The last time I posted, it was about the English I course that I designed. It is going fairly well. After much discussion, we realized that science wasn't fitting his needs, so we have decided that for the rest of the year we will allow Rocket Boy to follow his own interests and do some unit studies. First up was a chemistry unit.
From a young age, Rocket Boy has always wanted to know about fireworks. He brought this up right away when I asked him what he'd like to learn about. Here is a list of the materials that he used, with his father helping with the labs.
The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire and Phosphorous by John Emsley
Gunpowder Alchemy, Bombards and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World by Jack Kelly
Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History by Penny LeCouteur
Chemistry of Fireworks unit study w/labs from the American Chemical Society.
They tried to make the black snake, but it didn't work out so well. I know they had fun trying, though!
We don't really know what's next, Rocket Boy is still finishing up the reading for this one. We will figure it out this week, though!
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Friday, January 22, 2010
Weekly Review - Week 21 (Jan 18-22)
I can't believe that another week has already passed by! Here's what happened:
Pre-Algebra - This week was a review of decimals and square roots. The review went well, although Rocket Boy is still having trouble with the concept of negative numbers. I have been looking at a couple of options to help with this. Because Rocket Boy learns visually, I am hoping to find some type of manipulative that will help. We continued playing math games. This week we worked Mindware puzzles. They were a lot of fun!
History Odyssey - Rocket Boy didn't cover any new history this week, concentrating instead on his Industrial Revolution report. He has researched and written two of the three topic paragraphs and will continue working on this next week.
Bible - we are continuing to read Genesis and are up to Joseph. His brothers are back home after receiving wheat and are getting ready to return to Joseph with the family.
Science - this week Rocket boy compelted the first of two chapters on genetics and DNA. His test will be on Monday. Labs are underway using this kit:
Rocket Boy tried to extract DNA from a tomato, but the experiment failed, however he has done some trouble shooting and thinks it is because our dish detergent created way too many suds because it is a concentrated formula. He will try again next week. This is the picture of the failed mixture - you can see that it is entirely foamy.
Here he is preparing some petri dishes so that he can grow bacteria. We're going to find out if there are any bacteria on his fingers! I'll post results next week.
Here he is constructing a DNA model.
The completed DNA model.
We have a lot of things brewing, most urgent is First Lego League. We are coming up on our regional championship that takes place on Feb. 6. Please visit the team website to see videos and photos from this seasons project. They have done a really good job! While you are there, take a few minutes to fill out a survey on your bike riding habits, or lack thereof. They would appreciate it very much.
We have two cats in our home. One of them sits in a chair beside us at the dining room table when we are working on school work. We call her the math cat! Occasionally she will crawl into my lap to get a view of what's happening on the tabletop. Here is a picture of the two of us from this week:
Pre-Algebra - This week was a review of decimals and square roots. The review went well, although Rocket Boy is still having trouble with the concept of negative numbers. I have been looking at a couple of options to help with this. Because Rocket Boy learns visually, I am hoping to find some type of manipulative that will help. We continued playing math games. This week we worked Mindware puzzles. They were a lot of fun!
History Odyssey - Rocket Boy didn't cover any new history this week, concentrating instead on his Industrial Revolution report. He has researched and written two of the three topic paragraphs and will continue working on this next week.
Bible - we are continuing to read Genesis and are up to Joseph. His brothers are back home after receiving wheat and are getting ready to return to Joseph with the family.
Science - this week Rocket boy compelted the first of two chapters on genetics and DNA. His test will be on Monday. Labs are underway using this kit:
Rocket Boy tried to extract DNA from a tomato, but the experiment failed, however he has done some trouble shooting and thinks it is because our dish detergent created way too many suds because it is a concentrated formula. He will try again next week. This is the picture of the failed mixture - you can see that it is entirely foamy. 
Here he is preparing some petri dishes so that he can grow bacteria. We're going to find out if there are any bacteria on his fingers! I'll post results next week. 
Here he is constructing a DNA model.
The completed DNA model.
We have a lot of things brewing, most urgent is First Lego League. We are coming up on our regional championship that takes place on Feb. 6. Please visit the team website to see videos and photos from this seasons project. They have done a really good job! While you are there, take a few minutes to fill out a survey on your bike riding habits, or lack thereof. They would appreciate it very much.
We have two cats in our home. One of them sits in a chair beside us at the dining room table when we are working on school work. We call her the math cat! Occasionally she will crawl into my lap to get a view of what's happening on the tabletop. Here is a picture of the two of us from this week:
Have a happy Friday everyone!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Weekly Update - Week 10 (10/13-10/16)
Maybe I am defining the word weekly a bit loosely. Hopefully I can get better at this!
I figured out this week that we are proceeding at roughly half speed in history and science. We are continuing our pattern of getting one or the other done, but not both.
The big news this week is that we actually did get some science work done! Activities, writing assignments and labs were completed and enjoyed! This week we covered cell theory, learned about the parts of the microscope and how to use it, looked at cork under the microscope just like Robert Hooke did back in 1663 when he first observed cells.
Pre-Algebra has been rough going - subtracting negative integers is a real sticking point in it's own right, but then combine them with long problems in which the order of operations is critical, then you can see a bit of what we've been working with. This week has been a review week for that reason. This was not a hard concept last year, but with the longer problems in Pre-Algebra, it is easier to become confused and to make simple errors in transcription if there are any interruptions or distractions to the work flow. Hoping this will smooth out in the coming days.
Grammar and spelling have been moving along nicely. Next week we will ramp up the language arts portion of the curriculum by beginning to write a biography on one of the people that has been encountered in the history studies. It will be interesting to see who is chosen - will it be Galileo Galeli, Carl Linnaeus or someone else?
Our Bible reading & prayer time continues daily, however we have stalled with discussions of the workbook we are using. My student is enrolled in a new elective class at church that covers theology, so that should complement our home study of theology well. I am hoping we can get back on track with this over the next few weeks. We read 1 Timothy this week.
Thinking forward:
I will have to assess where we are going to go with the remainder of the year. We will finish up Ch. 2 this week. Today I took the time to plan out the next chapter on cell processes and energy. I have 54 school days worth of plans for that one chapter alone. At this rate,we will not fully complete the material I wanted to cover during the year. I had already dropped the ecology chapters because we had covered that thoroughly during the past two years. I am committed to finishing the first unit in the book (7 chapters) because it includes basic information on Biology. My son had been looking forward to unit 3 on Human Biology and Health (which follows neatly after the end of unit 1, which includes an introduction to genetics. The unit in question is Unit 2 which covers living things - a chapter on viruses, bacteria, protists and fungi, a chapter on plants and then 5 chapters on various animals.
Towards that end, I read a fabulous book this week: Nurturing Inquiry by Charles R. Pearce. I picked up the book recommendation on The Well Trained Mind forums. It is an excellent description of using inquiry to teach science. I have been a bit puzzled by the recent descriptions of "science as inquiry" that I have seen here and there and this book proved to be an excellent primer on the concept. I think we will be making some changes in the weeks to come!
I figured out this week that we are proceeding at roughly half speed in history and science. We are continuing our pattern of getting one or the other done, but not both.
The big news this week is that we actually did get some science work done! Activities, writing assignments and labs were completed and enjoyed! This week we covered cell theory, learned about the parts of the microscope and how to use it, looked at cork under the microscope just like Robert Hooke did back in 1663 when he first observed cells.
Pre-Algebra has been rough going - subtracting negative integers is a real sticking point in it's own right, but then combine them with long problems in which the order of operations is critical, then you can see a bit of what we've been working with. This week has been a review week for that reason. This was not a hard concept last year, but with the longer problems in Pre-Algebra, it is easier to become confused and to make simple errors in transcription if there are any interruptions or distractions to the work flow. Hoping this will smooth out in the coming days.
Grammar and spelling have been moving along nicely. Next week we will ramp up the language arts portion of the curriculum by beginning to write a biography on one of the people that has been encountered in the history studies. It will be interesting to see who is chosen - will it be Galileo Galeli, Carl Linnaeus or someone else?
Our Bible reading & prayer time continues daily, however we have stalled with discussions of the workbook we are using. My student is enrolled in a new elective class at church that covers theology, so that should complement our home study of theology well. I am hoping we can get back on track with this over the next few weeks. We read 1 Timothy this week.
Thinking forward:
I will have to assess where we are going to go with the remainder of the year. We will finish up Ch. 2 this week. Today I took the time to plan out the next chapter on cell processes and energy. I have 54 school days worth of plans for that one chapter alone. At this rate,we will not fully complete the material I wanted to cover during the year. I had already dropped the ecology chapters because we had covered that thoroughly during the past two years. I am committed to finishing the first unit in the book (7 chapters) because it includes basic information on Biology. My son had been looking forward to unit 3 on Human Biology and Health (which follows neatly after the end of unit 1, which includes an introduction to genetics. The unit in question is Unit 2 which covers living things - a chapter on viruses, bacteria, protists and fungi, a chapter on plants and then 5 chapters on various animals.
Towards that end, I read a fabulous book this week: Nurturing Inquiry by Charles R. Pearce. I picked up the book recommendation on The Well Trained Mind forums. It is an excellent description of using inquiry to teach science. I have been a bit puzzled by the recent descriptions of "science as inquiry" that I have seen here and there and this book proved to be an excellent primer on the concept. I think we will be making some changes in the weeks to come!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Game On - First Lego League Announces the Smart Move Missions!
Today FIRST announced the missions and project for the Smart Moves Challenge! It promises to be a great season - check out First Lego League!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
St. Louis Science Center
Last week in the midst of a family emergency, we had a brief reprieve as we visited the St. Louis Science Center. Some of the exhibits are showing their age, but overall it is a very good museum with a lot of different exhibits. One of the highlights was the Life Science Lab where we were able to complete two different labs in their activity bench area. The first lab was observing planaria. I was glad this was here - it is one of our science labs this year that I was going to skip - not knowing what to do with the planaria after we were finished observing them. I didn't want to be responsible for the little creatures! We also completed the lab "Be a Crime Scene Investigator" where Nathaniel learned about the forensics process and chromotography. He correctly identified which pen wrote a note! Here is a picture of our family enjoying our lab experience:
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