kitchen table science....

Water = liquid
ice = solid
steam = gas

On Saturday she learned about how one object can be in so many different forms. We started out with a liquid water then froze it and turned it into a solid. First she tried to break the ice with a pick. Then we melted some of the ice first with just hot water and watched the big ice block melt slowly.
Next we took an ice cube and put in over a flame to watch it melt very fast. Then we covered the pan and watched the water evaporate and fill the pan and it turned into a gas. Fun with science! We did add strawberries and grapes to the water first just to add some more fun to it. She had to figure out how to get the fruit out to have her snack. ****frozen grapes taste good but frozen strawberries are mushy and not so good****

I found this website http://www.catie.org.uk/testing_time_index.html and she had fun trying to figure out if something was a liquid, solid or a gas.

Buzzzzzzzzz

Samantha wants to know about bees so this week we will be looking into the life of a bee. When Sam was about 2 years old she got stung by a bee and still remembers it to this day. We were visiting Grandma Muriel and Grandpa Steve on the Cape. Grandma Muriel, Samantha and I were going to a fair. As we were waiting for the bus to bring us there, Samantha was looking at some flowers. One had a bee on it. She reached over and picked the bee right off the flower. OUCH he stung her. Since then she has asked about bees of and on. Then we were watching the Bee Movie and she learned that when a bee stings a person he will die. That really interested her. She wants to know why it dies. So off to the internet we went. So for this week I will be posting all kind of interesting information about bees and showing off the fun projects Samantha and I will be doing.

Oh and a bee dies because his stinger has barbs on it and when it goes into the skin the barbs holds it in place and as the bee tries to fly away it rips the stinger out and his insides come out. He will soon die. Interesting and gross. Poor little bee. Not all types of bees will die when they sting. Some bees can't even fly.

So for today Samantha said I am the queen bee and she is the princess bee. LOL
Have a great weekend.

Easter....

Happy Easter to all! Today was a fun Easter day for Samantha. We went to church, baked cookies, then got together with our family for dinner. I wanted to update the grass in the basket made it to Easter. But it wont last for much longer. Funny the cat never touched it. But if I move a plant I have in my bedroom out in the living room he will eat the leaves off. He almost killed it. Its also a plant that is supposed to make him sick. Obviously it doesn't as he will try and eat it at every chance.

Ok so how does this apply to learning. Hmmm not sure.....well every experience you learn something right? Like today Samantha learned if you tell Mommy no and stick your tongue out at church that will have a consequence... no computer time for a few days. LOL

I hope everyone had a wonderful and peaceful Easter!!!

Cat, Hat, Bat, Pog, Fog, Frog......

Today Samantha and I read a book today and she read part of the book with me. She learned some new words today..... bog, (mog, pog names from the book), fog, log, jog, hog, frog, dog, log, cat, sat, mat, bat, hat, rat, fat, pat, and many more. She was so excited to be able to help me read the book. The look of wonder in her eyes as she read them with me. Before we know it she will be reading books on her own.

She complained to me today that she didn't like to write in lower case letters as she doesn't do that as good as she does upper case. LOL So we talked about how the more she writes them the better she will do with them. She doesn't like it but understands that she has to write in lower case. I see a little bit of a perfectionist in her at times. Reminds me of Nick when he was learning to write.

Craft time...... She wanted to make a house for Cole since he doesn't' have one. So we got a box and decorated it. We spent a good part of the afternoon doing this. I even braved Cole and put his paw in paint and added his print to the house. And yes she is in her bathing suit, I knew this was going to be messy and I am still cleaning paint off the floor even with plastic down... but it was FUN!!!......

Homeschool project gone bad or crazy...Added more pictures...

A few weeks back Samantha and I thought it might be a good idea to grow real grass for her Easter basket. We got the idea from a magazine called Living Crafts, spring issue 2009. It calls for wheat grass but I couldn't find any of that so we searched and searched and couldn't find anything I would want to use with Samantha... all the lawn grass we found contained chemicals. I couldn't find any organic grass UNTIL I got the bright idea to go to the pet section. LOL. A few years ago when Cole(our cat) was eating all my plants we grew him pet grass. Hmm should be good for an Easter basket right? Maybe not....
Samantha was excited. With 3 weeks before Easter we thought we should get started right away. We filled the basket with soil. We got 3 packages of the cat grass. She placed all the seeds in the basket. We followed the directions. So we covered the basket with plastic and put in the dark room until we saw grass begin to grow. We took of the plastic then placed the basket in the sun. HMMM maybe we shouldn't have done that Oh and we watered it. Cat grass is supper grow grass. In days it stood 4 inches tall. Ok not so bad you thinking right? I cut the grass. The next morning the grass was again about 3 inches tall. The day after that it was back to being 4 inches tall. Since that day it has been cut many times. And it still keeps growing like crazy. Now we just hope and pray that the grass will stay living until Easter. LOL Here is a picture of it. I cut it last night down to about 1 1/2 inches....

Here it is on Sunday...




















Wednesday....


Oh its weird too because it keeps changing color... some times it grows back light green then other times its a dark green. Weird.... Oh and the added plus cutting the grass has my allergies acting up. Yep I am allergic to whatever is released when grass is cut. Fun fun fun. But we do find this project amusing in spite of my allergies.

Picture time....

Since the last few posts have all been my ramblings and no pictures I wanted to share some of our lastest pictures with you all..... The first picture we were at Colt state park, the last 2 are from Providence Children's Mesuem.

A little of this and a little of that.....

This post is going to be all over....I have lots on my mind that I want to share....

Last night Samantha and I participated in Earth hour. This is our second year doing so. For those of you who don't know what that is go to earthhour.org and learn all about it. Basically you shut off all lights and power sources. We shut off the tv and computer. We cheated a little, Samantha's bedtime is 7pm and we were supposed to shut off at 8:30-9:30. So we started at 6:30 and went until we were done playing games and reading stories. Since it was still early we sat by the living room window for light. We played Operation, fancy Nancy Ooh la la tea party game, tinkerbell game, and read the Easter story. When we were done she went to bed. So I did keep with the Earth hours time too. Once she was in bed I waited for it to be 9:30 before I turned the lights and computer back on. It was a fun way for Samantha to learn about saving energy. We already recycle. She has come to terms with when she outgrows clothes or toys we donate them. Mostly to the MOPS clothing swap. Which is another way to learn to conserve. We come home from the swap with some new clothes and fun toys.

At the last mops meeting we did the Resurrections eggs for the creative activity. Samantha has had fun learning about Easter and Jesus through the eggs. Her little friend came over and we decorated paper eggs. On one I drew a cross on it. Samantha then told her friend all about Jesus while creating their eggs. It was so much fun to see my daughter talk about Jesus and this coming from her point of view.

The meeting before this we made banks for our children. I am the creative activity leader and I do have an assistant. We did this craft for our children. Each mom got 3 banks. The banks teach the kids about money each bank has a meaning.... 1 share, 2 save, and 3 spend. So in doing this we decided to give Sam an allowance if she does her chores. Steve and I sat down with her and together we decided what she could do to earn money each week. She will dust, set the table every day, sweep, and clean the bathroom sink. She has the added bonus of helping with laundry and she will earn 50 cents more for this. She had a little issue with the sharing of her money part. LOL but we were firm on if she got an allowance she was to put 10% in her share, 20% in save and the rest was for her to spend. Its been fun watching her learn about money this way. Last week she took her spend money to walmart and bought a gum ball machine. She was so happy to be using her money and doing it all herself.

Decisions and concerns.....I have been trying to decide on a curriculum and I am still not sure on what I want to go with so I am going to the homeschool convention to look at them all again. One of my concerns is we have been working on preschool/kindergarten work this year and she knows how to write her numbers up to 10 and can count high with the assistance when she hits 19 I have to remind her its 20 then on to 29 she forgets to go to 30 we do this all the way up to 90 recently. She knows all her letters and how to write them. Through the program starfall she is learning her letter sounds and can identify what letter most words begin with. So my concern is will the beginning of Kindergarten be boring for her? She is already getting bored with reviewing her letters. Part of me wants to get the kindergarten curriculum for her now and start now. She has a thirst for knowledge she is forever asking questions about everything. It was fun when she wanted to know about ant eaters the fun things we learned from that question. Her latest question was about tornado's. So we are learning about them. So maybe what I need to look at is a hands on curriculum.

Things kids say...... While decorating the paper eggs with her friend Samantha and Chloe were talking about God.... Chloe told Samantha that her teacher told her that a memo went out from the principal saying they couldn't talk about Jesus when talking about Easter at all. All that is allowed is to talk about Easter and how its about Easter bunny... now remember this is coming from a 6 year old. So Sam said to me "Mommy if I can't talk about God at school I don't want to ever go to public schools!" Sam has no idea there are private schools out there... she thinks its either public or home schooling.