A Frog!

 So last night we were outside kinda late and we saw a frog in the yard.  Wyatt was so excited he desperately wanted to put it in his new bug house he got for his birthday.  Just for a few minutes to look at it and then to let it go.  We agreed but sadly couldn't catch him.  He was sneaky!  But tonight was not his lucky night - we found him in the garage!  The boys were so adorably excited and Noah insisted that they get out their Nature Journals and draw him.  So they did!

 

I was really tickled by how excited they were.  I mean, it was just a normal frog.  I thought it was so cute that Noah wanted to put it in his journal.  You know, that journal I bought them with these grand ideas of Charlotte Mason inspired nature walks we would be taking.  We've had them for a year. And this was the second entry.  ;) Noah even went and got his Amphibians Field Guide to try and figure out which kind he was.  He found that book at an antique shop for $1 and he adores it - so glad finally got to officially use it!

Of course we immediately took him outside to let him go.  We do not like to keep wild animals captive in our house!  I wish I wasn't too lazy to scan in Wyatt's drawing.  It is hysterical - he drew this big house and then a tiny red frog about the size of a fly.  Guess I need to better explain that we are supposed to try and use accurate colors in our journals!  And don't you love Wyatt's too small jammies?  I should get rid of them but they are just so funny.  :)

Pumpkin science!

I guess for some reason for the last few weeks, while sickness has been traveling through our house, the only thing I had the strength to teach was science!  I downloaded this super cute science bundle for only fifty cents!  You know I'll buy anything if it is less than a dollar!  ;)  The first experiment we did was with pumpkins.  It was your basic stuff...  predicting the circumference, weight, height and if it would float.  You see they had to turn on the spooky cauldron to do this.  Ha!

We took it out front to test the floating part, which REALLY surprised them.  They were so shocked something so heavy could float!  The assignment also had them test other fruits and veggies, which was really fun.  They love it when they get to use the clip boards for school!  I was pleased with the download because it had stuff for both Wyatt and Noah.  Wyatt drew the results of the experiment and you can see Noah filling in his predictions.

Next up will be "The Black Bloom Of Doom" if I could only remember to pick up a carnation at the grocery store....

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!

How we do science!

The absurdity of this whole situation didn't really hit me till I looked at these pictures after they had been downloaded.  I took the pictures for the kids science notebooks to cover this weeks experiment, not even thinking about what they were wearing or anything.  I love these goofballs!!

FYI, we studied gravity and Galileo this week, so they were dropping objects to see which hit the ground first.  A LOUD experiment (there was a cookie sheet on the floor)!!! :)