Sweetness and Light

Wordless Wednesday ~ Science with Sissy

 

 

 

Who could resist the "great sugar cube" experiment!

Creating Biomes ~ Ready for Research

(Repost from 2008. As I know many of us are in the planning stages for the new school year, I though it might be helpful to do a series of posts that added an element of fun and hands-on enjoyment in some of our year's past. This is great for Science and Research. Enjoy!!)

We having been enjoying the wonderful DVD's put out by the BBC on our Planet Earth and have led us to tremendous amounts of research and discovery of different biomes, habitats and many wondrous geographical features. 

Along with the Advanced Landforms Kits and Research Materials from Montessori for Everyone, the children are making the research their own with enthusiasm and delight in their learning hands-on!  Here is a sampling of what the three older children accomplished yesterday after I requested that they each gather materials and create one of the Biomes or Habitats they have seen on the DVDs. 

Sean-Paul was right by my side working with the Landforms Trays.  He loves pouring blue water for any project!

Violet chose to make a Baobab Forest found only in Madagascar and Australia.  She formed her trunks with modeling clay and then added white lilac blossoms to represent the enormous "banana-shaped" flowers that open only at night peeling back in seconds to display thousands of stamens and brilliant hot pink blossoms.  Then she added some animals that might live in her biome.

Here is an excerpt from her research and a closer look...

"...These interesting trees have very fat trunks with leaves only at the top to form a sort of canopy.  They almost look like giant celery stalks.  The trunks will hold up to 31,700 gallons of water to last them through any drought.  During the rainy season when the Baobab is swelled with water, they undergo a magical transformation in the night.  On the trees, there are banana shaped parts a foot long, which open up to reveal a gorgeous flower.  The flower has yellow petals, a long pink pistil and millions of stamens.  Many animals love to feast on the nectar of this flower..."

Matthias created a Asiatic grassland also with animals to represent his biome.  I really like how creatively he chose his materials to image this habitat.  The fun part for him happened later when we all realized that the dandelion stalks he chose opened into their seed plumes as they warmed up inside the house!  A veritable transformation that added an element of surprise to his habitat.

Here's a closer look before the animals were installed...

And last but certainly not least, Seamus' Biome is the Tiaga Forest in the Northern hemisphere.  He chose this all on his own and selected his materials accordingly.  I especially liked his idea of using flour to represent the snow.  He included a moose, bobcat, deer, wolverine, and wolf.  Seamus especially loved this work and didn't stop talking about his creation and the Tiaga all afternoon!

And a closer look...

This was really fun and an easy hands-on activity to further our Biomes research and to trigger memory of things seen and learned from the Dvd's.  Each time we sit down to view a particular Biome or Habitat we learn yet another interesting fact about our beloved Planet Earth!  I hope you'll try this with your sweeties and see what wonders they can create!

Have the best day and may God bless you always!

Volcanoes in Action!

As an add-on to my post on our First Great Lesson this past Monday, here is a nice little slideshow of Seamus's very own Plastina Volcano in Action!!  Enjoy!

Free MySpace slideshows, photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thanks for visiting!!  Check this out if you're looking for a Pre-School Unit Study on Volcanoes!  Let me know if you use it with your sweeties!!  Blessings!

Science in a Nutshell

Science could perhaps be a weak link in our learning chain - although by secular standards my dear children are "way ahead of the game."  (I know, they've been tested!)  But as with any portion of home education there's bound to be a few weaknesses (mostly mine) and I feel we may fall a bit short here in the way of doing experiments and science exposure.

Now, when I think about all we cover with Nature Study, I imagine we are over and above the top for science in the study of the natural world.  This is a true love of ours and truly Charlotte Mason didn't separate the two subjects (until high school I believe) so I'm certainly not too stressed!  All that said here's what we are engaging in for this year:

• Behold and See (CHC) - kind of for overview and age appropriateness of the older two children.  I like the way this progresses and it's very Catholic much like all their other materials!

• Mater Amabilis The Human Body (Level 2, Year 2) for Violet along with the Medicine of Ancient Rome and Science of Ancient Greece.  These play in nicely with our Historical bent and 5th grade seems a good time for some biology (in a gentle way).

• Violet is really enjoying Blood and Guts and we'll read Galen and the Gateway to Medicine when we get closer to Ancient Rome.
• We'll also visit the Science of Ancient Greece mainly as a historical lead in to Archedimes and the Door to Science. 

I hope this will be a good start to our Science year.  We will do experiments from Blood and Guts and Behold and See and the always enjoyable Discover and Do Science DVD from Sonlight! (This is one of Seamus's favorite DVD's to watch, I love that it's Science!!  We also really like the Bill Nye the Science Guy DVD's they are very well done.

We'll also be reading as much as we can with a scientific angle and this will probably cross over into Nature Study and Math, a double bonus as far as I'm concerned!!  It's seems like it might be a small nutshell for Science, but doable for us!  What do you like to use for Science???