A Net in Time

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The Element in the Room

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Did you know that I am teaching a science class?  My goal was to base it solely in the periodic table, but I didn’t get the student numbers hoped for, so I’ve kinda turned it into a basic science class.   We are still mostly doing the periodic table as the basis for our learning though, as elements make up EVERYTHING in the world you know?  To that end, The Element in the Room, that I received as a review book from Raincoast Books has been immensely helpful.

The Element in the Room

From the Cover:

Did you know that without the ‘lead’ in your pencil, there would be no life on Earth? Or that diamonds and coal are both made from exactly the same thing? Or that the deadly ingredient used to make the most dangerous weapon in history can also be found in your bottled water?

Absolutely everything in the universe is made up of just 92 elements! And from aluminum to zinc, many of these atomic ingredients can be found in your very own home.

This funny and fascinating guide to the elements is bursting with brilliant facts about the ingredients that make up everything around us. Join the great scientific sleuth Sherlock Ohms as he explores the elements hiding in your home, and help his enquiries with explosive scientific experiments.

Ohms’ investigation will sort the isotopes from the allotropes, put the Able into Periodic Table, and electrify your electrons! Along the way, Atomic Comics show you the savvy scientists who discovered the elements and their extraordinary effects.

What you get:

Quite frankly, you get a delightfully informative book all about the periodic table.  You start off learning the basics of what makes up an atom, what an electrical charge is, and building up from there.  It does touch on the “big bang theory” as many science books are apt to do. Through talking about the stars and the how they fuse elements we are led into the periodic table.

The element in the room

As you can see, the elements are broken down into colour zone with what type they are labeled. Understanding that there are more than 100 elements leads to the question of how do they combine, so that explanation is given just before we delve into the world of the different elements in the room.

Each of the elements is discussed, some as part of a page grouping, others getting a page of their own and yet others spreading over two pages).  In each case we are told where we can find the element in the world around us, the colour, how safe it is and it’s general use.

The element in the room

A sense of humour is evident through the pages.  The author evidently enjoys science and wants to help the younger generation enjoy is as well.  This is seen not only in the comics, but in the language and illustrations used.

The element in the room

The somewhat oversized book closes with the question…how many more elements will be discovered as scientists continue to make new ones.   Will they be as unstable as the ones created thus far?    Will one of today’s readers be the one to discover it?

To help the reader understand new terminology a glossary is provided at the close of the book.

My Thoughts:

What a delightfully informative book.  There are several different ways to approach it.

  • You could read the comics all the way through from start to finish so you get the whole story at once.
  • Or you could learn about the specific element you are interested in
  • Learning the elements in their groupings
  • Checking them out by what state they are in  etc.

In my co-op class we used it as a go-to for quick answers and for stimulating our thinking. We then took that knowledge to the internet to learn more details.  One of the things I really appreciated was being told where we can find these elements in everyday life. It was an excellent Start here book for the 13 and 14 year olds I’ve been teaching. The comics weren’t just for fun, but to help us learn more of the history behind different elements being discovered.   It’s led me to want to know about the Curie’s.

I disliked that the big bang theory as exactly that wasn’t introduced as the theory it is rather than being presented as fact, and… we can’t know that this theory is true.  Evidence might point that way, but we still can’t know the truth. A theory should be taught as a theory, especially to impressionable young minds.

Combining The Element in the Room with The Electric Pickle has been a good combination for my co-op class. The boys are asking excellent questions as we do science.
The Element in the room

The Element in the Room
Mike Barfield
Illustrator: Lauren Humphrey
Laurence King
Hardcover, 64 pages, 7 and up
Science, chemistry, periodic table

Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Where to buy Amazon.

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Art with Dolls

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Do you remember I did a class on making dolls?  We had a lot of fun though admittedly we did the class differently than I had planned.

clothes pin doll, doll making class

You see my kids wanted to learn how to sew.  This wasn’t on my agenda at all.  I remember teaching my son to sew and thought two kids, sewing.. NOT.  But they really, really  (to the extent of begging) wanted to learn so I bite the bullet. 

making stuffies as we learn to sew in Doll Making ClassI have to admit, the hardest part was trying to make sure Dad wasn’t helping their lad too much.  “Let him do it himself I kept instructing!”.   The children had fun learning to make a simple block stuffy, giving them their own personalities and colour. 

The final day I gave them three different options for what to make.  Paper dolls, Topsy-turvy dolls or Clothespin dolls. 

Know what they both chose?  Topsy Turvy dolls!   What fun!   And easy enough to make.  Take a sock (like you are going to make a snow man doll) but instead you make a face on both sides and give the doll a cape to you can show which side is up. 

Topsy turvy dolls in doll making class

I loved how the children made these dolls their own.  🙂

Let’s see what else did we make.  OH.. the wooden stick dolls.  Which well.. we didn’t use wooden sticks from trees (like we were supposed to) I had long white things (surgical supply I think) and dowels, it was great letting the children decide which they wanted to use, and we had fun being creative!   One child decided he wanted to make a cat!  The other did a doll with a striped dress.   My son did “Dr. Who”. 

wooden stick dolls in doll making class

We also made a doll that could move on strings. But I will have to show you that another day as it’s getting late and I’m rather tired.  🙂

My goal is to teach this class (or another like it) to a different group of children.  I am hopeful to do that this summer.   Would be fun to teach it again…it was a great class to do. 

Things I love – Co-op

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Today is the last day of the homeschool review crew’s 5 day blog hop.  I hope you’ve had fun, I know I’ve read some fascinating posts from other members, and some that are just plain fun.

Today I thought I’d talk about a love that happens twice a year for six weeks at a time. Co-op classes with our Homeschool Group.

Things I like - co-op classes

That’s my boy there you know?   Grinning away.  Having fun playing Ants.   He’s the biggest boy in class and it was funny watching him, letting himself get caught.  And these skinny kids would try to move him.  He thought it was a hoot!  🙂

Our co-op is set up that all the age levels get a phys ed time.  Time to run around and let off steam and have fun playing with youth the same age.   When I teach gym I do my best to NOT do gym the way I was raised playing volleyball or basketball.  But having fun playing games and tag and getting to know one another.   The youth seem to like the format which is the best thing.

Each co-op has their own way of doing things you know?   Ours says the year you join, have fun, help out with a couple of classes and get to know some of the folks around you.  The second year and thereafter, teach a class and then help in a class.  What to teach?  Whatever you want.  I’ve helped in art classes, geography, history, science and others.

I’ve seen moms come in with busy boxes, dolls and various unit studies.

I tend to teach art or science classes.   Introducing the children to the fun of exploring the world. 

 

This year I decided to teach two classes as I despise .. well okay, perhaps not despise.  But I dislike helping in a class where I’m just sitting around doing my own thing, being a wasted body in a room.    I’d rather do something.  So this year I said the heck with helping, let me teach a second class. 

I have two children in my doll making class and we are just having a lot of fun together.  They wanted to make a doll they could sew so we needed to revamp class ideas a bit.  But they are having fun and learning and that’s the good thing eh?    I have 15 children in my gym class.  I started with 12 but sometimes life changes and kids can’t handle one class so they move to another.  It’s no mattering to me as long as they listen and have fun.

Why do I like co-op classes?  

Ah.. cause my boy loves them eh?  Seriously.  It’s good to connect with other moms (and dads) and to spend time talking and listening.  But mostly, it’s because my boy has such fun there.  I don’t know what he’ll do when he ages out of them.  He’ll be quite sad I think.  It’s hard living so far away from the homeschool group, hard to get together and be involved eh?  And a lad needs friends.  Here…here he can connect with friends for a few hours every week and afterwards sometimes too. So co-op is a good thing for both us.  Stretches me a bit, gives me some connection, but also the lad, it’s so good for the lad.



The history and fun of wooden spoon dolls

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Last week our six-week co-op classes started for the spring session.  I have two children signed up for my class, one great helper and her wee little who joined us.  We had SUCH fun.

The history and fun of wooden spoon dolls

Our first class I wanted to assess their skills so I chose a doll that could be simple or hard depending on their abilities (6-8 year olds can be all over the map you know).   We would make wooden spoon dolls.

Part of my class is to give the children a VERY brief history into wooden spoons and the dolls that came from them.  We talked about how wooden spoons came into being, and then how wooden spoons were a symbol of marriage.  A fellow would give his gal a wooden spoon and she’d hang it on the wall.   Sometimes they would be shaped like a key, or have a wooden heart on the end or just be a good wooden spoon. Something she could take into her marriage with her a vital part of her life.  We talked about how a spoon could be passed down from mom to daughter and so forth.  The children thought that was amazing. 

Then we talked about how wooden spoons were easy to make if you had wood on hand, and how parents like to make their children happy (just like their own moms and dads do) and they would often use whatever they had on hand, and sometimes that would be an older wooden spoon they didn’t use any more.  They were very popular in colonial days, being made of scraps of material mom would have left over.

making the wooden spoon dolls

Then we set out to make wooden spoon dolls.  I was really clear with the children that they got to make all the decisions about what their dolls would look like.  I’d help them if they needed it but they needed to decide on colours and design.  We had one boy in our class who DIDN”T want a dress on his doll so we learned to make pants, and then later a cape.   We had one girl who choose to make a elegant evening gown and then a simpler evening dress.  I made a gramma doll and the children HOOTED.  🙂

Anyways, this was an amazingly simple craft to do with the children and we had so much fun.

Fun Friday: Mudworks Part One

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Did you know that I am teaching an art class at my homeschool groups Co-op days?   The class is called Mudworks.

I have this cool book (called Mudworks) that I did a art book post on… hold on while I find that. Ah, here it is.  Anyways, when I looked at this book I thought, how much run would it be to do this with a mixed ages class, so when HOPE days came up  I said SURE, I’ll do this!  🙂


21 kids in my class!!!!!   It’s loud and noisy and a whole lot of fun…though admittedly… if I don’t really understand a recipe in the book, it lends me well to mental confusion…but that’s part of the fun of the class right?

Anyways, for day one we worked with…. MUD!  🙂

I grabbed up some garden dirt and offered the kids a challenge… see how much water you need to add to one cup of dirt to make it workable.   You need to be able to build a sculpture from the dirt.  I was ATTEMPTING to teach a bit of the scientific method but forgot one important factor… 6 year olds just want to be play in the mud…. 🙂

We also made cotton ball and flour sculptures but I don’t really know how they turned out…they had to dry.  So time will tell eh?   And hey…. it’ll be a post for another day.  

A preliminary glimpse for you though.

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Art Class, Different than One-on-One

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 Over this past year I tried to get my homeschool co-op to come out to my place to do a bi-weekly art lesson with the lad and I but…no one came out.  I guess they thought the half-hour drive was too much to bear.   I wanted to do an art class because doing art as a group is much different than doing art one-on-one.

So when it came time to do our spring co-op again I thought, I’m going to do an art class.

We had FUN!   I did a class on Zentangles and I have to admit.. it was BY FAR the easiest class I have ever done for co-op.

Grab the book: Zentangle: The inspiring and mindful drawing workbook with over 70 practice tiles

Grab a bunch of children.
Set them down with some paper and pencils and watch them go.  Seriously.. we had fun.
My job?   Simple.
Give some basic instruction first day… see.. look at these different zentangles.  This one is called ____, that one is called ______.  Practice a few of them.  We practiced on 2 x 2 squares of paper.

My job?  Offer encouragement, show what you can do different… if you space the lines farther apart or turn the tangle upside down.  “AH!!!”   one boy said.. “I can turn it into wheat!” while a girl said “I can make those vines into ropes if I add some twisty lines”.

I LOVE THAT STUFF!   Seriously.  I do not consider myself artistic.. I hated school and having to all do the exact same thing when doing art.  HATED IT.   But I do have a knack for taking ideas and presenting them to children and then seeing them literally FLY with it.   I LOVE THAT.

For week two I asked them.. what do you want to do?  Do you want to practice more on the 2 x 2 sheets OR would you like to see what you can do with objects?     Objects it was, so I brought in a variety of half sheet images.  Some pokemon, some birds, some puppies etc.   Things I thought the children might be interested in..and let them go to work.   I just pulled up free colouring pages from on-line, resizing them to fit the page.

This proved to be what the children wanted to do.   Fill in images and make their zentangles, or doodles with a purpose, practical.

I quickly discovered one young lady had an affinity for doing bible verses.  Her mom told me how delighted she was that I allowed her to do what she wanted to do and didn’t make her do what the others were.   This picture is partially done.  She did another one that was much bigger and filled with hearts around the John 3:16 verse.  Simple and well done.

Another young lady turned out these amazingly well done drawings.   She hopes to turn them into a book and maybe sell them.   I told her she had the skill to do so.

 Another young lady tried her hand at making her own outline and then filling it in.  Isn’t she doing an great job?  I was so proud of her and pleased with her work.

My young fellows weren’t really keen on me taking pictures of them working.   In fact one refused, so I went with it.  🙂  We did careful behind the scenes pictures.  I’m not supposed to let it be too big, but pleased I was with their work.   For their final project white shirt did a zentangle with french symbols to be filled out, and striped shirt did a series of intricate lines inside a pokemon figure.

This young lady learned to fit the zentangle drawings to the outline she was using.   By the time she had this one finished, it would have been a joy to colour in and see all those sweeping lines.   Not just done in pencil, but in fine tipped marker as well.

The bulk of the class was just me doing around and saying well done, have you thought about using this idea?   Oh.. I like how you added some blockiness to that, or see how the lines sweep here?.. what kind of doodle do you think will fit well there?    Encouragement along with different images to fill.. it was just an easy, laid back class filled with laughter and beauty.  

 Didn’t they do an excellent job?  I was so immensely pleased with all of them.  It was amazing to see their different styles?   A couple of the children made “cheat sheets” for themselves, choosing zentangles they particularly liked and putting them on a sheet.

This post is part of the Homeschool Crew Art Round up.  It will probably open up on Friday morning.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Field Trip: Kitchener Symphony

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In October my son and I went to Kitchener, they were doing a children’s symphony event there.  We went with our homeschool group.

BOY, did the lad and I have fun.

It was a rather neat program, they sent us the music before the program so we knew what music to expect.

No cameras were allowed during the program so I only have this so-so shot while they were warming up.

The conductor did a really good job as introducing each piece and telling the children what to expect from it.

In the hall of the mountain King , oh my how my lad liked this song, and has asked for me to play it again for him more than once.  🙂

The conductor explained that you could hear the fellow creeping into the mountain and having some goblins or something start to sneak up behind them, and then a huge race at the end… would they catch him or would he escape.    My lad LOVES the imagery and the music..ah.. it makes him smile.

They did 10 pieces in all, each time the conductor gave some explanation of the piece and gave the students something to listen for.   Sometimes he provided imagery, other times he asked what emotion the piece asked or demanded of them, and so forth.  All the different ways the music tells a story were explained and demonstrated.

If you ever have a chance to go to a Children’s lesson time at the orchestra, do so.  You’ll learn much and be able to watch your children’s faces light up with joy.