Solar System Activity

I remember having done something similar to the rope of the solar system described here: http://www.missbarbara.net/thebeginning.html#keylessons . I used cups or something to mark the places on the road (yes, we went outside to do it). This could be a fantastic activity to do with the kids as a follow-up lesson to the first Great Lesson.

Education Everywhere!

The past few days, my kids, hubby and I accompanied my mom and step-dad to a place called Slave Lake. While my mom and step-dad stayed in a hotel, my kids, hubby and I decided to camp there with our dog--first real camping trip for her! She's a rather excitable sort of dog (part Pointer, Lab and Australian Shepherd, among other things), so it kept us on our toes for using Cesar Millan techniques to try to keep her excited level as low as we could--especially when squirrels would make their appearance. ;)

The campground we stayed at, in addition to having some spiders that required a looking up in Bugs of Alberta, happened to be having one evening a little show on weasels. Well, ds has a thing for wolverines and having picked up Mammals of Alberta not long ago--which he immediately went through animal-by-animal, reading in-depth the ones he wanted to know more about--he really wanted to go see the show because wolverines are in the weasel family. He and I went and while it was a little babyish, there were some interesting things shared about different kinds of weasels found in the area and we both learned some things. Afterwards, naturally, he had to sit down with Mammals of Alberta again (thank goodness I brought the books along!) and he saw some of the weasels mentioned in the show that he hadn't really paid attention to before. Those "planting of seeds" we so often are encouraged to do at the elementary level in Montessori were in full force!

Another seed planting at the show was the discussion of bears being carnivores. We had all believed that carnivores ONLY ate meat; turns out this isn't true. Goes to show that I have not made it very far in animal classification with the kids, doesn't it? ;) Another seed planted that I could take advantage of to go a little deeper with this topic.

Just to bring up the books mentioned above, I don't know if such books are available for other regions, but I imagine so, and I highly recommend them as materials in your prepared environment. We have 4 such books: Birds of Alberta, Alberta Wayside Flowers and the two mentioned above. I will be checking out the publisher to see what other books they may have; I'd especially like one on trees or plants rather than just flowers. One thing I have to say, though, is that the things we see that we can't find in the books would make a wonderful project: keep your own bird/mammal/bug/etc. reference book. Of course, this is kind of like Charlotte Mason's nature notebook idea, but a little more focused so there is an additional reference available.

Dd found the longest, fattest earthworm we have ever seen.

He wasn't as outstretched as he could have been in the first photo and you can see in the second how he's bunched himself all up.

We also checked out some fancy cars and remote control cars and planes (there was some sort of car show going on), went on a very short walk in an area where there are bear warnings (NOBODY else was around, we had the dog with us and the deeper we got into the wilderness, the more ill-at-ease we were; it was an opportunity for the kids to learn that you ought to make noise when going through woods so that you don't surprise a bear--and to listen to your gut!), and found a little toy dinosaur we still have to identify.

A very busy trip! And very tiring. The poor dog is so tired out, she didn't even care about "supervising" us while we brought things in once we got back. She plopped herself on the ground at one point, then moved to a folded up blanket waiting to be put away and finally to her bed upstairs.

I'm guessing we won't see much of her tomorrow as she'll still need to sleep!

And sometimes science just falls into your hands... er... yard

With the insane thunderstorm systems going through last night, our front tree must have been shaken a lot. Dh woke up this morning to find a bird's nest fallen from the tree! I'm pretty sure it's a new nest, which makes it sad to see; all that work ended in a flash. (No pun intended!)

However, that does make for a science opportunity for us! Dh picked it up and put it on the back porch (the mud used in it is very moist right now).

You can't see the piece of plastic ribbon the bird used!

It's very cool to look at, though, and will provide an opportunity to learn more about how birds make nests. And maybe even figure out what kind of bird made this nest.

Next year's science

I've been thinking long and hard about the programs offered here: http://www.scienceforhighschool.com/ . In particular, the high school biology and chemistry. Those are the two that most interest dd and the chemistry would work for much of Bob's upcoming high school work. I hadn't ordered and I think I figured out this morning why: the program is so simply set up (which is FANTASTIC), that, other than the convenience of having the labs already decided and the quizzes already written up, I don't really need it. It's $80US (not counting shipping) per subject, just for the basic materials. Since Bob needs to at least meet Alberta Program of Studies outcomes, and dd will do the same, I think I would be much better off simply taking the outcomes and the text, creating assignment sheets for the week based on what they are actually supposed to know--instead of going through Biology/Chemistry in Your Home and figuring out what's missing--and taking it from there. It also encourages me more to prepare some things in French for dd, rather than just have her use the English book.

Are my thoughts making sense? It's not even 6am and it was probably about 11:30 before I fell asleep last night!

In any case, I do very much like the approach. The students are given weekly assignment pages and are expected to research the answers. It actually sounds like something that would be done in a Montessori high school. They can use any resource they wish, have to learn to budget their time for the week, are involved in seeking out answers, rather than simply reading through a textbook and taking notes, then doing practice problems, etc. That's another issue, actually: Alberta curriculum IS different and covers more than the standard US high school science class, getting into what is usually honors or AP.

For those who don't know what to teach for high school science, these are a God-send, I think. I already know what my kids have to learn to meet Alberta outcomes--or rather, I have available to me a document that says what they have to learn--so that's not really the issue. Just trying to find a more interesting, active approach to the subjects rather than just reading a textbook!

Worms, worms, worms!

I was so enamoured with my 2yo niece on Friday, I forgot to share what else we have going on!

Worm farms!

I made some comment about the suicidal worms on the driveway after the rain and that spurred the older kids into rescue mode. This led to asking if we had dirt; yes, I had some potting soil. Did I have containers they could use? Yes, I did. What do they eat? You'll have to look online.

Now we have 4 containers with worms in them. Bob has two, for some reason. I just realized I threw out a bunch of watermelon rinds today that we could have used as worm food. Dang.

They have 3 of the containers covered with brown paper because I had read that they need to be covered or kept in a dark place. We'll see how long they keep these guys alive. I think dd and ds will be responsible this week for learning more about how to keep them alive. Bob has only 6 weeks to finish all of his correspondence work AND study--he's got to get cracking!

You can see the worm along the side! If there's too much light when we pull up the paper, they dart out from wherever they are to a darker spot.