live in a hilly area -- the kids are pretty savvy on comparative advantages of sled-riding positions.) Segue into our engineering project of the day: Getting a ping pong ball down a zip line.
Some of the kids LOVED the engineering project. Some didn't have time to finish their designs, while some managed multiple tries. A couple didn't even try to make anything -- I need to figure out why that is, and see if it's something we can work on. For example, if it's fear of failure, the entire point of the exercise is to mess around and probably fail, and then think up new ways to work around the failure. In any case, I plan to have more engineering projects through out the year, as long as my supply of paper cups, string, and duct tape holds out.
Next, introduce Galileo. The kids in this group who are also taking co-op history will be studying him later in the fall -- the co-op history class for grade 3-5 is using Story of the World 3, Early Modern Times -- mention this to the kids. Ask what the class already knows about Galileo. One boy mentions that he worked with gravity. Explain that he also worked with pendulums and telescopes. He's considered one of the father's of modern science.
For pendulums, describe how he would watch the chandeliers swinging in the chapel and wonder about the period (time to swing back and forth). Point out to the kids that Galileo didn't have a watch since they hadn't yet been invented, so he sometimes used his pulse to measure elapsed time. Draw a picture of a pendulum on the board, and ask the class what things we could vary to see if we could change the period. The kids came up with length of string, how far we pull it back, how much the bob on the end of the string weighs.
Set up pendulum on edge of table by using string, electrical tape, a paper clip, and hex nuts. Use iPad stopwatch function to time a minute's worth of swings while counting the number of periods (it's really, really hard to time a single swing with a stopwatch, so I chose to do it this way). Record results. Pull pendulum back higher, count, record (actually, I let the kids do this part); add more weight, count, record; shorten string, count, record. Discover that the length of the string is what governs the speed at which the pendulum swings. Write Galileo's mathematical equation on the board and explain it briefly to them (many blank faces while explaining pi and square roots). Mention that another way to change the period is to go to, say, Jupiter where the gravity is different ... digress into discussion of why this isn't a viable field trip option, and why H claims if we went to Jupiter we'd be "stuck". And quick mention that Jupiter is so big its gravity makes the sun wobble (bonus material!).
For gravity, discuss the question of whether heavy things fall more quickly than light things. Drop feather and hammer as example. What would happen if we ruled out air currents? Hold up ping pong ball and golf ball; drop simultaneously on the table (which is loud). Show Youtube video of hammer/feather drop on moon during Apollo 15 mission (which the high school physics class at co-op ALSO watched this week).
Discuss that Galileo didn't have slow motion cameras, etc., to use to figure this stuff out, so he did a lot with incline planes. Discuss problems of friction, and the advantages of waxing a slide on the playground. How does all of this relate to sledding in the winter? (We live in a hilly area -- the kids are pretty savvy on comparative advantages of sled-riding positions.) Segue into our engineering project of the day: Getting a ping pong ball down a zip line.
Some of the kids LOVED the engineering project. Some didn't have time to finish their designs, while some managed multiple tries. A couple didn't even try to make anything -- I need to figure out why that is, and see if it's something we can work on. For example, if it's fear of failure, the entire point of the exercise is to mess around and probably fail, and then think up new ways to work around the failure. In any case, I plan to have more engineering projects through out the year, as long as my supply of paper cups, string, and duct tape holds out.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Weekly Report 8/27/11
We were sick this week. It doesn't make for a very productive week. The kids had (have) colds, and I had some weird stomach thing going.
So, right off the bat we cancelled the voice lesson and the piano lessons.
Thalia struggled through Kinetic Physics this week in spite of her clogged brain and inability to focus. Her class is using the online homework package in which the teacher sets a due date beyond which the students are unable to enter their homework. The teacher has given pretty generous due dates -- the kids have several days to get the assignments done -- but, still, it's pretty apparent that falling behind will lead to a world of hurt. She had Rick help her with one of the problems, which gave him a chance to see what the program was like.
She kept up with Notgrass World History, sharing some of the odder tidbits. I'd share them here, but she was announcing these things on the day that I was really not operating at full capacity mentally, so I think I surely heard some of it wrong.
And Dave Ramsey told us how and when to save for college, after which we 1. practiced figuring out how much to put in a 401k vs. a Roth IRA at different income levels and varying company matching programs, and 2. practiced the ever popular rule of 72.
She got a start in logic, in which she'll be earning a half credit. I can already see applications for this in her discussions with her friends, not to mention her critiques of her various textbooks.
We laid out a course for Algebra 2 and for composition, but have put those off for a bit until we're more functional.
In the meantime, Annabeth has decided she doesn't like Life of Fred, but feels she should complete the book (percents and decimals). I can go either way with it -- there are other math programs that would be fine to use, after all.
She completed her first WriteShop assignment and emailed it her teacher after a brieg panic because our internet was out for a couple of hours on Friday (thus demonstrating why you shouldn't wait until the last minute).
Shepherd Life Science simply involved reading the next lesson and answering the study questions. Labs will be done in class -- I think the teacher is drawing in labs from Apologia Biology since she has quite a bit of experience teaching it.
She's been whipping through Junior Analytical Grammar. I need to figure out what to do when she's finished with it, since that day is quickly approaching.
And she's pointed out that we need to come up with some sort of history for her. My vote is another pass through SOTW2, but she's leaning towards the Renaissance. Hmmm....
Still not up to full speed on all of our subjects, but edging closer. I feel like we're still using impulse engines, moving out of space dock, but soon we'll be able to go to warp. Woot.
See more Weekly Reports (and link your own) at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
So, right off the bat we cancelled the voice lesson and the piano lessons.
Thalia struggled through Kinetic Physics this week in spite of her clogged brain and inability to focus. Her class is using the online homework package in which the teacher sets a due date beyond which the students are unable to enter their homework. The teacher has given pretty generous due dates -- the kids have several days to get the assignments done -- but, still, it's pretty apparent that falling behind will lead to a world of hurt. She had Rick help her with one of the problems, which gave him a chance to see what the program was like.
She kept up with Notgrass World History, sharing some of the odder tidbits. I'd share them here, but she was announcing these things on the day that I was really not operating at full capacity mentally, so I think I surely heard some of it wrong.
And Dave Ramsey told us how and when to save for college, after which we 1. practiced figuring out how much to put in a 401k vs. a Roth IRA at different income levels and varying company matching programs, and 2. practiced the ever popular rule of 72.
She got a start in logic, in which she'll be earning a half credit. I can already see applications for this in her discussions with her friends, not to mention her critiques of her various textbooks.
We laid out a course for Algebra 2 and for composition, but have put those off for a bit until we're more functional.
In the meantime, Annabeth has decided she doesn't like Life of Fred, but feels she should complete the book (percents and decimals). I can go either way with it -- there are other math programs that would be fine to use, after all.
She completed her first WriteShop assignment and emailed it her teacher after a brieg panic because our internet was out for a couple of hours on Friday (thus demonstrating why you shouldn't wait until the last minute).
Shepherd Life Science simply involved reading the next lesson and answering the study questions. Labs will be done in class -- I think the teacher is drawing in labs from Apologia Biology since she has quite a bit of experience teaching it.
She's been whipping through Junior Analytical Grammar. I need to figure out what to do when she's finished with it, since that day is quickly approaching.
And she's pointed out that we need to come up with some sort of history for her. My vote is another pass through SOTW2, but she's leaning towards the Renaissance. Hmmm....
Still not up to full speed on all of our subjects, but edging closer. I feel like we're still using impulse engines, moving out of space dock, but soon we'll be able to go to warp. Woot.
See more Weekly Reports (and link your own) at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Friday, August 26, 2011
Lunch at Co-op
Annabeth announced that she didn't want to have to deal with a bento for lunch and that she'd rather just take a sandwich. So I used her bento box myself.
Vegetable egg rolls from Whole Foods (the dipping sauce was put in a little container to the side -- I didn't trust their little plastic carrying cup to stay together in a bento), chopped red and yellow pepper (the yellow pepper was the garnish WF used for the egg rolls), rice, chopped apple dipped in lemon water. I took a fork to eat it with (pink plastic Hello Kitty fork -- matched the bento box nicely, I thought); Thalia took the exact same thing with her usual chopsticks.
Vegetable egg rolls from Whole Foods (the dipping sauce was put in a little container to the side -- I didn't trust their little plastic carrying cup to stay together in a bento), chopped red and yellow pepper (the yellow pepper was the garnish WF used for the egg rolls), rice, chopped apple dipped in lemon water. I took a fork to eat it with (pink plastic Hello Kitty fork -- matched the bento box nicely, I thought); Thalia took the exact same thing with her usual chopsticks.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
First class of co-op science
Some background:
We have 11 kids in the class at this point, ostensibly grades 3-5 although I think one of the boys might be younger. Whatever. Also, another boy can't be there the first 2 weeks.
The emphasis of the class will be in-class activities. To a great extent this decision is based on past experience that kids in this co-op really stink at remembering to bring in their homework; plus the onus of at-home projects tends to rest with the parents at this age, and most parents are juggling enough without worrying about their kid's bean sprouts, or whatever other project they're supposed to observe at home. That pretty much rules out botany
I'd like to get them thinking in terms of the scientific method. I'd like to give them experience in writing simple lab reports -- the type of thing they'll do in Apologia General Science and Physical Science, which are popular middle school choices for these families.
Last year's science classes were zoology for grades 3-5, and earth science for grades K-2. I have student from both those classes, plus some other families that just started co-op. Striking off in a new direction, we're doing physical science.
Okay, what we did the first day:
Discuss why we're studying science. (Quick pep talk about them being the future Newtons and Einsteins.) We're learning what those that came before us discovered, and we're learning how to make our own discoveries.
Discuss forming a HYPOTHESIS. Use example of MythBusters putting a Mento into a bottle of soda -- they had a hypothesis of why the soda bubbled up out of the bottle. I'm discussing this with a 12oz. bottle of root beer in a large plastic pie plate set in front of me, whilst waving around a Mento. MythBuster formed a hypothesis, had one VARIABLE and everything else was CONSTANT. (Words in caps written on white board while I'm talking.)
Throw Mento in bottle. Root beer foams up. One kid, J, wonders what would happen if we threw in another Mento. Since I already knew what would happen (nothing) I did.
Discuss what other experiments we could do with Mentos and soda. Attempt to get them to think of other variables. This was fairly unsuccessful -- I need to work on my technique for getting this age group to brainstorm. Since we are a group of strangers it's even harder. Anyway, I listed out several on the board -- bottle shape, soda brand (someone called out that Diet Coke is best -- we discussed briefly), temperature of soda, number of Mentos. Circled "number of Mentos" and said that consulting with my own kids we'd decided this would be the best one to do in the group, so LET'S HEAD OUTDOORS AND DO THIS.
Grab 4 2 liter bottles of 7up from my car (I didn't feel like dragging them to the 2nd floor and then back down). I also have Geyser tubes, Mentos, a portable white board, and some triangular cardboard sleeves I'd made to hold the soda bottle upright since the center of gravity on them is such that when you pull the strings of the Geyser tubes it's entirely possible that you'll knock over the soda bottle and have it spewing out sideways.
I explained that we were using regular 7up because that's what Walmart had on sale.
We set off 2 bottles simultaneously -- one with 3 Mentos and one with 7 Mentos. I had the kids load them, but pulled the strings myself since it's nearly impossible for 2 people to pull the strings at the same time. Also, I left the top caps off of the Geyser tubes because the caps make so much back pressure that the soda squirts out the sides of the tube -- fun to watch, but we're trying to compare height.
The bottle with 7 spewed nearly twice as high as the bottle with 3 (NB: at home we tried setting off 3 bottles at a time, and it was almost too much to look at so quickly, thus the decision to only use 2 bottles at a time). The bottle with 3 went about as high as J is tall, which was easy to see since J pretty much refused to move out of the way with everyone else. I drew the relationship on the white board, noting that sometimes in middle school Apologia they'd have to draw what their experiments look like.
Then I said we'd set off a bottle with 7 Mentos and a bottle with 11 (11 is the most Mentos that will fit in a Geyser tube). One of the kids suggested that it would've made more sense to set off the bottles on the base of the volleyball-net poles. Wow, I hadn't thought of that -- we discussed pros and cons, and then switched over to setting them off there. The bottle with 11 didn't shoot off that much higher than the bottle with 7. I drew it out, explained that people have tested every single number from 1 to 12 and graphed it, and 7 seems to be the optimum number due to diminishing marginal returns (fairly obvious they hadn't heard that phrase before, although we use it at our house all the time).
Quick review of HYPOTHESIS, VARIABLE, and CONSTANT.
Next, I commented, "You know, these Geyser Tubes come with all sorts of different shaped caps, and they claim that they spew out different shapes. I'm not sure if that's true. You want to see if it works?" Head back to my car to get 4 more 2 liter bottles, this time the generic diet cola from Walmart (which, by the way, didn't spew as high in our backyard testing). Set them off 2 at a time, this time with kids setting them up, pulling strings, whatever they want to do as long as they take turns. The soda spews out the sides of the geyser tubes as well as the tops. J stands in the fountain made by the sodas. We don't see much difference, except the one with 3 holes in the cap really does look more like a fountain.
By this time I've had B ask about a dozen times "Can we eat the Mentos?", and in spite of my assurances that the soda is nasty to drink with the Mentos in it, several kids want to try it. Looking at my watch (yeah, I now own a watch, purchased just for the occasion) I say, "Okay, let's go into the kitchen and see if we can find any plastic cups." The rest of the hour was spent sampling soda with Mentos, as desired (some kids wisely declined), being horrified that I was pouring the soda down the kitchen sink (how could I throw it out?) while trying to keep the Mentos left in the bottles from going down the sink ("picture if we plugged up the sink and a plumber had to come, and said, 'hey, your pipes are plugged up with all these Mentos!'"), washing off the stickiness of the day, then sending them on to their next class.
Overall, an okay class. J was appalled that I had purchased Geyser Tubes, saying you could make your own, and sort of designing it on the fly as he was discussing the concept. I suggested that he make one and bring it in next week -- I'll supply the soda and Mentos if he'll supply his design. I think J is going to be a lot of fun to teach. I'm sure the other personalities will begin to emerge over the next few weeks.
We have 11 kids in the class at this point, ostensibly grades 3-5 although I think one of the boys might be younger. Whatever. Also, another boy can't be there the first 2 weeks.
The emphasis of the class will be in-class activities. To a great extent this decision is based on past experience that kids in this co-op really stink at remembering to bring in their homework; plus the onus of at-home projects tends to rest with the parents at this age, and most parents are juggling enough without worrying about their kid's bean sprouts, or whatever other project they're supposed to observe at home. That pretty much rules out botany
I'd like to get them thinking in terms of the scientific method. I'd like to give them experience in writing simple lab reports -- the type of thing they'll do in Apologia General Science and Physical Science, which are popular middle school choices for these families.
Last year's science classes were zoology for grades 3-5, and earth science for grades K-2. I have student from both those classes, plus some other families that just started co-op. Striking off in a new direction, we're doing physical science.
Okay, what we did the first day:
Discuss why we're studying science. (Quick pep talk about them being the future Newtons and Einsteins.) We're learning what those that came before us discovered, and we're learning how to make our own discoveries.
Discuss forming a HYPOTHESIS. Use example of MythBusters putting a Mento into a bottle of soda -- they had a hypothesis of why the soda bubbled up out of the bottle. I'm discussing this with a 12oz. bottle of root beer in a large plastic pie plate set in front of me, whilst waving around a Mento. MythBuster formed a hypothesis, had one VARIABLE and everything else was CONSTANT. (Words in caps written on white board while I'm talking.)
Throw Mento in bottle. Root beer foams up. One kid, J, wonders what would happen if we threw in another Mento. Since I already knew what would happen (nothing) I did.
Discuss what other experiments we could do with Mentos and soda. Attempt to get them to think of other variables. This was fairly unsuccessful -- I need to work on my technique for getting this age group to brainstorm. Since we are a group of strangers it's even harder. Anyway, I listed out several on the board -- bottle shape, soda brand (someone called out that Diet Coke is best -- we discussed briefly), temperature of soda, number of Mentos. Circled "number of Mentos" and said that consulting with my own kids we'd decided this would be the best one to do in the group, so LET'S HEAD OUTDOORS AND DO THIS.
Grab 4 2 liter bottles of 7up from my car (I didn't feel like dragging them to the 2nd floor and then back down). I also have Geyser tubes, Mentos, a portable white board, and some triangular cardboard sleeves I'd made to hold the soda bottle upright since the center of gravity on them is such that when you pull the strings of the Geyser tubes it's entirely possible that you'll knock over the soda bottle and have it spewing out sideways.
I explained that we were using regular 7up because that's what Walmart had on sale.
We set off 2 bottles simultaneously -- one with 3 Mentos and one with 7 Mentos. I had the kids load them, but pulled the strings myself since it's nearly impossible for 2 people to pull the strings at the same time. Also, I left the top caps off of the Geyser tubes because the caps make so much back pressure that the soda squirts out the sides of the tube -- fun to watch, but we're trying to compare height.
The bottle with 7 spewed nearly twice as high as the bottle with 3 (NB: at home we tried setting off 3 bottles at a time, and it was almost too much to look at so quickly, thus the decision to only use 2 bottles at a time). The bottle with 3 went about as high as J is tall, which was easy to see since J pretty much refused to move out of the way with everyone else. I drew the relationship on the white board, noting that sometimes in middle school Apologia they'd have to draw what their experiments look like.
Then I said we'd set off a bottle with 7 Mentos and a bottle with 11 (11 is the most Mentos that will fit in a Geyser tube). One of the kids suggested that it would've made more sense to set off the bottles on the base of the volleyball-net poles. Wow, I hadn't thought of that -- we discussed pros and cons, and then switched over to setting them off there. The bottle with 11 didn't shoot off that much higher than the bottle with 7. I drew it out, explained that people have tested every single number from 1 to 12 and graphed it, and 7 seems to be the optimum number due to diminishing marginal returns (fairly obvious they hadn't heard that phrase before, although we use it at our house all the time).
Quick review of HYPOTHESIS, VARIABLE, and CONSTANT.
Next, I commented, "You know, these Geyser Tubes come with all sorts of different shaped caps, and they claim that they spew out different shapes. I'm not sure if that's true. You want to see if it works?" Head back to my car to get 4 more 2 liter bottles, this time the generic diet cola from Walmart (which, by the way, didn't spew as high in our backyard testing). Set them off 2 at a time, this time with kids setting them up, pulling strings, whatever they want to do as long as they take turns. The soda spews out the sides of the geyser tubes as well as the tops. J stands in the fountain made by the sodas. We don't see much difference, except the one with 3 holes in the cap really does look more like a fountain.
By this time I've had B ask about a dozen times "Can we eat the Mentos?", and in spite of my assurances that the soda is nasty to drink with the Mentos in it, several kids want to try it. Looking at my watch (yeah, I now own a watch, purchased just for the occasion) I say, "Okay, let's go into the kitchen and see if we can find any plastic cups." The rest of the hour was spent sampling soda with Mentos, as desired (some kids wisely declined), being horrified that I was pouring the soda down the kitchen sink (how could I throw it out?) while trying to keep the Mentos left in the bottles from going down the sink ("picture if we plugged up the sink and a plumber had to come, and said, 'hey, your pipes are plugged up with all these Mentos!'"), washing off the stickiness of the day, then sending them on to their next class.
Overall, an okay class. J was appalled that I had purchased Geyser Tubes, saying you could make your own, and sort of designing it on the fly as he was discussing the concept. I suggested that he make one and bring it in next week -- I'll supply the soda and Mentos if he'll supply his design. I think J is going to be a lot of fun to teach. I'm sure the other personalities will begin to emerge over the next few weeks.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Weekend Report
The important thing to note is that this was the weekend in which the younger Girl Scouts did backyard camping, and the next morning was the incident with the yellow jackets. And by "the incident with the yellow jackets" I'm referring to Annabeth apparently sort of stepping on some in the yard which stung her on the ankle (which she said initially just felt like yet another blister from dance -- what does it say about life when your kid thinks stinging pain in the ankle is a normal part of existence?), then other girls started getting stung, they ran into the house, the yellow jackets followed, the older brother of the house swatted and killed about 10 with a flip flop. I arrived a bit later to find kids coated with baking soda and holding bags of ice cubes to various body parts. The mom in charge was soooo apologetic that the insects were in her yard. I pointed out that they all got to have an impromptu first aid lesson. And when she called later that afternoon to check on Annabeth I commented that 5 years from now the girls will STILL be talking about this, and those who missed it would be sort of envious they missed out because it was going to be part of the legend of their friendships.
Really, can't you picture in 20 years some of them using whatever future Facebook-equivalent to say, "It reminded me of that time with the yellow jackets". Legendary, I tell you.
The stings on Annabeth's arms turned out to be very minor, but her ankle has swollen into a cankle. She's soaked it in epsom salts. I've since learned that tobacco is great first aid for the stings. Who knew?
(There were other stressful incidents during this backyard campout. Another offshoot was a girl being diagnosed with diabetes. That girl didn't get stung, so at least she has THAT to be thankful for. And other stuff happened with other kids. I think the hosting mom may really hesitate to host something like this ever again.)
Thalia also had a Girl Scout overnighter. But they stayed indoors, and it was just a typical sleepover. Hohum.
Saturday we watched O Brother, Where Art Thou to finish up our study of The Odyssey. I think I enjoyed it more having just read the book. I wouldn't have caught some of the parallels had it not been so fresh in my mind. The hair pomade, the beards they were wearing at the end, even the blind man on the rail car (okay, really I couldn't think who the heck that was -- I really drifted during that particular trip to Hades, apparently, and had to go back and figure it out later).
This was also the weekend Rick was out of town -- he went to Cincinnati to watch pro tennis. So Sunday afternoon we girls watched a chic flick -- Letters to Juliet. Fun, sweet, extremely similar to Leap Year (east coast girl goes to Europe, meets guy from British Isles she initially dislikes, falls in love, rejoins her boyfriend/fiance, yada, yada). Final scene was very weak, which was a shame.
So, movies and yellow jackets. And tennis. A weekend to remember.
Really, can't you picture in 20 years some of them using whatever future Facebook-equivalent to say, "It reminded me of that time with the yellow jackets". Legendary, I tell you.
The stings on Annabeth's arms turned out to be very minor, but her ankle has swollen into a cankle. She's soaked it in epsom salts. I've since learned that tobacco is great first aid for the stings. Who knew?
(There were other stressful incidents during this backyard campout. Another offshoot was a girl being diagnosed with diabetes. That girl didn't get stung, so at least she has THAT to be thankful for. And other stuff happened with other kids. I think the hosting mom may really hesitate to host something like this ever again.)
Thalia also had a Girl Scout overnighter. But they stayed indoors, and it was just a typical sleepover. Hohum.
Saturday we watched O Brother, Where Art Thou to finish up our study of The Odyssey. I think I enjoyed it more having just read the book. I wouldn't have caught some of the parallels had it not been so fresh in my mind. The hair pomade, the beards they were wearing at the end, even the blind man on the rail car (okay, really I couldn't think who the heck that was -- I really drifted during that particular trip to Hades, apparently, and had to go back and figure it out later).
This was also the weekend Rick was out of town -- he went to Cincinnati to watch pro tennis. So Sunday afternoon we girls watched a chic flick -- Letters to Juliet. Fun, sweet, extremely similar to Leap Year (east coast girl goes to Europe, meets guy from British Isles she initially dislikes, falls in love, rejoins her boyfriend/fiance, yada, yada). Final scene was very weak, which was a shame.
So, movies and yellow jackets. And tennis. A weekend to remember.
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