Day 104: Complete Metamorphosis

After studying birds for the first part of the year, we moved to the flying dinosaurs. Apologia then had us studying the bats. Now we moved on to insects and will do that for the rest of the year.

I can not tell you how much I (!) am learning alongside these kids. I know we talked about metamorphosis during my school years, but I am pretty sure that we never covered complete and incomplete metamorphosis. That is what we learned the other day. So today, Coqui showed me what he 'built' with those shapes that his sisters usually plays with. All four stages of a complete metamorphosis. I love when they do this kind of stuff on their own.

They got it. Yeah.

Now one big reason why I love Apologia is that it is Christian based, creation based, and anything taught points back to God.  Studying the complete metamorphosis, the book tight in the Christian walk of becoming a new creation when we first believe and invite Jesus into our hearts. What a beautiful picture that is. When we become a Christ follower, we also go through a complete metamorphosis, and at the end, we come out like a brand-new, beautiful butterfly.

Day 85: Science Games Galore

I bought this book a while back when I was not sure which science curriculum I would use. I liked the idea of learning by playing. So in this book, there are several sets of matching card games across all of science. It covers animals, moon phases, habitats, and, as you see, adaptations. You play it just like a normal matching game, just that here, the picture has to match a certain text that explains what the student it suppose to learn. For instance, that the geese migrate to the south, that the snakes makes a sound to protect from predators, or that the walking stick can blend in with it's environment (aka camouflage).

It's a fun way to repeat and/or learn more about general science. We play it once in a while and have not used all the sets yet, so we are stretching the book a bit. Wonderful resource.

Day 81: Science Field trip

It's that time of the week again: field trip day. We had to get up early to be on the road and get to this amazing science museum. It was pretty much an all day trip that was so exhausting, but so fun. Once we got there, we saw a 3D movie. I can't remember my last time but it is many, many years ago, and only once. So this was exciting for me, but the kids loved the movie as well.

Then we got a tour of the museum to get an overview of what is there and how it works. Then we had an early lunch. After we had 'classes' where the kids were challenged to accomplish different tasks in science and engineering, like classifying animals, building a structure that withstands an earthquake, and partake in a study of identifying other planets. At the end, we were able to roam around the museum and try out everything in sight.

What a great trip and oh so educational. The kids had a blast learning and touching and seeing. I love our group so much. They have become my friends and the kids' friends, and we are doing this thing called homeschooling together. It makes it easier and funner. Once again, we are so blessed to be surrounded by like-minded people that we call friends.

Day 52: How hard is the job of a paleontologist?

We are more than halfway through our science book - that might not sound great to you, but to us that is huge progress. Last year, we also used Apologia, the Astrology book, and without that awesome Homeschool planner app that I talked about a few weeks ago, we did not even come close to halfway. So we dropped it all together and started a new book this year: Zoology 1, which are the Flying Creatures of the Fifth day. The Apologia program for the elementary age groups follows the six days of creation, so we kind of skipped a few books but that is the beauty of homeschooling, we CAN.

So we finished the bird study of the first half of the book and now moved to bats, dinosaurs, and insects. Coqui is not always a fan of science, but at least the notebook is made interesting enough for him to stick with it for every lesson. Today, we studied the flying dinosaurs, the pterosaurs. One of the experiments was to find out how hard the job of a paleontologist is. He had to study a photo of a person that he doesn't know very well, but that I know. The student was asked to make a table with three columns. In the first column, he had to write down facts of observation. What did he see on the picture? In the second column, he had to make guesses about the person. Who was she? What did she like doing? And so on. He did really good. Then I had to tell him about that person and he had to take notes. The picture above is of my latest grandma, my mother's mom. She was a great woman and I loved her very much. He filled up the entire page with notes - this is big for my non-writer. He really liked doing this. And he learned a little bit about our family. Great lesson from a great book. We really like the Apologia books.

Day 32: Our First Science Fair

Tonight, we participated in our very first Science Fair organized by one of our homeschool groups. Coqui had a hard time thinking of an experiment that interested him and still was presentable at a fair. Eventually, we came up with a cooking experiment. The big question was: Do noodles cook faster in salt water?

We filled two pots with four cups of water each, added a teaspoon of salt to one of them, and brought them both to a boil. Then we threw in the same amount of spaghetti and cooked them for nine minutes exact. After those nine minutes, we took them out and tasted them.

Now what do you think we observed?

For those that want to try it themselves, this is the part where you stop reading and go into your kitchen and started boiling that water. Those that just want to keep reading, the noodles in the pure water were perfectly done, but the noodles in the salt water were still hard on the inside, way before al dente! So they needed to cook longer. We threw them back in the water and cooked them some more and voila, we had dinner ready.

The big question now is why did this happen. We did a little research and found out that salt water has a higher boiling temperature than pure water which is at 212 degree Fahrenheit (or 100 degrees Celsius). Apparently, for salt water it depends how much salt is in the water, the more salt the higher the boiling point. So that's why the noodles were not done yet. Once we threw in the noodles, the waters cooled down a tid bit, and for the salt water, it took longer to reach it's boiling point again.

Coqui proudly presented his poster today, earned a reward, and got to eat that fabulous cake, done by one of my friends. All the kids did really great - I loved to see their little personalities coming out in the experiments. They were all interest lead and I love that. No pressure, no trying to out-do each other, but pure fun. Thank you to the two ladies that organized everything and put it all together. We love this community and are so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful group of people.

Skeletons and spiders

Last year, we were part of a local co-op that stopped during the summer. The mom that ran it was not planning on restarting it for this semester, very much to our disappointment. So we did without...... (It was sad because my kids always had so much fun there. Coqui had a (boy) friend there, and Peanut opened up so much there, just by watching everyone else.

Because we wanted to stay friends with her and her kids, occasional play dates took place over the summer, and on one of those a few weeks ago, she invited us back to her house. So for the past two weeks, we are back at our co-op - and we are very happy about that.

Due to the fact that 'some' families celebrate Halloween, our themes have been skeletons and spiders. First week, we talked about the different parts of the human skeleton and its functions. We read a book and did a craft.

Coqui's skeleton made out of different kinds of noodles

Peanut's skeleton

For our second week, we started ASL with the kids - which they really liked. They learned the entire alphabet in sign language. Even Miss Peanut stayed focused enough to learn a few letters herself.
Then we read a story. That was followed by several art and science projects. At the end, we did Spanish.

Make a spider out of cotton swabs and Styrofoam ball

Make a spider web out of rubber bands, and then out of strong and straws, and in the back yard out of some fabric material. They had lots of fun doing it.

I can not tell you how happy I am to be back at her house and do fun learning together with our friends. Her and her husband are great teachers. Her kids love my kids, they get along very well (most of the time). And we always include recess, and if we can't go outside, we do music with dancing inside. It's so wonderful to be back there. 

A good school day

Last week, we only had one day of school. Yep.

A while ago, I decided, if we have visitors in the house, it's not worse trying to do school. The kids are way too distracted. And I am too. So last week was an off week.

So today, we went back to school full force, and it went so well. The last two to three weeks had been a bit tough, trying to find a schedule that will work for us, keeping Coqui interested and motivated.

His favorite subject is Science. So we did two experiments today. One of them was the following.

I got a science experiment book in Target once, for 2nd and 3rd grade. So the explanations are not that age appropriated. But that doesn't matter, it's fun anyways.


Using a plastic bottle of water, empty, we had to put four tablespoons of vinegar in it. Then add some baking soda, actually two tablespoons. We did it wrong, as I poured it in the bottle directly - we were suppose to put it inside the balloon and then add it with the balloon into the bottle. Oh well. Then put a balloon over the opening of the bottle and the following will happen.

It's pretty cool. And Coqui was totally impressed by this.

Science Co-op and Science at home

This week at the co-op, we discovered the three states of matter. You know: solid, liquid and gas. The kids were excited and yet they all sat still listening to the teacher. Very exciting.

So when the teacher started to explain what the three states are, my son had something to say:

"I know all about gas already!" He exclaimed. "My mom is taking gas with her car all the time."
Just writing this I am cracking up, it's so funny. Do you want to know that at the time, I was in the bathroom, so I only heard it through the door, trying not to giggle too loud. I wish I could have seen the teacher's face....

Okay, moving on..... when you are done laughing. After the lesson and a story, we went over to the art center in order to make goo. The teacher used water and cornstarch - and for the 'Halloween-y' effect, they added green color to it.

Can I mention on a side note, that I am so glad that this is not happening at my house!? The teacher is a real trooper in my eyes, having ten to fifteen kids in her house each week, making a mess, sometimes small and sometimes big! But the kids loved it, of course.

When all done, and the goo was suppose to be put away, one of the boys from the class played with Coqui's goo, and of course, spilled it all over the table. So not only did he make a mess, but worse for my son, Coqui couldn't bring his goo home to show to Daddy. Bummer.

After recess, in Art, they made a spooky forest out of shaving cream and, again, green color. It is suppose to harden - but it was still way too wet by the time we had to leave, so we are gonna pick it up next week.

This was all yesterday, so today, I thought, I will just go over it again, maybe then it will 'stick' better. Also, he wanted to have his own goo at home. So to work we went...

I only had neon green. This is with cornstarch again. We also tried to see what would happen with baking soda, and made it pink. (for anybody that cares, baking soda doesn't combine well with water, it stays on the bottom of the container and the water is 'floating' above it.)

It was actually alot of fun for Mami as well.