Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!
They put together a variety of science based videos on you-tube.
rather interesting to watch them.
Measuring Yourself.
How strong a strand of hair?
How to keep an egg from breaking
go check them out. If you go straight to you-tube it will connect you with more of them. Science is fun and interesting. 🙂
One blue balloon attached to a straw on a string. He’s ready to let go.
and so he did…the end result.. and boy…did it ever zip fast. Just like a jet engine!
So then he went to the kitchen where he retrieved a straw and a q-tip. I wondered “HUH? what is he up to now?”
He proceeded to stick the straw in his mouth and blow the Q-tip at the balloon. He did this about 5 times with an unhappy “AW” being the result. I finally asked him what he was doing. He demonstrated with spinning the balloon all the way around the string. So I asked “why don’t you think it’s working”. His response “It’s not heavy enough.”
So he decided next time to blow the q-tip into dad’s ear and just chortled. 🙂
Next change in plan.
He built a bumper
and then he built a glider.
and now all the bunnies in bunny town are happy because they can safely hang on and zip down the string. The bumper will give them a nice soft landing so they don’t get bumped off. 🙂 All is well. 🙂
His final chortle of this experiment time was to jam the q-tip into the straw and then say “mommy, blow in this”. When I couldn’t get it out, he laughed. 🙂 He’s a fun, silly lad.
have to admit…I think stick bomb videos are very cool.
check out this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiWxU3jXOFc&feature=feedrecmore
and then to learn more of what they are here at wiki is really neat. 🙂
Makes me inspired to try it out.
the audio is horrid on this one, but you can see how to make them.
This is our boy’s first sketch that we’ve submitted to Sketch Tuesdays. 🙂
We were to sketch something that grew on trees.
The Buggy chose to do crabapples. The top one is very mouldy.
We have a crabapple tree out front that my hubby grew from a wee seed. It gets nice crabapples, it also gets a lot of not nice (as the buggy would say, mouldy) crabapples. 🙂
In case you wonder what the black circles are… those are the branches that the Crabapples grow on.
Math in the Right Direction: Forms of Sequential Memory That Affect Learning By Anne-Marie Laliberté-Denis is a WeeBook published by The Old Schoolhouse.
I have to admit, the second part of this e-book titled I found a bit intimidating… what exactly is Sequential Memory
and just how will it affect learning and will I be able to remember it? That of course didn’t stop me from reading the book. 🙂
The author points out that as home-schoolers we “have the opportunity to tap into the different forms of sequential
memorization (really learning math), thereby avoiding re-teaching or frustration when faced with skills that just don’t seem to “stick.” ” We are not limited to working with 25-30 students and having to primarily work with short-term memory (knowing enough to pass a test). We can use different methods to help our student(s) retain the information that they need to.
I appreciated the fact that the author listed some different things we can do to help students get their facts into their long term memory.
This book is worth reading. 🙂
Getting to the Root of Writer’s Block By Kim Kautzer is a WeeBook published by The Old Schoolhouse.
Writing is a process, not an event. Children trained in the process of writing learn to view the final draft as merely one of several steps in an evolving work. And when the steps seem doable, even the most intimidated writer stands a chance at accomplishment.
That paragraph sums up this whole book for me. Writing is a process, it has steps in it, and one needs to learn those steps in order to write decently.
The author goes on to speak about different things we can do to encourage or help the struggling writer. From brainstorming, to provide concrete ideas to start with, and so forth. But the biggest thing we can teach our children when they are learning to write is… one step at a time leads to a finished product.
Career Explorations for High School Students: Pursuing their Dreams ByCarol Topp is a WeeBook published by The Old Schoolhouse.
I was sent this to review by The Old Schoolhouse. And I have to admit, right up front… we’re not there yet. My lad is only five so I’m reading this only to see what it has to say and if it’s something that I think I’ll like to read again in the future.
The author emphasized that choosing a career is a process. Things in life change, and therefore, so does one career. She went on to explain that there are four steps to career exploration and gave us a list of resources one might wish to look at when going through this process.
Overall, well written piece and one worth looking at again in 10 years or so. 🙂 For those of you further along in the process, it worth looking at now.