Walking Water Experiment

Connections Academy - Online School for Grades K–12.

Science in the Beginning

It look us a long time to find the perfect science curriculum/book. This year we started using the book Science in the Beginning by Dr Jay Wile. What an absolute blessing this book has been to us.

As you note from the title of the book Science in the Beginning it is creation based. It jumps of from day one all the way to the sixth day of creation. With every lesson there is a hands-on activity and also lesson reviews where the kids can write and draw what they learned in a journal. There is no official journal that are part of this book, you just use what you have. With the text book you also get a parents help book.
 

Learning about light

The book was written so everyone could clearly understand it. If teaching science to your kids was one of your biggest homeschool fears, well fear no more, it is very straight forward. Everything you need to know and the supplies you need is all listed in the book. The supplies are basic items you will find in your home, with an exception of a few extras.

Learning about colours and light

Before we purchased this book, we worked on the sample that is downloadable from the publishers site. The kids loved it from the get go. The experiments are fun and easy to understand and they just want to know when we are doing the next lesson.

For those who live in South Africa, the book can be purchased from Oikos Ministries.

This book is part of a series, we are only using the first book in the series. It can be used teaching multiple ages at once - always a bonus when homeschooling various grades/levels.

What the kids understood about what light is.

How do we see colours?

How we use the book:
We gather all the supplies and do the experiment. Then I read the lesson to them. (My children are Afrikaans, but I still read it to them in English and explain in Afrikaans.) Finally they would answer the review questions and do the written/drawing assignment.

Check out this videos of experiments Dr Wile did.

Guiding Light

Wind

Cloud formation

Here is a great article Dr Jay's Top 10 Homeschool Science Tips.

We really love this book and hope you will give it a go to.

Update: I just noted there is a downloadable notebook free from the Publishers site. You can download it HERE, go to the Download tab at the middle and the file is the bottom one. I am planning on printing and using that one too.

Blessings

Maryna

The wonder of the magnifying glass

There is nothing greater to a child than having dad teach them something new and doing something creative with them.

Hubby got a few pieces of scrap wood from a supplier close to us for free. Each with a magnifying glass in hand they started their new burning artwork.

Here is the first artwork. Matthew made a car's exhaust - who would have through of that. Makayla made the heart.

The goal behind doing this is not only to show the kids how to make artwork in a different way. They also learn a valuable survival tip - what to do when you only have a piece of glass or maybe eye-glasses with you and you have to make a fire. It also demonstrates how powerful the sun is. Very important that a magnifying glass in the sun is not a toy, it can be dangerous and cause massive fires. 

Have you done this with your children?


Blessings

Maryna

Learn about them Bones

Sticking with our human body theme we learned about bones.

In the book How your Body Works (with our beautiful Billy Bones skeleton) there is a activity where you can make your own 'bone'.

This is what you need:
Coloured cardstock
Straws
Glue
Sellotape

Do this:
Place a piece of cardstock the same length as your straws down. Cover the cardstock with glue. Place the straws on the glue and secure with a few sections of sellotape. Finally role up the creation to make a tube.

What we learn:
 Bones are not solid. If they were you will not be able to move as it would be too heavy. Bone grow in circular tubes that are hollow.

Watch this animated video of the Structure of Bone.

Watch this stop motion film (who said Lego's are just for playing) of how bone heals.

Challenge yourself and learn the various bone types, their uses and the names of all the major bones in your body.

Happy learning.

Blessings

Maryna

Anatomy T-shirt

 A fun way to learn the basic names of internal organs.

Before it was painted

On Ellen McHenry's site there is wonderful make and do free resources.

As I am busy doing translations for our Afrikaans site with her permission, we decided to make the Anatomy T-shirt. (The Afrikaans version of the template and instructions will be available in a few weeks when I launch the site).

On Ellen's site you can download the instructions and template for the T-shirt in various sizes. I happen to come across one old white T-shirt this morning and worked perfect for us.

We did not write the labels of the internal organs on the T-shirt. We are using ribbon with the names written on it and attaching it to the various parts with  those nappy pins (sorry could not remember the correct word).

My method for tracing the template on the T-shirt: On the back of the template I went over the lines with a 4B pencil. Then putting the pencil part facing the T-shirt I used a pen and went over the lines until the pencil markings came off on the T-shirt. I then outlined the pencil markings with a black pen. See the top picture what it looked like before I painted it.

Below you can see the painted version. Yes I know the T-shirt is too small for Matthew, but he also wanted a photo with the organs (LOL)

After it was painted.

Have to admit, I like the before better than the after. Just a word a caution this took a couple of hours to complete, so you need loads of time.

Happy learning.

Blessings

Maryna

Mould/Fungi experiment

We all might have left bread a little too long and it starts to mould. Have to admit it is quite nasty. Well lets look at the scientific perspective of it. How amazing is it that one thing always grows from another.

We did a little experiment. We took a piece of stale bread, put a few drops of water on it. Placed it in a petri dish with a lid on and left it in a dark cupboard for several weeks.

Mold covered bread

It was very interesting to see what types of mould actually grows on it, there you will see white, black and even brown with many threads. The brown started going slimy. 

Even thought it is all really gross, this mould is still a plant and belongs to the Fungi group. The only difference between this plant and other is that it can't make food due to a lack of chlorophyll.

source Microbiology Online

Above you can see exactly what the structure of mould looks like. 

The black spots we normally see in mould is called spores. Their function is to grow new mould with this being said they are so lightweight which makes it easy to travel through air and spread around.

Very important the mould that grows on bread is harmful and can lead to food poisoning.  

Watch this fascinating time-lapse video to see how mould grows.

On the website of Environmental Graffiti you can view beautiful photos of fungi under the microscope. Happy exploring.

Blessings

Maryna

Balloon rocket

Matthew wanted to make and test out the balloon rocket, basically he likes anything that can 'fly'.

What you need:
2 chairs
String
Balloon
straw
sticky tape


What to do:
Place the string inside the straw then tie the string to two chairs. Blow up the balloon and attache it to the straw using sticky tape, don't let it deflate. When ready, let go of the balloon.

What is happening here?
When the balloon deflates, it pushes air out from the neck. The air pushes the balloon in the opposite direction. 

The science rule: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Attentiveness - Part 2

Psalm 139:14

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

Isn't it just amazing how wonderful God has made us? This week we learned about our amazing skin. 

Finger prints

There are no two people in the world that is similar. Just as our DNA are different, so is our finger prints. Finger prints give you an identity. Police use finger print records to determine who a suspect is. Read more about fingerprints HERE.

We did this fun activity by taking the kids finger prints.

 How did we do this?

1. Take a normal graphite pencil and rub it on a piece of paper. 

2. Place your child's finger on top of the pencil rubbing marks.

3. Use a piece of clear tape and place it over the finger, press on it and pull it off.

4. Now put the tape on the paper. Neat hey!

Extra fun: Thumbprint characters

We used the book Great Thumbrpint Drawing Book by Ed Emberley's that we found at the library. There are several new additions to this book.

You can also check out this video clip.

Skin

The amazing fact about skin besides it being your biggest organ.It also weigh about 15% of your body weight.Another amazing facts:You skin basically works as a build in air-conditioner for your body. When you are hot, you sweat, then your sweat evaporates and cools your body down. 

Skin anatomy. 

 

source: Wikipedia

Here is some amazing videos about your skin.

Anatomy of skin

 

Human skin

Watch this fun video of Hi-5 about the 5 senses. My kids just loved it :)

It is important that we don't just teach our kids about the skin, what it looks like etc. It is also important to teach them how to take care of their skin. Sun protection and much more.

Even though we are not done with our senses unit, we decided to move on to bird study next. Will post on that in due time.