Katie Grace's Main Lesson: Astronomy

We've been having fun so far! Today Katie Grace made mood phases crayon resist paintings. It's a little difficult to see.

I think I posted this before, but these are our phases of the moon beanbags.
Here is the moon phases chalkboard drawing

which Katie Grace then copied into her main lesson book.
O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the east. Shine, be increased! ~Christina Rossetti
And finally, phases of the moon with cookies. Yummy! You can check out the activity here.

Michael's Main Lesson Block: Botany Unit Redux

OK, let me start by saying I picked a stupid, stupid time to do a botany main lesson. January. In Pennsylvania. There really isn't a whole lot growing around here right now. It ended up being A LOT more theoretical than I would have liked.

The two major resources we used:
Christopherus Homeschool's Botany book by Donna Simmons

and
The Green Kingdom, an old Childcraft Annual
For literature, Michael really enjoyed reading "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George.
We started off with some copywork
One suggestion made by Donna was to have them choose a "tree friend". Michael took pictures of his
and wrote a story from its point of view
and did bark rubbings.
As we learned about the different families of plants, we copied out summaries.
It was a good chance for Mama to practice her chalkboard drawings.

He did get to collect a few things from outside, like pinecones, and we sifted through the seeds we have saved from last spring.


We've been trying to get everyone back into watercolor painting and Michael did a beautiful one of a sunflower.
We had a surprise field trip to the Maryland Science Center in the middle of the third week, and Katie Grace and Michael got to be scientists, extracting plant DNA in the wet lab.

Learning about mushrooms and fungus brought an opportunity to do some modeling and drawing.

I will admit we lost our steam a bit the last week of January, but Michael was hard at work on his pinewood derby car. It was worth it, too, because he placed third!
He's happier than he looks, trust me.

We'll be revisiting botany in the spring (piggybacking with the third grader's farming/gardening main lesson block) and will hopefully have a lot more hands-on opportunities then.

Main Lesson Book

Michael's narration and illustration of the Susan Constant and how she carried Englishman to North America on King James's command to find gold.

Michael's definitions and illustrations of the three types of rock.

Katie Grace's multiplication wheel for factors of 3.

And factors of 4.

And factors of 2. She's really been enjoying these!

One was the only wheel with curves.

Michael's diagram of the layers of the earth.

I think that I shall never see...

a poem as lovely as a tree. We spent the morning at the park identifying and collecting leaves. This was about a week or so ago, before they really started to turn in earnest.

Question of the Day: Why do cuts bleed?

Brought to you by Katie Grace, after a particular rough time roller blading

Odd Note: Google kept trying to change my search to "Why do cats bleed," which actually had more results.

My standard answer (and one supported by the University of Google) is that bleeding is actually a blessing, because it's your body's way of cleaning a cut. The bleeding stops when the blood clots.

There are allopathic and traditional ways to treat cuts.
First Aid:
How to Treat a Cut with First Aid
Kids Health: First Aid for Bleeding

Herbal Treatments:
Remedies for Cuts and Bleeding

In our house, we like to keep rose water, or "fairy kisses" for boo boos that are more emotionally than physically traumatic. If I can find a good source of fresh rose petals, I'd like to make our own.

This page gives a (graphically gross) description of how scabs help cuts. And there's more fun scab science here.

And there you have it!

Question of the Day: How do magnifying glasses work?

Brought to you by Katie Grace.

Wikipedia article
A magnifying glass works by creating a magnified virtual image of an object behind the lens. The distance between the lens and the object must be shorter than the focal length of the lens for this to occur. Otherwise, the image appears smaller and inverted, and can be used to project images onto surfaces.

Science, Optics, and You- Click on the link for a Java tutorial.
A magnifying glass is a bi-convex lens. It is convex on both sides, meaning that the glass is curved outward to form a dome. Things look bigger looking through convex lenses. Below, you can see how a magnifying glass works to project an enlarged image on the retina of the eye.

Kitchen Science Experiments
Create images on the wall with a magnifying glass.

Magnify It!
An experiment for the K-2 set.

Safety Rules for Using Magnifiers
Apparently it's easier to set things on fire than I thought!

My children often ask me questions that I don't know the answer to (or don't know how to explain!), and I tell them we'll look it up later. More often than not, we forget and later never comes. Lately, I've been adding their questions to my never-ending "to do" list. I thought it might make good blogbait.

We're Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo!

Years ago my friend Teresa gave me from sage parenting advice. She said once you have three or four kids, always check to see if a family membership is cheaper than individual admissions. And, in the case of the Philadelphia Zoo, it was! So we are now proud zoo members.

And now...

Zoo Animals