1st Quarter Thoughts

Okay, I've tried some new things this year, and I already have some pretty solid opinions and thoughts.

In no particular order:

1.  Don't waste your money on Wordly Wise 3000 Grade 1.  I bought this workbook and looked at the 'sneak peek' online.  It looked perfect!  I normally read reviews, but I had already read reviews on the other grade levels and figured it would be the same.  Lesson learned: ALWAYS read reviews . . . for EVERY item.  Here, the workbook has to be used with a teacher's guide.  It did not state that on the website I was on.  Usually it has at the bottom, "People who looked at this also looked at that."  Or something like that.  Well, no big deal.  Order a teacher's guide, right?!?  WRONG!!  The teacher's guides are only on websites like Ebay and are going for just under $200.  My assumption is that they're no longer in print.  So why would a bookstore sell a workbook that you can't use??  Good question.  Still don't know the answer to that.  So we're struggling through Wordly Wise for my 1st grader.  But 2nd -4th are great!!

2.  Teacher Time / Self Study (a tutoring method I came up with) is working really well!  This is our best year yet!!!  I have had no, I repeat no, complaining about having to do school.  No moaning.  No 'aawwWWwww'.  Zilch.  The kids love it.  And I love it.  Makes our days go much smoother.  In fact, my kids get up early some mornings and are asking to start school at 6am.

3.  Unit study is the way for us!  We are almost done with our Science Unit.  The kids love it.  We do it daily.  I think it's their most favorite subject.  Next up is Geography, then History and lastly Health.  For Language Arts, our first quarter we did Spelling everyday.  Three kids completed a level.  One kid came close.  Now we are doing Vocabulary.  And the last unit will be Phonics.  Grammar, Reading and Writing are our all year subjects in that category.  Anyway, Unit Study = success!

4.  Harder subjects in the first quarter. Since we are doing a lot of unit studies this year, it made this method easy.  I scheduled it where all our 'tougher' subjects were done (or started) in the first quarter.  Then as time goes on, they drop out one by one and are replaced with an easier subject.  We worked our behinds off in quarter 1, but it has made quarter 2 seems so much easier so far.  Hopefully that trend will continue to the end.

5.  Because the harder subjects are over (or almost over) we were able to add some fun electives in for the rest of the school year.  My oldest is doing Piano and Typing.  My oldest middle is doing Typing and will be adding Art on soon.  And the second to youngest is doing Typing.

6.  I can never get enough of Astronomy.  And luckily for them, neither can my kids.

7.  Science projects can be fun!  Every year I've avoided Science experiments like the plague.  My kids love them.  Maybe that's because they didn't have to gather materials, read through directions to make sure they understood, take the time to prep, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching experiments just as much as the next person.  Mythbusters is a favorite show of mine.  But I always hated doing them.  Well, Exploring Creation with Astronomy has healed me of that.  I love doing the experiments with the kids.  Just take a look at all my Astronomy posts.  Point proven. ;)  It probably also helps if you're interested in the topic.  Anyway, Science is fun this year.

8.  I'm so proud of my 6th grader.  He struggles in Language Arts.  I mean really struggles.  But he worked his tail off this past quarter and got a 4.0 GPA.  Yep, All A's.  Congrats Kaidin!!!

Here are a few end of quarter pictures:

His first quarter report card

Standing in front of her spelling board - Spelling Level 5 complete!

His very first year of spelling complete!  He can spell over 200 words!!

He completed his Level 2 toward the beginning of the quarter.  It continued from last year.  Great job Gavin!!!

He completed his first 'real' chapter book.  He's a world of difference from this time last year!

Venus, Mars, Rocks & Shooting Stars

I know some of you have been chomping at the bit to find out which planet is the hottest planet.

[Note an insane amount of sarcasm here] 

;)

The answer:

VENUS

It has a very thick atmosphere which holds in the sun's heat.
It's a whopping 870* day and night.
And we complain about getting to 100*. Pshh.

Venus Science Projects

 #1

Using Radar to determine the surface of Venus.

Since Venus's atmosphere is so thick and non-transparent,

Radar is needed in order to get a feel for the surface.

Using a color coded skewer to map out the surface

Blue/Purple are craters or deep areas, Green is surface land, Red/Orange are hills/mountains, Yellow are high peeks

He took a 3D picture of his

It must've been really hot in the schoolroom that day for him to have a cool neck wrap on. ;)

The big reveal to see what it actually looked like inside (the Legos were not color coded)

#2

Venus is full of volcanoes - Thousands of them really.

The lava thickens after each explosion.

So we used butter to represent the lava.

As it poured down the volcano, it thickened.

A lot like what happens on the surface of Venus.

I didn't have red food coloring, so I used red icing.  Yeah, that didn't work that well.

Our flour volcano with a custard cup in the center.  We turned it upside down so the lava could immediately run down the sides of the volcano.

hmmm . . . not quite what we expected, but it did show how the lava gelled as it cooled.

Touching the cooled lava.

MARS

Mars Science Experiments

#1  Why is Mars red?

We took a little play sand and put it in the pie pan to represent Mars's surface

Mars has a LOT of iron in it, so we took some steel wool and flaked it all over the sand

I didn't feel like waiting for moisture to rust the steel, so we sped up the process and sprayed vinegar all over it.

And the apparently scary results:  An orangish brown surface.

#2

We made our own little edible Mars Rovers just for fun.

Here is our template.  Courtesy of our science book: Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie Fulbright

Gathering supplies: Graham Crackers, Icing, Vanilla Wafers & Twizzlers

Mars Rover #1

Mars Rover #2

Mars Rover #3

Mars Rover #4

 #3

Mars has the largest volcano in our solar system.

It's name: Olympus Mons

It has never erupted (at least to our knowledge),

so we wanted to represent what it would look like if it did.

We have been waiting to do this experiment for a looong time.

5 Bottles of Coke & 3 different packs of Mentos later . . .

One whole pack of Mentos in a 2L bottle of Diet Coke

ROCKS & SHOOTING STARS

Meteoroids are space rocks, ice & dust that float around in space.

Meteors are Meteoroids that burn up in the Earth's atmosphere ~ Often called shooting stars.

Meteorites are Meteors (or anything) that makes it through the Earth's atmosphere and hits the surface.

Comets are balls of dirt, ice, rocks & snow that orbit close to the Sun on an elliptical orbital path.

Asteroids are space rocks that are at least football field sized or larger.

Any smaller than that and they're considered Meteoroids.

The asteroid belt is in between Mars and Jupiter.

The Exploded Planet Hypothesis suggests that perhaps the asteroid belt used to be a planet that exploded.

That would explain the large amount of craters on one side of each of the inner planets and moons and the craters on one side of the gaseous planet's moons.

Inner Planets & Asteroid Belt Model

1 yard = 3,600,000 miles  -  The equivalent Earth size is the blue dot on the left paper.  The equivalent Sun size is the orange circle on the right paper.  And the bottom left corner of the Sun paper is the equivalent Pluto (the size of a sprinkle)

We mapped the inner planets and the asteroid belt only

Otherwise we would have had to put Jupiter in the house at the end of the street.

Hard to see, but I'm at the Asteroid Belt.  The green pail is Mars.  My daughter is Earth.  My three sons are Venus, Mercury and the Sun.  The distance from the Asteroid Belt to the Sun is 77 yards. (280,000,000 mi)

To finish out the solar system model, our street would have had to been a half mile long. (would have been the equivalent to 3,673,000,000 mi)  It's not.  So we stopped at the Asteroid Belt.

And so next week we begin our study on the outer planets.
First Up: Jupiter
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*Note: Diet Coke & Mentos experiment:  In order to have a huge eruption, you must use Original Mint Mentos (which we could not find) and the name brand 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke.  If the Mentos are wax coated (which were the only kind we could find in our local stores), you need to dump an entire pack in for a small/medium eruption.