child-led learning

Seven experiments for Science Co-op

November 6, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

I’ve been teaching a science class this current co-op season. I had a couple of books that inspired me The Element in the Room and The Electric Pickle. Here are seven experiments for a co-op science class.

We discussed hydrogen and oxygen and learned to separate them with electrolysis.

We learned the iodine turns purple when it connects with a starch. This also gave us the opportunity to discuss diffusion.

We had a lot of fun playing around with mentos and pop. We got a lot of different pops, let the boys figure out an hypothesis, and test their ideas, their goal.. figure out why mentos reacted strongly with some pop but not with others. They got pretty close to figuring it out too! We ended up turning to the internet for the answers. It’s a combination nucleation and the the gum arabic and gelatin ingredients of the Mentos, combined with the potassium benzoate, sugar or (potentially) aspartame in diet sodas. The boys were shocked that the no sugar pepsi had the greatest reaction and had traced that down the aspartame. And my son had mentioned the bubbles that form on the mint mentos. We actually took two class periods to research this.

The boys were delighted to test out chip bags in the microwave. They excitedly showed them off to a homeschool mom who asked “did you do those in the oven?” They told her the microwave and she asked about sparks. We learned that two seconds in the microwave works fine. It was NOT my idea to do one with the contents still in it, but the boys thought it pretty cool. 🙂

Magnetic fun

One day we played around with magnets. I hadn’t anticipated this one but came prepared in case they were curious. I brought four different kinds of cereal and some milk. They floated the cereal and determined which ones had the most iron in them. Fruit loops of all things!!!!! Crushed them and discovered tiny amounts of iron filings. This was a total eye opener for them. Then of course, boys being boys, they played magnet hockey…in the process discovering north and south, and how magnets vary in strength.

Our last experiment was in discovering the joy of black snakes. Working with carbon was very exciting for these two lads. It was a windy day so we struggled getting things going and the bbq lighter was a bit of a challenge to use.

Since we are on vacation this week I didn’t actually plan an experiment for day six. I expect the lads will be too busy just setting things up and I always have stuff we can play around with. 🙂

World War 1: War Starts!

October 27, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

For the past two weeks We’ve been looking at the first battles of world war 1. Germany attacking France (through Belgium) after Austria attacked Serbia. England engaging Germany.

Do you remember that we took a rhetoric course through Silverdale Press? Well, we took some of what we were learning through that course and are applying them to speeches we are finding about the start of the world wars.

Wilhelm of Germany and Lloyd Jones of England. The lad read through the speeches giving me the main points and figuring out what persuasive points each man made in favour of their own people and country. The lad was shocked to read Wilhelm say he wasn’t looking for war but he would take it if the opportunity presented itself. With the Lloyd Jones speech he asked “what made the Germans barbarians?” This led us to start understanding how the rhetoric happened.

Books Read:

The lad read through sections of the following books.

The Great War.
Desperate Glory: the Story of WW1.
First World War.
Battles.
The War to End all Wars.
The First World War.

Videos:

We watched these movies as well as others. I love watching these videos with my lad. We learn so much and often stop just to talk.

We paused this video frequently to talk about some of the ideas. The lad was really able to show me the results of his reading as he answered my questions and filled in some of the background this video doesn’t provide. For instance, he told me that Britain had a treaty with Belgium because of it’s proximity to a weak spot in Britain’s defenses. Having Belgium as an ally meant that if anyone wanted to attack Britain they would have to go through Belgium. This alliance meant that attacking Belgium meant you had a powerful enemy defending them. We watched the next four in this series as well. Taking us through the first five weeks of the war.

The lad had mentioned the Krupp420 to me a few times. It was 24 feet long, weighed 98 tons, and had the ability to fire 2000 lb shells over the range of 9 miles. The German’s used this gun effectively against the Belgium forts. It’s a massive gun.

And for variety I played this one… which ended up really helping ME understand how all the alliances came into play. The lad helped me put all the pieces together as well.

Since Germany first attacked Belgium, we had Belgium Waffles for supper on Thursday night. Seemed fitting. 🙂 I wanted to make a bigger, more “Belgium-ish” meal but couldn’t find what I needed.

Looking Forward

Looking forward we’ll be studying

Soldiers, training, recruitment, uniforms
Trench warfare
War at sea
More battles
Animals of war
Canada at war
Shell shock
Propaganda

I discovered some twitter accounts to follow that provide us with photos of the war to look at and information we didn’t otherwise know or even think to learn about. World War 1 & 2 Photos. News from the Front. World War II facts. WhatIfHistory. The Great War. Great war 100 years.

Others in this series:

Assassination!
Belgium in the early 1900’s.

World War 1: Pre-War Alliances

October 6, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Do you recall that we are learning about the World wars this year? Last time we learned about the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand. Over the past week the lad has been studying up the Pre-War alliances.

The lad read from these books.

The story of the first world war for children.
The war to end all wars.
The First world war.
First World War.
Canada in World War One.
Roots of the conflict.

Maps

We discovered this map of the Pre-war alliances. We thought about creating our own small one but the lad wants to add flags to the large map that he is working on. This is his brief run down on what he wants to do.

This is the progress he has made this week.

The lad took the time to explain what some of the countries are.

Videos:

We watched some videos, in particular these from The Great War

There are three parts, I’m not linking them all here. 🙂 but it’s a fascinating series so you really should check them out. We found videos 2 and 3 ran together.

Vocabulary Learned:

Nationalism: an extreme form of patriotism, especially marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries

Militarism: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.

Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

Anti-Semitism: hostility to or prejudice against Jews.

Taking it further:

We had a science class this week. We did electrolysis (taking the hydrogen out of water). The lads were fascinated and found it a lot of fun. The lad has been busy expanding his knowledge of this process since then.

I was talking with the lad today about how the war was like electrolysis. You had countries that naturally were drawn together and yet you can change one thing and they are forced apart. You should have seen the startlement in his eyes and his understanding deepened. Neat way to connect dots I thought.

Research?

Normally after a week of research the lad works on a research project to further his knowledge, but this week he said all the questions he had got answered by the different books he read or by the videos we watched. He was able to narrate why the different countries had the alliances they did. For instance Britain made one with Belgium because Belgium was a way to protect a piece of their lad. He compared this with the Canadian sale of Alaska to the USA because the USA wanted to protect a point of entry. People liked Russia because of it’s sheer size. And some of the other countries liked each other because of proximity or what they could gain etc. It’s always good to listen to a lad explain his understanding. We’ve decided we’re going to have him start writing a report of everything he is learning so we can track it better.

World War 1 – Assassination of Duke Ferdinand

September 22, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Week one, last week was a bit of a bust but the lad did some reading on World War 1.
We had a specific focus: the assassination of Duke Ferdinand.

The way we originally set this out what that we’d research for one week, and then the following week we’d follow Rabbit trails and do different projects like art, science, etc. Since last week was a bit of a bust we’re doing two weeks for research and then next week we’ll doing hands on, putting knowledge to work.

I had the lad read six different books about this event. These are the books we used.

Anyways, he really like doing this saying, “it was really interesting reading about it so many times. Everyone says it a bit differently and some will add bits that the others don’t”.

Questions!

Why are people so confused about why the driver what he did? Some say he was part of the Black Hand, others say he was just trying to follow the route, some say he made a mistake and others say he deliberately went down that road.

Answers!?

Answers we came up with
1. Couldn’t they have just talked to him? Different parts of Serbia and places around there had different dialects so maybe his words were misunderstood
2. Could the shock of it all made him partially forgetful? Like in situational amnesia?
3. Maybe he was a part of the Black Hand and he didn’t want anyone to know, so he made up a story and it just got all confused in the rush and busy-ness of the time.

We can’t really know without seeing original documentation.

The lad found a quote that he really liked by the terrorist Cabrinovic “If I had forseen what was to happen, I should have sat down on the bombs and blown myself to bits”

The lad’s response. Okay… so we want to get Bosnia out of Serbia so we can do that peacefully by killing the duke, then Bosnia will leave. INSTEAD people get upset and the ONE PERSON who can calm them down has been assassinated. GOOD THINKING Black Hand!

The lad and I really enjoyed this one. The lad is hoping he did up more videos on the war.

This one helped us understand the failed bomb and the alternate route. Made us wonder how many people were killed by the mis-aimed bomb.

This one gave us this quote by Otto Von Bismarck “One day the great european war will come out some damned fool thing in the balkans”.
And four theories: nationalism, disturbance in the balance of power, Tangled web of alliances, and offensive military theory.

The lad wants to explore those four theories next week.

We didn’t know the Duke’s Wife was pregnant. It made me wonder if that was part of the reason she was killed as well? But the lad corrected me, saying the fellow who killed them had also tried to kill the governor who was travelling with the Duke but missed hitting his wife. Then he took his cyanide pill but it wasn’t strong enough to kill him so he was arrested.

We learned how World War 1 changed history for all time. The seminal catastrophe of the 20th century. It gave us a good perspective on the leaders of the day. We want to watch more of these videos.

World War 1 – Assassination of Duke Ferdinand Share on X

Resources used:

Also using resources from various unit studies. A page here or there from different studies.

Additional links:

black and white map of Europe 1914.

Duke Ferdinand assassination map. Plus details known about this assassination found here. Presentation of events.

The lad’s Research:

The lad chose to research more about the Black Hand. I actually needed to walk him through how to research this group as Black Hand is apparently a game or part of a game as well so he kept getting false leads. Telling him to use the search terms Black Hand 1914, and Black Hand Serbia helped. He did a verbal report on what he learned. Most were imprisoned, they had assassinated someone else, most members came from the army and they existed to unite Serbia and the people belonging to it whether they lived in Serbia or not.

He also worked on his world map. It’s taking longer than he thought it would. But he works on it steadily. He won’t need it completed for another couple of weeks so if it takes a bit it’s just fine.

Looking for Rabbit Trails

September 7, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Monday night the lad and I were talking about school starting this week. He was completely taken aback! WHAT???? It can’t start mom!

Well.. oops lad, it is.

MAN! (typical kid eh?) but it was quickly followed with “OH RIGHT! We’re studying what I want to, aren’t we?”

Anyways, we got on with making the beds and generally just chatting along about math and latin and language arts (still need to find an appropriate spelling/grammar rules program for him)

Our conversation continued about how I might have him make a salt dough map for his world war studies… his response.. Mom..could we just use clay instead? It’s EASIER to work with, I can build layers and colour it and everything. He took his time to explain the pros and cons for each method and what he was envisioning.

AND THEN OH MY… He got into how we could use toothpicks and make little flags and make the hills and cliffs and make mountains. And then colour coding the allies and axis power and using playdough to map out trenches. It was amazing listening to him and all his plans.

We then went on to talk about how to divide up his workload… One week we’ll watch videos and read books (and work on math/language arts etc), the next week we will be looking for rabbit trails and answering points of inquiry and tucking into science and art aspects. Our discussion continued about how if he discovers lots of items that spark his curiousity we can just dive right into them. His eyes just lit up!

THIS, this is what I have been working for all this time! A lad who knows what he wants to learn, is able to articulate it well, and define what he likes about another medium (in this point clay) over another. I am so hoping it all goes smoothly. That my lad finds much to tweak his interest, that we have a blast following rabbit trails and learn much together.

If tonight’s talk is any indication….. IT WILL BE!

So how do you get there?

How does one build to that type of study and articulation without doing a formal study?

Frankly my lad is not always the easiest kid to school. Shocker eh?

He does math quite frankly backwards (at least to my thinking). He gets the answer, he sorts it out and it works for him but honestly, half the time I don’t understand how he gets from point A to answer Z. We’ve utilized all sorts of math programs that work well for a short span and then they simply stop working. The exception to the rule has been NatureGlo. Math combined with science, history, geography and more… It suits him to a “T”. LOVES IT. BUT he made a comment to me last week. I want to keep doing NatureGlo but can we also do a math that teaches me stuff that I have to answer math questions not connect a variety of dots? SURE! So yeah.. another thing I need to solidify. It’s been a struggle getting to this point though.

Why do I bring up math?

Because it’s been part of the journey in learning to voice opinions and not just say “I don’t like this program” to being specific. What don’t you like? What is the struggle? Too hard? Too easy? Something setting you off? We learned fairly quickly that anything gimmicky WILL NOT LAST. It is fun for a while but then it gets irritating with my lad and he can’t look past it. He had to discuss it well with me about what did and did not work. We actually took a break from math for a while and you know what happened? He started to watch youtube videos. This lad knows stuff I haven’t a clue on. 🙂

From math, then what?

Using our discussions in math we branched out to… here’s some curriculum… what topic do you want to start with? Pulleys? Animals? Human body? We found one study or interest often led into another subject.

We started reading history encyclopedias… written by different people from different perspectives.. I tell you IT WAS FASCINATING!!!!

Learning how one aspect of history tied into another. How an economic downturn could affect the nations around a struggling area (for good or ill) We often declared that isn’t the neat how THAT connects with THAT point in history. Do you see how God used this event over here to turn the hearts of THAT person? Let’s see how this person colours their history lessons .. see if we can discover their focus. Do you see how they talk about this country bossing that country around and then they go over here and boss this country around and then… Until finally they find someone/some country who is strong enough and brave enough who says STOP, go no further? Do you see the family connections there and the movement of land and economic growth there? How it influences how people think? Following connections happens everywhere… and talking about them as we go, helps articulation happen and dots to form about how everything connects.

EVERYTHING has a connection of some sort.

And this year…

This year we will follow rabbit trails all centered about the world wars, Canada’s involvement, and if we have time… the other wars. 🙂 Dad doesn’t think we’ll get through it all… (you think he knows us too well????) I’m kinda hoping one of those rabbit trails will lead to a discovery of music the lad didn’t already know about, or even a love of European foods or a love of physical fitness!

What sort of connections will you form with your students this year?

Think anything interesting will pop out for you? Follow the rabbit trails eh?

A Week In Pictures (and words)

August 31, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

This isn’t going to be a long post as a migraine is still beating it’s way through my head. Better than yesterday, but still there making me light sensitive. The brightness on my computer is turned WAY down. Sunglasses are my friend. 🙂 This week will be a week in pictures.

Did you know that this week my lad learned how to use a Sawzall? I KNOW…. he was rather keen on it too. 🙂 Between Dad and the lad this is our final result (yes we need to get the stumps out). I admittedly helped as well, but the lad did a lot of the shortening down of branches to take to the dump.

We also used a block and tackle method to get a couple of the smaller trees down.

Our Rose of Sharon came out in Full Bloom this week.

Bunnies!

We worked at the Foodbank this week. It was delivery week which meant lots of sorting, storing, packing. It was a good order in this week so that worked out well. Served clients. Busy morning. This is an older picture but it works. 🙂 The lad is still learning to not take fuzzy pictures. 🙂

OH, we finally caught mystery flower in bloom. I thought we were moving this spring so planted a whack of flower seeds around the place. Many didn’t come up and others did and I don’t know what most of them are. These ones have shown a white colour but we never see them bloom. Went out early one morning (like 7ish) and they were in bloom, they closed up by 8. Bonus points if you can tell me what it is. I’m going to keep seeds as I find it quite pretty though it’s totally overwhelmed my other flowers….

Headache hit (migraine actually) the lad did some cooking for me. When the lad says, can I make something for you and you mumble sure, whatever…. you get treats instead of meals. 🙂

Homeschooling.

We gave GrammarPlanet another go. We won’t be doing a review for this one, but a number of the crew will be.

He happily worked on Picta Dicta Natural World a few times and enjoys it immensely. A review will be forthcoming.

Well, that’s all my head has patience for… I feed a strong need for a nap. Toodles!

Linking up with Kym before I forget.

STEM: Homemade Cat Toy

June 5, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Did I ever show you what my lad made the other day?

He was searching for something to do for his Friday project and decided to make a cat toy for our new cat Lizzie.

I was surprised at the good work my lad did, taking things that Miss Lizzie liked and incorporating them into a toy that moved, had interesting bits, and actually intrigued her.

He used green craft wire, pom poms, pipe cleaners, hot glue and yarn to make a safe, but effective toy for a very curious cat.

child-led learning