Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Physics: Force & Motion + Gravity + Isaac Newton (Block 1)

Our school days ran overly long last week (our first week of third grade). It's apparent that I'm going to have to drastically restructure our history plans and go back to a rotating block schedule for it and science. I can't figure any other way to work it. That means history will have to take a back seat to science for a while.

This is the fourth and final year of our first time around the history-science cycle we follow. I talked about the four-year cycle method way back when we started Ancient History. Here's a refresher as to the ordering.

Ancient History < > Life Science (First, Fifth, Ninth Grades)
Middle Ages < > Earth Science & Astronomy (Second, Sixth, Tenth Grades)
Early Modern < > Chemistry (Third, Seventh, Eleventh Grades)
Modern & Today < > Physics (Fourth, Eight, Twelfth Grades)

We're a year ahead, so that means Modern History and Physics are up for us this year. Luckily, physical science is common in the early grades, so materials were a good bit easier to come by than when we studied chemistry last year. However, creative, quality output options I found lacking.

We will primarily be using BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr., Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs, various science themed books by Nomad Press, and a couple of supplements from Teachers Pay Teachers in our study of physics this year.

Brain POP
 Explore Gravity!: With 25 Great Projects


Force & Motion - Day 1

Force & Motion - Day 2



Gravity - Day 1

Gravity pulls everything down toward the center of the earth. Tessa proved which way is straight down by creating plumb bobs with pencils, yarn and various objects around the school room. Her favorite bob had a plastic frog tied to it.
Gravity pulls everything down toward the center of the earth. Tessa proved which way is straight down by creating plumb bobs with pencils, yarn and various objects around the school room. Her favorite bob had a plastic frog tied to it.

Gravity - Day 2

Gravity - Day 3

Tessa and I created and tested a water level that we made out of clear plastic tubing, a funnel and colored water. Tessa learned that when water is in a confined space, gravity makes sure the top of it is level. Pretty cool!
Tessa and I created and tested a water level that we made out of clear plastic tubing, a funnel and colored water. Tessa learned that when water is in a confined space, gravity makes sure the top of it is level. Pretty cool!

Gravity - Day 4

Tessa fashioned a mobile from straws, paperclips and pictures drawn on card stock to better understand the relationship between gravity and balance. The theme for her mobile was our recent trip to Florida. It features pictures of the beach, a view of our condo at night from the pool, a pizza (doughnut on the opposite side), and a triple-scoop ice cream cone.
Tessa fashioned a mobile from straws, paperclips and pictures drawn on card stock to better understand the relationship between gravity and balance. The theme for her mobile was our recent trip to Florida. It features pictures of the beach, a view of our condo at night from the pool, a pizza (doughnut on the opposite side), and a triple-scoop ice cream cone.

Gravity - Day 5

Gravity - Day 6

Tessa swung a ball in a cup to see centripetal force in action. No matter how she swung it, the ball never fell out.
Tessa swung a ball in a cup to see centripetal force in action. No matter how she swung it, the ball never fell out.

Tessa created a mock Earth orbit with a drawing of the Earth taped into the bottom of a plastic bowl and a marble "moon" (the "moon" is the green blur on the right-hand side). She moved the bowl in a circular motion to experiment with centripetal and centrifugal force.
Tessa created a mock Earth orbit with a drawing of the Earth taped into the bottom of a plastic bowl and a marble "moon" (the "moon" is the green blur on the right-hand side). She moved the bowl in a circular motion to experiment with centripetal and centrifugal force.

Gravity - Day 7

Gravity - Day 8

Gravity - Day 9

Tessa played "Set the Bottle" to see how some carnival games use gravity to make it harder to win. I filled three bottles half full of water and then placed them in the freezer the day before so that one bottle froze upside down, one on its side and the third upright.
Tessa played "Set the Bottle" to see how some carnival games use gravity to make it harder to win. I filled three bottles half full of water and then placed them in the freezer the day before so that one bottle froze upside down, one on its side and the third upright.

Isaac Newton - Day 10
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Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Brownie Quest - Connect Key

It's Your World - Change It!: A Leadership Journey
Girl Scout Brownies

I've had several inquiries over the past months regarding how we completed the rest of our Brownie Quest Journey last year. I know it seems like we just kind of fell off the face of the earth. In reality, I overextended myself. Regretfully, the only thing I could responsibly drop to give myself a little breathing room was updating our blog. I'm going to do my best to rewind and provide an abbreviated version of what we did in a series of posts these next couple of weeks.

To recap...Brownie Quest - Discover Key.

Meeting 2

 Meeting 3

Quick Note: Although I don't plan to detail it, we did fill in the Brownie Quest Map as we progressed through our Journey. The girls delighted in guessing the names of the keys.


Brownie Quest - Connect Key

To find the Connect Key, Brownies connect as a Brownie Team, with their families on a healthy-living activity, and with their communities to increase healthy-living opportunities.

Brownie Quest Connect Key

Meeting 4
I printed the rules and story I read to the girls from Toobeez.com. I couldn't find my tablecloth, so we used an old beach towel for the sinking ship. The girls had an absolute blast with this and requested to play it a second time. I used information from the Brownie Quest How To Guide (page 60) to both preface and then discuss connecting as a team after the game.

  • Created the Brownie Team Agreement.
I felt the Brownie Team Agreement as presented in the How To Guide was rather dull. I knew it was not going to impress our very active troop of eight-and-nine-year-olds. Thank goodness I ran across a pic of Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten class promise bulletin board on Pinterest. Feel free to give it a "like," as this display totally transformed our Brownie Team Agreement into something creative and fun. The girls expressively enjoyed signing their agreement with custom paper-crafted self portraits.

After coloring and attaching lines of their Brownie Team Agreement to a piece of tag board, our girls paper-crafted self portraits to "sign" the agreement.

I used information from the Brownie Quest How To Guide (page 61) to type out, print and cut apart the lines to the team agreement ahead of time. (I recommend printing them on white cardstock.) During our troop meeting, I guided the girls in coming up with similar lines by using the answers they gave to the questions from our previous "Connecting as a Team" (page 60) discussion. I jotted down most all of their ideas on a dry erase board and then asked which ones would be the best to include in their team agreement. As the girls answered one at a time, I handed the corresponding pre-cut lines to them to color (we used colored pencils) any way they wanted. In other words, the girl who said, "helping each other" got the "to help each other," line to color.

After coloring and attaching the text with double-sided re-positional tape (to later be glued on permanently by the troop leader at home) for the Brownie Team Agreement to a piece of over-sized colored tag board, I handed out paper-crafting kits that I prepared ahead of time for the girls to make self portraits. I also displayed a sample of myself as a Brownie, so they could understand the idea. Each kit contained an appropriately colored skin tone circle for the head, a dark brown semicircle for the beanie, a slender dark brown rectangle for the beanie tab, a white Brownie elf emblem to be colored by the girl, one heart shape, and one star shape. Cardstock works best for all components. They shared scissors, glue sticks and colored pencils from community school boxes. The heart and the star were to represent the ever popular Girl Scout SWAP. Each girl was supposed to pick just one to write her name on and then attach it to her portrait's beanie at the end with a staple (to represent a safety pin), but some girls used the leftover shapes as barrettes. (An adult may wish to help with the stapling. My girls were exuberant staplers, which jammed the device. After the third time, I took over to prevent tears from damaged projects.) I had a short stack of quarter sheets of paper in various natural colors for them to choose from for their hair. Again, I had the girls use re-positional double-sided tape to affix their portraits to the team agreement. I detached and returned their portraits when I handed out end-of-the-year badges.

  • Learned to prepare two healthy snack recipes to connect with their families on a healthy-living activity at home.
It was nearing Christmas when our troop met to complete this step of the Journey, so I thought making Grinch-themed fruit kebabs with Strawberry Yogurt Fruit Dip (just two ingredients) would make this activity all the more festive. I demonstrated how to make the dip and then the girls made several kebabs to pass out to their parents and the other girls in our multi-level troop as a snack. I also sent home copies of the recipes for the Brownies to add to the family recipe books they made as part of the My Family Story badge. Learning how to make these healthy recipes and preparing them for their family members fulfilled the second part of the Connect Key. Making the kebabs for the other girls in the troop fulfilled Step 4 of the Snacks badge.

Meeting 5
  • Created "Circle Map: Creating Circles of Caring" from the Brownie Quest How To Guide (pages 66-67) more or less as suggested. I drew the concentric circles on a sheet of over-sized newsprint ahead of time. The girls took turns labeling the circles as we progressed through our discussion.
  • Passed out and then read aloud "The Case of the Broken Sidewalk" from the Brownie Quest girls' book. Discussed the corresponding questions from the Brownie Quest How To Guide (page 68). We also discussed what improvements could be made to better the city of Green Falls (How To Guide, page 64 and/or girls' book, page 61).
  • Crafted concentric circle bookmarks from circles that I pre-punched from heavy decorative cardstock (leftovers from a personal scrapbook project), colored craft sticks and glue (in the form of glue sticks).
  • Passed out Caring About Your Community slips to be completed at home and returned the next meeting. - The final part of earning the Brownie Quest Connect Key!

Tessa reluctantly posed with the concentric circle bookmarks she crafted during our "circle map" troop meeting.
Tessa reluctantly posed with the concentric circle bookmarks she crafted during our "circle map" troop meeting. 
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Monday, August 31, 2015

Home Art Studio: Second Grade - "Color Wheel"

Lured by pretty projects and clean design, I was so very tempted to switch our art program to lessons by Deep Space Sparkle this year. While she offers many wonderful, affordable lessons in print format, Tessa really works best during art with video guidance. Deep Space Sparkle offers some video lessons (the sample is very nicely done), but I couldn't justify the cost for a product we'll use only once and has no resale value (the video lessons are digital files).

Last year, we used Home Art Studio (a fairly new DVD-based leveled art program) for the first time. Tessa greatly enjoyed it and I found it easy to use. At just under thirty dollars retail, it's an excellent value for homeschoolers. We used First Grade last year because its around-the-world theme coordinated well with our history studies. I gave Tessa the option of using Second Grade or Third Grade this year. After checking out the student work galleries, she decide Second Grade looked more fun. So, that's the one we're using this year.

Home Art Studio: Second Gradee

After tracing around a large bowl on watercolor paper and then dividing the subsequent circle into six parts with the aid of a ruler, Tessa used green, yellow, orange, red, purple and blue tempera paints to create a color wheel. She will use the color wheel to help her choose complementary colors in future lessons.
After tracing around a large bowl on watercolor paper and then dividing the subsequent circle into six parts with the aid of a ruler, Tessa used green, yellow, orange, red, purple and blue tempera paints to create a color wheel. She will use the color wheel to help her choose complementary colors in future lessons. 

Tessa outlined her color wheel in black to make it pop.
Tessa outlined her color wheel in black to make it pop.

Tessa's completed color wheel.
Tessa's completed color wheel.
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Thursday, August 27, 2015

Last-Minute Beach Getaway (Seagrove Beach, FL) - July 2015

What do you do when the beach and blue seas are calling your name, but your pooch is too old to stay at her usual digs? Take her with you, of course! I'm not sure why it took us all year to figure this out. It wasn't so much that the thought hadn't occurred to us, it was more committing ourselves to driving hundreds of miles with an elderly dog in tow, finding a nice, yet affordable place walking-distance to the beach that would also accept a dog, plus the logistics of doing so. (Not to mention, accepting that a cruise or trip to Disney just wasn't in the cards this year.)

A little over two weeks to vacation time, we knew if we didn't buckle down very soon, it was going to be a staycation for us and no one wanted that (well, Sweetpea probably would have been okay with it). Not long after, we logged onto VRBO.com, closed our eyes, and booked us a vacation. While not our most exotic getaway, it was a good and memorable trip.


Woohoo, no June grass! These were some of the clearest waters we have seen anywhere in Florida. (The dark blotches are gigantic schools of fish!)
Woohoo, no June grass! These were some of the clearest waters we have seen anywhere in Florida. (The dark blotches are gigantic schools of fish!)

In our many vacations to Florida, we had never tried tubing the emerald waters. The waves were such that we found it to be a most relaxing way to spend our days.
In our many vacations to Florida, we had never tried tubing the emerald waters. The waves were such that we found it to be a most relaxing way to spend our days.

Tessa delighted in daily visits from the ice cream truck!
Tessa delighted in daily visits from the ice cream truck!

Previous guests at the condo we stayed at had graciously left several new kites. Tessa selected her favorite and enjoyed several minutes of kite flying on the beach. This was another first for us. She was really good at making it perform loops. Me? Not so much.
Previous guests at the condo we stayed at had graciously left several new kites. Tessa selected her favorite and enjoyed several minutes of kite flying on the beach. This was another first for us. She was really good at making it perform loops. Me? Not so much. 

Tessa insisted on breakfast on the balcony. Who could blame her?
Tessa insisted on breakfast on the balcony. Who could blame her?

I think Florida weather agreed with Sweetpea, our thirteen-year-old wire fox terrier. Her arthritis improved to the point that she walked like a youngin again. A few days upon returning from our trip, her lungs started gurgling. We found out that she has congestive heart failure. My husband has another week of vacation coming up. We're trying to decide whether she can handle one more trip, as she did so well and seemed so happy.
I think Florida weather agreed with Sweetpea, our thirteen-year-old wire fox terrier. Her arthritis improved to the point that she walked like a youngin again. A few days upon returning from our trip, her lungs started gurgling. We found out that she has congestive heart failure. My husband has another week of vacation coming up. We're trying to decide whether she can handle one more trip, as she did so well and seemed so happy.

After one sun-drenched day, we enjoyed an early dinner at Pizza By the Sea, a favorite Fort Walton Beach eatery of ours.
After one sun-drenched day, we enjoyed an early dinner at Pizza By the Sea, a favorite Fort Walton Beach eatery of ours.

Staying a little further west on the Panhandle this time, we discovered a new ice cream haunt. Blue Mountain Beach Creamery makes their own ice cream and features creative flavors. The banana pudding cone I had was so good I ordered it both times we stopped by.
Staying a little further west on the Panhandle this time, we discovered a new ice cream haunt. Blue Mountain Beach Creamery makes their own ice cream and features creative flavors. The banana pudding cone I had was so good I ordered it both times we stopped by.
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Monday, August 17, 2015

Third Grade 2015 - Age 8

A bit of a slow start this morning, but we got 'er done. Tessa's quite excited about starting so many new curricula this year. Wordly Wise 3000, CLE Reading and Beast Academy were big hits. Hopefully, that enthusiasm will endure. Tomorrow, we attempt New American Cursive and CAP's Writing & Rhetoric Book 1: Fable. Wish us luck!

See how she's grown! - Tessa's Second Grade 2014 - Age 7 pic.

Tessa's first day of third grade!
Tessa's first day of third grade!
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Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Chemistry: Atoms & Molecules (Block 1)

Och! Chemistry for a seven-year-old? Not an easy find. After spending a ridiculous amount of time searching and thinking, I finally settled on coordinating Louise and Richard Spilsbury's Building Blocks of Matter series with Carson-Dellosa's Hands-On Chemistry Experiments resource books, Bill Nye the Science Guy videos and an assortment of related titles available from our local library for our first two six-week blocks of chemistry. For our third and final block, we studied the period table of elements, which I'll detail in a later post.

Building Blocks of Matter: Atoms and Molecules by Louise and Richard Spilsbury Hands-On Chemistry Experiments, Grades K-2 by Carson-Dellosa Publishing Hands-On Chemistry Experiments, Grades 3-5 by Carson-Dellosa Publishing Bill Nye the Science Guy: Atoms DVD by Disney

Carson-Dellosa's Hands-On Chemistry Experiments includes student lab sheets, which Tessa completed in addition to the experiments themselves. Both the experiments and labs sheet may be previewed in full on Carson-Dellosa's Web site.

Completed August - October 2014.


Day 1

Day 2

Using Janice VanCleave's "83. Building Blocks" experiment as a guide, Tessa created a model of a lithium atom with a plastic milk jug cap, pipe cleaners and colored pony beads.
Using Janice VanCleave's "83. Building Blocks" experiment as a guide, Tessa created a model of a lithium atom with a plastic milk jug cap, pipe cleaners and colored pony beads.

Day 3

Day 4

Using Janice VanCleave's "84. Bonded" experiment as a guide, Tessa constructed a model of the physical structure of a methane molecule with toothpicks and gumdrops.
Using Janice VanCleave's "84. Bonded" experiment as a guide, Tessa constructed a model of the physical structure of a methane molecule with toothpicks and gumdrops.

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Tessa observed that oil, water and corn syrup have different densities. Before dropping small objects of various weights into the cup, she guessed where each would stay and then recorded the actual results. This was quite entertaining.
Tessa observed that oil, water and corn syrup have different densities. Before dropping small objects of various weights into the cup, she guessed where each would stay and then recorded the actual results. This was quite entertaining.

Day 10

Is it magic? No, it's density!
Is it magic? No, it's density!

Day 11
Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Tessa created a model with marbles and rice to demonstrate how salt can be poured into a seemingly full glass of water without flowing over. The grains of rice fill in the spaces between the marbles just as the grains of salt move around in water and take up the empty pockets of space that are between the water molecules, which is what initially keeps the glass from overflowing.
Tessa created a model with marbles and rice to demonstrate how salt can be poured into a seemingly full glass of water without flowing over. The grains of rice fill in the spaces between the marbles just as the grains of salt move around in water and take up the empty pockets of space that are between the water molecules, which is what initially keeps the glass from overflowing.

Day 17
Hands-On Chemistry Experiments, Grades K-2 "Let It Flow" (page 18) by Carson-Dellosa Publishing fits well here, but we did not conduct it due to its simplicity. Tessa had completed similar activities in the past.


Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22
Hands-On Chemistry Experiments, Grades K-2 "Popsicle Puddles" (page 52) by Carson-Dellosa Publishing fits well here, but we did not conduct it due to its simplicity. Tessa had completed similar activities in the past.


Day 23

Day 24

Day 25
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Friday, June 19, 2015

Tessa Makes "Big" Hair Donation to Wigs for Kids

It was high time for a hair cut! After mentioning to Tessa about a month ago that I thought her hair might be long enough for her to donate to a child in need, she decided this was something she definitely wanted to do. Committed to providing long enough pieces of her hair to help make a "girl wig," she donated five ponytails 13-14 inches in length each to Wigs for Kids. Wigs for Kids is partnered with Girl Scouts to help bring awareness to the great need for hair donations. Participants have the opportunity to "learn more about illnesses that cause hair loss" and can help "make a difference in the lives of other children." Any Girl Scout may also receive a custom patch to commemorate her hair donation.

Tessa donated five ponytails 13-14 inches in length each to Wigs for Kids. It can take 20-30 ponytails to make one wig.

Tessa wanted to donate enough of her hair to help make a girl-length wig.

Wigs for Kids custom Girl Scout patch
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