Show & Tell: Adventures Week 6

Yesterday we wrapped up our sixth week of school.  Hard to believe, huh?  And I can almost guarantee that six weeks never went by this quickly when I taught public school!

This week in history, we continued learning about colonial life in America, focusing on the Dutch immigrants who left the city of Amsterdam in Holland and came to the New World to live in New Amsterdam.  And if you're like me and know absolutely nothing about social studies except what you've learned with your 2nd grader, then you'll be surprised to know that New Amsterdam is what we now call New York.  Its name was changed when the Duke of York sent English warships to fight for the land, and Peter Stuyvesant and the other Dutch immigrants surrendered, realizing there was just no way they could beat the English. 

While I'm confessing my ignorance to anyone and everyone who reads this, I'll tell you something else we learned this week.  Did you know that these immigrants brought over cows, pigs, sheep, and horses when they came?  I just assumed that people came to America and found all of these animals here, but they were no more native to the land than the new immigrants were.  The cows were especially important to the people because without them there would be no milk, butter, or cheese.  We learned how the colonists made butter, and we made some of our own for a little hands-on history.

Here's Hannah pouring some whipping cream into a jar.

Then the fun began!  We had to shake it and shake it . . .

. . . and shake it and shake it!  It was hard work! 

After about 20 minutes of non-stop shaking, we finally saw it start to separate.

A few more shakes, and we had our butter and our buttermilk!

Funny story about the buttermilk . . . the girls were curious to see what it tasted like, so I poured some of it into their cups so they could try it.  (They enjoyed it, by the way.)  When Greg came home from work, Millie told him they got to have homemade butter and homemade milk.  He said, "Homemade milk?"  Then he looked at me with the strangest expression and said, "Is there something you need to tell me?!"

We also made it to Chapter 4 of our new read-aloud, The Courage of Sarah Noble.  We read something about logs being needed for the house they wanted to build, and Hannah said, "Hey!  The white people had to live off the land just like the Indians did!"  I thought it was kind of neat that she was processing the book enough to make that comparison on her own.

In Bible this week we focused on Jesus as the Bread of Life, and we read some great passages together.  We read Exodus 16, where God provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness, and talked about how the manna was all that was needed for their bodies to live, just like Jesus is all that is needed for our spirits to live.  I adapted an idea I got from Heather at This Side Up and had the girls collect "manna" one morning when they woke up.

They even got to eat "manna" for breakfast!  (I'm feeling the need to justify myself right now!  One, I did NOT feed my children the same manna they collected from the yard!  I had a whole new box of manna waiting on the kitchen counter when they came in! :)  And two, I did at least give them a glass of milk to go with it, so there was some nutritional value.)

This little Israelite wouldn't have been complaining about the manna at all!  (Maybe about the fact that it was only given once a day, though!)  :)

We also read from John 6, where Jesus feeds the 5,000 and then tells them to seek food that lasts forever, and we compared bread, which only keeps our bodies alive temporarily, to Jesus, who gives our spirits eternal life.  We just inherited a bread machine a couple of months ago from my cousin across the street, and Hannah asked if we could make some homemade bread, so we did.  And we ate it with our homemade butter!  M'mmm!

Here they are with half of their bread buttered and half of it plain, just in case they didn't like the way it tasted.

Ready . . . Set . . .

GO!!!

And the verdict is . . . 2 thumbs up!  (Or should I say 4 thumbs up?!)

Since we talked about Dutch immigrants in history, which led to cows, which led to butter, which led to bread, which led to the Bread of Life, our science this week was learning about yeast.  (See how My Father's World does that?!  Love it!)  On Tuesday we conducted a simple but very cool experiment to see how yeast works.

First, Hannah mixed together 1 cup of warm water, 1 package of yeast, and 1 teaspoon of sugar.

Next, she poured the mixture into a clean glass bottle.

Finally, she put a balloon over the top of the bottle.  We put it in a warm, dark place (a cabinet in our garage) to see what would happen.

10 minutes later

20 minutes later

30 minutes later

Hannah had a most unique theory for why the balloon was getting bigger.  She thought the water was evaporating and collecting inside of it!  I took the bottle off the shelf so the girls could feel that it was full of a gaseous substance.  I explained to them that the sugar was feeding the yeast and giving it energy so it could break the sugar down and turn it into a gas called carbon dioxide.  Then I explained that the same gas that made the balloon "puff up" is what makes our bread "puff up" when we add yeast and sugar. 

Yesterday, we did exactly the same experiment, except we replaced the teaspoon of sugar with a teaspoon of salt.  Here's what happened:

10 minutes later

20 minutes later

30 minutes later

We learned that salt will not feed the yeast the way sugar will, and as a result there is no carbon dioxide and no fluffy bread.

Today we're finishing off our week with a trip to Houston to visit the Museum of Natural Science with friends.  We'll post pictures when we get back!

Don't forget to head over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see all the fun others had in school this week!

Ballerina Girl

When we left for dance last week, the batteries in my camera weren't charged
When we left for dance last week, my camera was broken
When we left for dance last week, we were running late
Oh, forget it . . . I never was a good liar!  When we left for dance last week, I had yet another Mom of the Year moment and forgot to take pictures of Millie on her first day of class this year.  So here's my little ballerina girl all dressed up and ready to see Mrs. Julie on her second week of ballet!  Mom?  Dad?  Remember . . . don't worry about college accounts; therapy accounts are best for my kids!

You Like Me . . . You Really Like Me!

Okay . . . perhaps that's a little dramatic, but I was surprised when Jenna at Sugar, Spice & Monkey Tales gave me my very first blog award today!  (And here I thought it was just me and my mom who read this thing!)  I am touched and flattered and, quite frankly, grinning ear to ear!  So . . . wanna see it?  Good!  Because I wanna show it to you!

Ta-daaaah!  Thanks, Jenna, for putting a spring in my step and a smile on my face!

Show & Tell: Adventures Week 5

This week we wrapped up Week 5 of Adventures in My Father's World.

In history, we spent the week learning about the Pilgrims.  We made another map from Interactive 3-D Maps:  American History.  (I'm hoping to make a separate post about that book soon!)  This map shows the voyage the Pilgrims took from England to North America.

And here's the notebooking page Hannah made for her U.S. Notebook.

She said the Pilgrims on her Mayflower were Mom, Dad, Hannah, and Millie.  Mom and Dad are frowning because we're seasick and scared, and she and Millie are smiling because they always have so much energy!  :)

As far as hands-on history this week, our first project was to make oiled paper windows, which is what the Pilgrims had in their homes.  I don't think any of us were overly excited about this project going into it, but it ended up being soooo cool!  First we used paper towels to spread vegetable oil on a sheet of computer paper.

The obvious difference that you can see here is that the sheet with oil is transparent and the one without oil isn't.  But when we picked up the oiled paper, it was amazing how strong it was!  It felt like waxed paper!

Then we held the two papers up to the window to compare the amount of light that filtered through.

The oiled paper is on the left, plain is on the right.  You couldn't see through the oiled paper, but there was a noticeable difference in the amount of light it let in.

Next we added "rain" to see if the oiled paper could withstand the elements.

We were able to pick it up and move it around without any tears or holes.  (Well, until they started really trying to tear it!)  Since the paper had already soaked up the oil, the water just rolled right off of it.

We also made Pilgrim collars and bonnets from our Animated Paper Craft for Special Days book that MeeMaw picked up for us.  Pretty cute for a piece of posterboard and 20 minutes worth of work, don't you think?!


While they were dressed like Pilgrims, we went ahead and planted some corn.  We decided to turn this into a science experiment by planting only corn in one pot and adding corn and three fish (sardines) to a second pot.  (This is what Squanto taught the Pilgrims to do so the fish would fertilize the ground and help the crops to grow.)  We'll see which pot is the first to sprout:  fishy or fishless.  I'm not including a picture of the corn with the sardines because it looks really disgusting!

In Bible, we continued to explore the concepts of Jesus being the light of the world and what it means to live in darkness versus living in light.  In Kindergarten and 1st grade, our Bible verses changed every week.  This year we stick with each verse for two weeks, and it has been such a special time because we get more depth and we've really had some priceless moments studying God's Word together! 

The kids each made another suncatcher this week, but we tried a different method.  Instead of using crayon shavings and waxed paper, we used contact paper and tissue paper.  I can't even begin to tell you how much easier it was!  Our window is beginning to look a little crowded, so the girls and I decided we'll make a trip to the nursing home this week and give our suncatchers to some of the residents so they can hang them up on their windows.



I was prepared to write Millie's words for her, but when she saw Big Sis doing it on her own, she wanted to do the same thing. (I'm pretty sure she thinks she's in 2nd grade!) I told her what letters to write and when to leave a space, but she did all the work on her own. Go, Millie!



Hannah wrote her Bible verse from memory! Go, Hannah! :) She was super-excited when she spelled "light" correctly without any help.

Science and Bible are almost always related; and since we studied Jesus being the light of the world in Bible, we studied stars in science.  (Hence the picture of the sun on the suncatchers above.)  We learned about Betelgeuse, which is the largest star we're able to see with the naked eye.  Betelgeuse is 600 times larger than the sun in diameter alone, and we did an activity to compare their sizes.  First, we pretended to shrink the sun down to 1 inch in diameter by cutting a 1" circle out of yellow construction paper.  Then we used our yardstick to measure 600 inches, which is how large Betelgeuse would be in proportion.

Here's Hannah using the yardstick to measuring 600 inches, or 16 2/3 yards.



Obviously, I had to superimpose a yellow circle onto the picture to represent Betelgeuse.  See the red arrow?  It's pointing to a teeny-tiny yellow circle which is our sun.  We started measuring our 600-inch Betelgeuse at the tree and ended where Hannah is standing.  Betelgeuse is one HUGE star!

 We also read about some of the major constellations, such as Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper, and about the Milky Way.  We had a pretty neat teachable moment one day.  We read that if you look at the sky at different times throughout the night, it looks like all of the stars except for the North Star have moved; but in reality, the stars aren't moving at all—the earth is.  Hannah had a hard time understanding this, so we did a little activity to demonstrate. 

I put her under the ceiling fan in the living room and had her face one of the walls.  I asked her what she saw, and she told me what was on that wall.  I turned her 90 degrees and asked her the same question about the next wall, and she answered.  We repeated this for each of the 4 walls.  Then I asked her to look above her and tell me what she saw.  She said the ceiling fan.  I told her the ceiling fan is like the North Star because it's always in the same place, and she's like the earth because she's spinning around and seeing different things depending on what direction she's facing.  She got it!

Hannah is my science kid.  She simply can't get enough of it.  For Christmas last year, we got her several science kits, and every now and then she wears us down and we'll get them out and do one or two of the experiments.  The experiment we did this week was to illustrate surface tension, which is basically how water molecules stick together.  (Picture a dripping faucet—the drip gets bigger and bigger and bigger before it finally falls.  That's surface tension.)  Anyway, our experiment was to see how many drops of water we could fit on the surface of a penny. 

Hannah carefully added one drop at a time.  Any guesses how many drops of water one penny can hold?  We did the experiment three different times and got the same answer every time!

Here's the penny with 22 drops of water.  On the 23rd drop, it all rolled off the surface onto the countertop.

In other news, yesterday was the first day of our "big" co-op.  It was so great to be back in the swing of things and see our friends again after the summer break.  Millie is in Pre-K this year, and she had a great time playing with her friends and learning about apples and the letter A.  Hannah is enrolled in a missions class during the first hour.  This week they learned about Mary Slessor, who was a missionary in Nigeria.  They heard the first part of her story, labeled Nigeria on a map, and ate snacks and played games local to that area.

Here's Mrs. Pauline showing the kids where Nigeria is on a world map.

Here's Hannah and one of her best buds, Kailian.

And for her second class, Hannah is enrolled in a Math and Literature class taught by yours truly.  This week we read Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews.  Each page has pictures made of a certain number of dots.  For example, the first page has a picture made of 1 dot, the second page has a picture made of 2 dots, all the way up to the tenth page, which has a picture made of 10 dots.  The kids' project was to create their own dot books; but before they did that, I gave them a challenge problem, which was to determine the total number of dots each child would need to make his book.  And a challenge problem it was!  I am soooo thankful for the moms (and dad!) who were in there to help the kids when they broke into small groups!

Here's proof that I really do exist!  Usually I'm on the other side of the camera, but one of my besties grabbed my camera and took this picture while I was reading the book and discussing it with the kids.

And here's a little nature study nugget to finish off this post.  This morning we found a praying mantis in the garage.  It's not like they're uncommon; we've read books and poems about them and even watched a movie about one.  But until today, we had never actually seen a real one.  If you hear my neighbors say something about a crazy lady who lays down in her driveway and takes picture of bugs, I have no idea what they're talking about!  ;)  Actually, I had entirely too much fun photographing this little guy, and by the time it was all over with, I thought he was kind of ... well ... cute.

Ack!  I just realized I made the pictures of a bug larger than the pictures of my children!

For a look at what others did this week, visit Kris' Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Back to . . . well, you know

Today was our first day of co-op for the new school year.  We participate in two co-ops.  One meets the first Friday of the month, and the other meets the second and fourth Fridays of the month.  They're very different in flavor, but we love them both!  The one we went to today is our "little" co-op.  There are three families who are "regulars," but since we added 4-H last year, we have picked up about 6 new families, many of which also belong to the "big" co-op.

I didn't think to take any pictures of it, but we started off with our first 4-H meeting of the year.  Then we went into the sanctuary to get a preview of the script and music for our end-of-the-year play.  Sounds like it's going to be another good one!

Here's Mrs. Susan telling the kids and moms about the play.

Millie and her Barbie are taking it all in!

Then we went into the fellowship hall for our group learning time.  This is a time for the kids to share what they're learning at home and, most importantly, to develop public speaking skills.  Since today was the first meeting of the year and some families wait until after Labor Day to start school, the kids just brought something for show and tell.

First Hannah showed her friends her crochet hooks and yarn.  She passed around a bag of crocheted jewelry she had made so they could each take a friendship bracelet, necklace, or ring.

Then she read them her homemade books.

Millie showed her friends her Barbie, which is currently her favorite toy.

After co-op, a few of us grabbed some lunch and headed to the park for a picnic and play time.

Next Friday is the first day of "big" co-op.  There are about 40 families who participate in that one.  It has much more of a "school" feel to it as the kids are in classrooms with teachers, and they change classes while we are there.  We love both of them, though, and are so thankful for the way they enrich our homeschool!