Topics of Study

 Lakin: Dinosaurs. With clay fossils and handwritten lists of dinosaur names by a little boy who normally "doesn't know how" to write. His beloved prehistoric predator documentaries on Netflix. Stacks of heavy dinosaur encyclopedias and a camera filled with photos of model dinosaurs.

Cohen: Whales, sharks and other sea life. With Blue Planet and Shark Week on Netflix. A list of whale species. Clay dolphins and an oil pastel orca.

 Rylna: Vehicles. With a list of questions about the inner workings of tractor trailers and the speed and cost of the fastest cars. Books on Modern Aircrafts and How to Draw Flying Machines.

Cale: Volcanoes and Earthquakes. With a mud packed volcano. Baking soda, vinegar and red food coloring. A second attempt with a few additions to make the lava flow more impressive and longer lasting. National Geographic and Discovery Channel videos of eruptions and the history of Pompeii. And of course a little volcanic duct tape creating planned for tomorrow.

We started something new this week. More record keeping and accountability. Learning contracts and a couple project helps to get them moving forward and digging deeper. Yesterday I met with each of the boys to go over their new contracts and to discuss my expectations and theirs. I asked them to pick a topic to study while we tried this new system and with the exception of Cohen they all picked something new...Dinos, Vehicles and Volcanoes/Earthquakes. And so far, 2 days in, I am seeing some good changes coming.

Random Thoughts and Random Pictures

Today is July first. We usually start our school year the first Monday in July, but this year the first Monday is the 4th and that put together with the fact that my mom is coming to visit today and will be here through next week I have pushed our start date to the 11th.


I guess that is a good thing...since I am not completely ready to start. I'll get there, but I've been distracted by other things and it makes it hard to focus on what needs to be done right now. But I've gotten Cohen's math figured out, about 90% of the language arts we will do this year, most of the history- except the fun stuff- planned. Science is my last major thing to do. I was all set to go in one direction and then I got pulled in another based on what I know they are interested in- so I had to start over on that one.


Annika's 6 months old....why do babies seem to grow so fast? She's got 2 teeth now. Rolls all over the place, is starting to scoot around and is thoroughly enjoying her first fresh peach season. Sleep is the one thing she hasn't quite mastered. I have finally gotten her to fall asleep on her own for the most part...but certain things have to be in order for that to happen.


Such as her song. She has a favorite song- and I have found that she will go to sleep and stay asleep longer if it's on repeat. So now we all know the words to Taylor Swift's Never Grow Up. That and she has to be in my bed. Which might pose a problem once she's mobile and a pillow corral will no longer keep her. I would also like to sleep all night one of these days....

For the first time in almost 3 years we still have living zucchini and squash plants. Usually by mid-June the squash bugs have taken over and all my plants lay wilted on the ground. The bugs are there and a lot have wilted, but I do have a couple left. They are beginning to lose their battle though, a self-planted pumpkin and my 2nd to last zucchini plant wilted yesterday.

Also for the first time in about as long we are getting good cucumbers. The lemon ones are really good, the cucumber beetles are near non existent and I have about 20 or more cukes plus 3 quarts of pickles in my refrigerator right now.


And one more...Eggplant. Usually between the flea beetles and the potato bugs my tiny little egg plant seedlings get eaten up within a couple days of planting. They never have a chance....but this year...

I rearranged our school/playroom last week. I was trying to make room for a couple desks since my older 2 would benefit from not being at a table with everyone else. They need more elbow room and less distractions. I still have a problem area....the fact that our playroom also serves as a barn. We currently have no other good and convenient place to store our animal food- so I have 50lb bags of rabbit, chick, chicken, scratch and goat food in the playroom....


Paul's interning with the TN Farmer's Co-op this summer. He's graduating in December and we've talked a lot over the past year about what that means. We aren't sure where we will end up, but regardless we plan on moving from our current home at some point. Is it bad that I get more excited about a nice barn than a nice house?

This and That

More random.

School.

Last week we studied reflection, diffused reflection and how the eye works.
We learned the parts of the eye and what they do and did an virtual eye dissection.

Today we started in on refraction and lens types

I made cookies to try out a new recipe and designs.


This one is supposed to be a Trillium... the best I can do at midnight.


and last month I entered this contest:

I made these Sweet Potato- Date Scones. I posted them over on Morning Glory Bakes, which is a blog I started to focus on my baking.

I got a call this past Friday that my recipe won in the Sugar Free category! They publicly announced the winners today on the Sweet Bytes Blog- check out all the other great sweet potato recipes! I am sure this fall after we harvest this year's crop I will be trying lots of these new recipes!

One Week

One week of summer vacation left. I am mostly ready- still finishing up our first science unit. We are doing Earth science this year, starting with astronomy. I am having fun requesting books from the University of Tennessee library- which has a pretty good juvenile books section. I am breaking Paul's back everyday this week with books to pick up- at least he doesn't have to go find them too. UT has this nifty service where you just request the book and they pull it off the shelf and you just pick it up at circulation.

But until next Monday, it is summer.

Sea Turtles

Reading Lesson:
Sea Turtles by Gail Gibbons
All About Turtles by Jim Arnosky

Art Lesson:
Based off of the Foil Turtle and Fish Collage Lesson from Deep Space Sparkle

drawn, outlined, then paintedCale's
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Cohen's
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Rylan's
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Writing Lesson:

Poetry

Cale's on the Green Sea Turtle

Rylan's on the Leatherback Sea Turtle

They plan to make green paper sea turtles and rewrite their poems on those...but first we need to make a construction paper run....we are down to black, pink and brown.....

Chemistry Unit- Lesson 10

Lesson 10:

Chemical Changes

Objective: To see a color change as evidence of a chemical change
To see fizzing/bubbling as evidence of a chemical change


Supplies:
3 tubes, labeled #1-3
bleach
vinegar
hydrogen peroxide
3 tubes half full with water
food coloring

Procedure:
Place the bleach, peroxide, and vinegar in each of the tubes labeled #1-#3.
Drop one drop of food coloring in each of the water-filled tubes.

Place one dropper full of solution #1 into one water-filled tube. Observe. Continue for each of the 3 solutions.

The bleach will produce an immediate color change. The vinegar will produce none.

Over the next few minutes the tube with bleach added will become more and more colorless. I added the peroxide on this one. I thought it would produce some sort of change, considering it is used to bleach some things....but no change occurred. Even after adding more than one dropper full.

Experiment 2:

We've done this one before. But it was a hit then, and this time we talked a little more about the why behind it and what was taking place.

Step 1: Fill up a bottle/tube about half way with vinegar
Step 2: Funnel a couple of tablespoons of baking soda into a balloon.

Step 3: carefully stretch the neck of the balloon over the bottle. Be sure not to allow the baking soda to fall into the bottle yet.
Step 4: Lift the balloon to allow the baking soda to fall into the bottle and mix with the vinegar. You may want to hold on to the neck of the bottle/balloon just in case.
Step 5: Watch! The balloon will inflate as the reaction between the vinegar and baking soda produces carbon dioxide.

Chemistry Unit- Lesson 5 and 6

Lesson 5: Separation of a mixture

Chromatography

First we reviewed the definition of a mixture and the ways to separate them. Then I mixed 3 colors of water and we discussed how it was a mixture of pigment and water and how we could separate each of the colors back out again.

I gave them a brief description of chromatography and what it meant. Then using 4 different black pens they drew on coffee filters. Then we set dampened cotton balls on the filters and allowed the water to slowly absorb into the filter paper. The above picture is of one of the black inks which separated out into yellow, red and blue....

They started to test all the markers then....they hypothesized that the blue wouldn't separate at all since it was a primary color, but were surprised when purple and light blue came out.

Lesson 6: Solubility

First was vocabulary: solution, solute, solvent and solubility

Then a refresher on the scientific method. This time I wanted them to follow the steps and pay attention to the process....

The Problem:
Which solvent will hold the most solute?
Which solute has the greater solubility?

The Hypothesis:

Cale guessed that the water would dissolve more, Rylan guess the alcohol
Rylan said sugar would have the greater solubility, Cale guessed Epsom Salts, Cohen guessed table salt.

The Procedure:

First we measured out 35 mL of water in to each of 3 tubes. They chose which solute they would dissolve first and scooped 1/2 tsp of that solute into the water. Capped the tube and shook. They repeated this process until the solute would no longer dissolve. Then they repeated the same process, but this time using alcohol as the solvent.

The Results:

	Water	Alcohol
Salt	4 scoops	2 scoops
Sugar	18 scoops	6 scoops
Epsom salt	18 scoops	>1 scoop

the sugar dissolved just a little bit more than the Epsom Salts in the water.

Conclusions:

Water can hold more solutes, and we discussed a little about water being the universal solvent. Sugar had a greater solubility in both solvents.

It was nice to see them bringing in information from the past lessons...Rylan was talking about molecule size and noticing that the volume of his tube (with 18 scoops of sugar) was about to overflow, but Cale's (with 18 scoops of Epsom salts) still had about 1.5 inches to the top of the tube. Cale had a hard time with that- since the visual size of the E. salts are much bigger than the sugar crystals.

Like Mother, Like Son

I've voiced my frustrations with my oldest before. His reserved nature, his unwillingness to talk to people, answer people. His shyness and anxiety around others he doesn't know really well. I am sympathetic, I really am, because I was the same way. I worry too....because I was the same way- and really I still am that way.

But really, I am no better than he is. I still get nervous around new people. I still have unrealistic worries. Today was the perfect example. Our local support group started co-op classes today. We've taken them before, but this year I was asked to teach and I agreed. This is something way outside my comfort zone.

And this morning I had a 40 minute drive to think. I had a 40 min drive to start to feel sick. A 40 min drive to wonder why on earth I am nervous about teaching a group of 5-8 yr olds. A 40 minute drive to remember how I used to feel every first day of school, something my oldest has never experienced. A 40 min drive to swallow down panic and remember exactly how my oldest son feels when I tell him to join the group of cub scouts playing a game or to ask the neighbor if she needs help raking the yard. I know the internal struggle he is going through. When you want to do something, but something inside doesn't let go.

It's ridiculous really. And it was fine. It's always fine....all those worst-case scenarios never happen. My class ran according to plan. The 90-year old neighbor gladly accepted help with raking. We're still working on the cub scout participation....but whatever his worries are there...I am sure they will never really happen. Maybe he'll outgrow this and end up like his dad, who can talk to anyone, or maybe 20 years from now he'll still be worried and anxious, but also putting himself out there, trying to break that cycle.

Peanut Lapbook

Today we finished up the peanut lapbook I posted about yesterday. It was a quick unit, but they enjoyed it and I think they will retain the information well. Here is Rylan's completed lapbook:

And here is Cale's:

The books included:

Parts of a peanut plant (with the picture taken from here)
Time line of the Peanut- from seed to harvest
Mini book on George Washington Carver
From Nut to Butter: How to Make Peanut Butter
Uses of the Peanut accordian book
Where in the World? Peanut Producing Countries
Where in the US do peanuts grow?
The Peanut Butter Experiment (also explained in my previous post)
Other types of Legumes
On the back they glued thier copywork printed from here

and Rylan's also included peanut math. Where I wrote out 5 word problems like these: If 1 acre of peanuts makes 30,000 sandwiches, how many does 7 acres make? and If you have 200 peanuts do you have enough for each of your 5 friends to have 32 peanuts each?