Water Filter!

When we first chose My Father's World First Grade I really was certain we would supplement their science program.  But now that we have been following it exactly as written for a few months I am really pleased with it.  It is definitely different than everything I ever taught in public school, or even learned about in college.  But we love it!  They generally read a couple of pages out of an Usborne science book the first day of the week.  The rest of the week we read literature selections from the list in the teacher's guide about the same topic.  And then at the end of the week we do the hands on experiment and make an entry into our science journals.  If we did an experiment they draw the experiment and then write a a sentence about the results.  Otherwise I let them choose a picture to draw (using our book selections as inspiration) and then a sentence about anything they learned.  Wyatt has surprised me the most- he is really picking up so much!  Anyways, this week we discussed rivers, water, and the process of how water gets clean.  They give instructions on how to make this water filter and I was certain it would not work.  I was so surprised!  So were the boys!

First you need some rocks....

Then some sand....

And you put them into a container you have poked some holes in the bottom of.  We did a couple of inches of rocks and then a couple of inches of sand on top.  Then we took some super muddy water....

And poured it in and waited!

Pretty amazing, isn't it?  I figured it would filter out some of the filth, but it really took out way more than I expected.  Fun!