Day of Photos?

Well, not exactly a day of photo's, just things that grabbed my attention (and my frustration in our camera and my lack of photography skill ~ tired of blurry, grainy photos). 

           Had hopes of capturing some good photos of our barely colored carnations.  With a bit of work in trimming the stems and cutting them, we did get some coloration.  Down side, there are only tiny veins of color.  Hard to capture a good photo of that, for me anyway.

Anyhoot ~  here are a few others that turned out fairly well, some with a few retakes.

 The boys had played outside for awhile this afternoon.  Thing two really wanted

popcicles today and really seems like a good day for them.  We had none though.

I offered to make yogurt fruit ones and use the popscile forms we had.  They weren't

to keen on the fruit I wanted to use, but being mom, I stuck to my guns to get berries in them.

After letting the berries thaw a bit and get mashed, I set the potato masher in the sink.

Loved the color left in the sink.
Equally love using bleach in my white sink to maintain the white.  It will

get cleaned later.

 Remember our Resurrection Garden post from a few days ago?

I noticed today we have grass growing.  It's like baby hair right now, but

still very cool to see.

 Another view of the grass.

 Not one of my best photos.  This was rather hard to get a

good shot, but this is the best.  These seedlings are basil.

Hoping for an explosion of basil this year!

(and tomatoes too, which we haven't started yet)

Around Halloween last October, we ended up with 7 little pumpkins.

We saved the seeds from one pumpkin and get them planted.

Going strong, reaching for the sun, about ready for a larger pot (just

not sure if it is time to put them outside yet!)

What are you growing?  Let me know, maybe we can compare notes!  Any suggestions on camera's?

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Are you Irish? Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Do you celebrate it because it is fun?


I am an unknown amount of Irish and not sure if Kevin knows any of his nationalities. We both are firmly "American"!

We don't have anything formal to do to celebrate the day!  Possibly a brief history lesson, fish and chips, and a bit of fun science.

For science, here's what is going on!

 Gather your supplies:

1. White carnations (mine was a package of 7, very convenient for 6 colors and a cloud)
2. Clear vases plus a clear juice jar (only had 6 clear vases)
3. Food Dye
4. Rolo's
5. Water

What we did:

1. trim leaves off the side of the flours ~ this keeps the water fresher longer
2. added approximately 6 drops of dye in each vase (ours came with blue, yellow, red, & green;
   we mixed colors for orange and purple ~ about 3 drops of appropriate colors)
3. trim about an inch or two off the bottom of the flower
4. put a flower in each vase and one in straight water (because we had seven colors we
   are having a cloud too!)
5. lay out some Rolo's for the pot of gold

 Kind of a neat idea ~ one of those that strikes you late at night, the night before an event.  Floral stores are closed on Sundays and many places didn't have white carnations.  Third grocery store was a winner, but I almost did not find the Rolo's.

Got the flowers in the water about 3:00 PM today!  Wonder what time they will start changing?  Want to leave a guess in the comments?  No blog give away, just bragging rights!  Will update the post with more pictures when and if they change color.  Until then, keep on guessing!

On a totally unrelated note, Kevin and I started dating 17 years ago today.  He remembered, I didn't!

~~UPDATE~~~~
As of 9:00 AM on 4/18/13, no color had seeped up into the flowers.  I cut them way down and the color hadn't made it up the stem much at all.  Makes me wonder how old the flowers are.  Flowers will "self seal" their stems to retain water, which is why it is recommended to cut the bottom two inches off the stems when you get them.  Certain flowers you can keep doing this, once a week, and have an arrangement for awhile.

Anyway, I took about 4 inches off.  We'll see what happens.  Here's a new photo of the flowers:

 

Science

a beloved word around my house.  The boys LOVE it.  Even though some of the curriculum we use has a bit of science with it, there usually is not enough at all.  Today was another day with the colored water, mixing the primary colors to make secondary colors.  Here's some of the fun from today!

figuring out how to use the bulb pipette

primary colors we mixed up in an earlier science lesson

first color mixed ~ green

Top three are purple, green, orange.
There are some brown and black toward the bottom.

They played for awhile mixing colors.  Always a good time seeing how much of one color changes another. 

Back to Science!

Boys have been excited for a couple weeks or so ~ you see, we bought a "Big Bag of Science".  They love doing the experiments, learning new things in the world of science, love the mess, and are begging for white lab coats {where do I find those?}

Anyway, yesterday we began with the first experiment ~ fizzing colors.  The gist of the experiment was to learn about chemical reactions with baking soda and citric acid when put into water. 

We started with three test tubes filled with room temperature water, added a yellow tablet to one, red to another, and blue to the third and watched them fix up and dissolve.  Not quite as hands on as the boys would have liked, but there will hopefully be some like that later in the year.  Anyway, we ended up with the test tubes looking like this:

The second experiment will be looking through each of these and then looking through combinations of two and of course all three.  They SHOULD already know the colors that the three primary colors make, but this will be a good review, just in case. 

Now off to feed the minions!  Have a happy weekend everyone!

Multiple things from school!

We're wrapping up our "Owl Moon" week today with the boys working on their Owls. They enjoyed the beginning of building it, but time got the best of us and a week later we're working on them again. Alls well that ends well. At least the starting point, today, is easier than the starting point last week. We know how finicky the owls can be AND most of the remaining parts are very similar, so it should be a breeze to put together (If only I hadn't starting typing this post prior to working on the Owls the second time. Thing Two has given up on his. Thing One's is almost finished. The are just a pain to put together).

Also, on tap are the Owl Pellets we have to dissect. Once again, Thing Two had a blast with this kind of activity, where Thing One couldn't be bothered. Two totally different kids, two totally different interests. Here's Thing Two and the biggest bone out of his pellet. Being so small, it was hard to photograph well. Probably took about 50 pictures and this was the best. It looks like it might be a skull of a small bird. Thing Two was pleased with his find.








Last, but not least, our newest school tradition ~ Mad Lib Monday. Enjoy your reading . . .

REVIEW OF A MONSTER MOVIE
(the words in bold were filled in)

A new movie has just opened called “The Teenage Printer Meets the Blue Vampire from Outer Space.” At the opening, we see the teenage here, played by George Lucas, who is a green scientist. He is trying to build an orange monster out of old Thing Ones and used Thing Twos. The monster has Silver skin and 20 gazillion arms and is played by Scooby-Doo. Suddenly, the monster comes to life and kidnaps the beautiful heroine, played by Carrie Fisher. Then he begins to destroy Springfield. In the end, the monster is destroyed by the vampire, who is played by Mark Hamill. And the hero and the heroine live quickly ever after.

Wrap-up from school!

We finished up "Snowflake Bentley" today with some science. Thought it would be fun for the boys to make snowflakes and not from coffee filters for a change. Directions to these were easily found on the internet. You need three pipe cleaners twisted together to form the snowflake and trim them so that they fit a small, wide mouth mason jar - about a pint size. In the jar mix 1 cup boiling water and three tablespoons of borax (20 team mule). It's okay if it doesn't all dissolve. I tied white thread on one branch of the snowflake and hung it on a dowl. Put the snowflake into the warm water borax mixture and leave it alone for awhile. Some directions said to leave it overnight, but we found it interesting to look at every 15 minutes or so. I pulled ours out after about 3 hours and they had great crystal formations on them. If we'd had blue food coloring, I might have added a couple drops to the water mixture. Oh well, maybe next time.

Friday Science

To wrap up "All Those Secrets of the World" we discussed how in the 1400's people thought the world was flat and that by sailing toward the horizon they would eventually fall off the edge of the world. Christopher Columbus figured out that the earth was a sphere by observing a butterfly and orange.

On a flat world, a ship (or puppet) would always be seen,
it would just get bigger the closer it got.

With a spherical world, you wouldn’t see the ship as it begin to sail.

You would then begin to see the top most part of the ship
or puppet ears in our demonstration.

Finally you would see the whole ship or puppet.

Finally Friday!!!

Yes, finally Friday. We've wrapped up our school week this morning with science and a lesson on friction for both. They enjoyed experimenting with ice, sand paper, hardwood, cloth, and pledge.

Seeing how easy it is to "skate" across the hardwood
on rags. It was fairly easy, even easier after I sprayed
Pledge on the floor. Yes, I really did. I've also cleaned
it up well after with vinegar. It's not to slippery now.

Trying to skate barefoot. Definitely the more difficult option.

The boys first rubbed ice against ice. This slipped fairly
easily. Second, they tried rubbing ice on a piece of sand paper
that was on the ground. A little more difficult. Third, they tried
to sand the sand paper, while pressing down. This was the hardest
to do. This was to show how friction works with two rough
surfaces rubbing against each other versus being lubricated.

End of the school week

We finished up Roxaboxen and The Little Red Lighthouse and The Big Gray Bridge today. It was another science day for both boys and for a second time in the last few weeks, both lessons were similar in nature. The loose theme was rivers. As it was a nice day out, again, we made rivers with their marble run and had some fun. Turned out to be a lot of fun and they were reasonably dry afterward.






















So ends another good week of homeschooling.

Roxaboxen

Thing one and I have been reading Roxaboxen this week for school (next week, too). It is a great story written by Alice McLerran, illustrated by Barbara Cooney about a bunch of kids using their imagination to make a "city", how they design it, and other aspects as well.

It seemed fitting, that while we were at Toys R Us, of all places, and I found Crystals and Gemstones Mining Kit, by Edu Science, that we should buy it. I hadn't reviewed the lesson's yet, but it just "spoke" to me and knowing that the boys love hands on science, it had to come home with us.

Here's the gypsum block with crystals and gemstones buried inside, before the boys had an opportunity to start chiseling.



The beginnings of getting into the block and taking a look at the outside. It looked like it had been fossilized along with a dinosaur and was rough feeling,









The first gem found was red jasper.









Here are Thing One and Thing Two making sure that all gems had been found. Lots of mess, lots of fun. Some how those two always go together.









When all was said and done, four gems where found. Red Jasper, Rose Quarts, Jade, and the one without a card is Rock Crystal Quartz. It was a neat way to be able to show the boys how rocks get polished through sand storms or even in a river. They didn't quite grasp the time element, but that can be saved for another day.

Our first school meeting

I mentioned a taboo word this afternoon, the dreaded S word. Boy did I get a lot of fussing from Thing One and Thing Two. "The word?", you ask. SCHOOL.

Not until I started asking the questions did they relax and actually enjoy our time together. The result of our five minute meeting is as follows.

LIKES:

• fun stuff like field trips
• sink and float experiment = more hands-on, science type stuff
• nature study
• Mommy cuddle time

WE NEED:

• recess after Five in a Row
• more Wii or D.S.
• side walk chalk
• bean bag toss
• show and tell
• snack
• charts - numbers, letters, etc.
• school games

Guess I've got my work cut out for me. Off to come up with some school games, charts, and maybe some other stuff.

Science Friday's

We've been "rowing" the Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold, Pictures by Brad Sneed this week in school.  The story was "inspired by Cliff Young, a 61 year old farmer from Victoria, Austrialia, who shuffled from obscurity to national prominence in 1983 when he defeated younger opponents in an 875 kilometer (542 mile) run between Sydney and Melbourne, cutting nearly two days off the record.  He won $10,000 for winning the race, which he split with the other runners."

For science, we took a look at hot air balloons and the density of hot air and cold air.  We put balloons on three 20 ounce water bottles, then left one on the counter, put one in hot water, and one in ice water.  It was amazing how quickly the one in hot water inflated and the one in ice water "sucked" in the balloon.

A very cool science moment, at least for a few moments.

Science Fridays - Chemical Reaction

Welcome to our Lab!!

UHM, I mean kitchen.  

We finished up "The Hickory Chair" today with a science lesson on

chemical reactions and curdling.

Following is a glimpse into our life, homeschooling, and science.

Our mad scientist!!  He disguises himself as the "Pumpkin Man" and has super strength.  Okay, maybe he's just standing over the air purifier and his shirt is puffed up.

My "love science, but can I do the experiment from the couch?" son!!

Here we are getting set up for figuring out chemical reactions.  We put a 1/4 cup milk in each of the 3 bowls.  Then added 1 tablespoon of orange juice to one, 1 tablespoon vinegar to another, and 1 table spoon lemon juice to another.  Stir and leave for five minutes!!

AND THE WINNER for "Most Chemical Reaction" IS:

Drum Roll Please!!

Milk and Vinegar

It began to curdle immediately!!

Second Place Winner!!

Milk and Lemon Juice

Although it separated quickly, too, it didn't react the same as milk and vinegar.

Third Place Winner

Milk and Orange Juice

This ended up looking like a melted dreamsicle.  The milk even had an orange tint to it.

A fun morning of homeschooling was had by all.  The boys are happy that we had orange juice left over too!!