Survival Bracelet: Update

Mackenson's 1st two sales

If you read our blog a few days ago you know that Mackenson has started a new endeavor making and selling 550 paracord survival bracelets.  If you have not read it yet click here.

So far he has sold three and has pending orders for four more.

Not only is he making and selling these bracelets all on his own accord, he is also increasing his dexterity, reinforcing his money counting skills, keeping a ledger book that also allows for addition and subtraction (with decimals), writing a note and a receipt that accompanies each bracelet, and lastly developing brainstorming strategies to sell more.  There are probably other lessons in this as well. 

We are proud of him for coming up with this himself, doing 95% of the work and financing himself (we only double check everything is OK such as postage etc.).  If you are interested, his current price is $5 plus actual shipping.  Send us a note.

MACK at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

Last week during the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C., our family took a trip to see the beautiful trees and to visit one of the Smithsonian Museums.  Click here to read about our visit to see the cherry blossoms. 

Mackenson's visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington D.C. provided him with the opportunity to study the timeline of Earth's history.  He saw fossils, models and reproductions from the Precambrian time period, Paleozoic Era, Mesozoic Era and Cenozoic Era.  For his project he was asked to make a one page presentation or mini poster for each of these major time periods.


The jellyfish in a diorama displaying the Precambrian time period caught Mackenson's eye.

Veering away from animal life, Mackenson chose to look closely at the sphenophyllum (spore producing plants) that grew in the Paleozoic Era.

Mackenson liked the Trilophosaurus, a lizard that lived in the Mesozoic Era. 

Uiuntatheres was an early mammal in the Cenozoic that Mackenson was interested in.

 Click here to see Marie's National History Museum project posters.

MARIE at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

Last week during the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C., our family took a trip to see the beautiful trees and to visit one of the Smithsonian Museums.  Click here to read about our visit to see the cherry blossoms. 

Marie's visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington D.C. provided her with the opportunity to study the timeline of Earth's history.  She saw fossils, models and reproductions from the Precambrian time period, Paleozoic Era, Mesozoic Era and Cenozoic Era.  For her project she was asked to make a one page presentation or mini poster for each of these major time periods.

From the Precambrian time she identified a spindle-shaped life form.

From the Paleozoic Era she found an early amphibian, Ichthyostega.

Marie liked the dinosaur Diplodocus (the long-neck) from the Mesozoic Era.

The early dog Hesperocyon gregarius was Marie's favorite Cenozoic Era organism.

Click here to see Mackenson's Natural History Museum project posters.

Natural History Museum Assignment

This past weekend we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC.  While there we managed to check out part of the Natural History Museum.  What possible better place is there to learn about Earth's history?  Naturally we used this as an opportunity to teach some basics.  We decided to focus on the the 4 Major eras of Earth's living history Precambrian (not a real era), Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic.  For each era each child picked one animal to write about.  Each Era and animal served as a separate creative assignment during the week.  We kept the projects pretty simple with the goal to see how life has evolved over the hundreds of millions of years.

On the way home (about a 3 hour drive with traffic) we had each child reiterate the eras in order as well as spell them.  We also talked about how long humans have been on the planet in comparison to the age of the Earth, how long reptiles and dinosaurs roamed, mass extinctions and some basic animal anatomy/physiology.  For this trip we focused mostly on how teeth are different among carnivores versus herbivores and how those teeth are used respectively.

It was a very good trip, and for anyone visiting DC, make sure your kids get the full effect.  DC can be a science lesson, History lesson, government/civics and almost anything else.  It is truly a wonderful place.

Link to Mackenson's Project

Link To Marie's Project

 

EASTER EGGS VIA STRING AND SUGAR

There was an early art project I remember doing in about 3rd grade around Easter time.  Thanks to my excellent memory (but mostly google) we were able to recreate this project for our kids just in time for Easter.  Also, we try to make everything we do into a learning activity, so there are some science as well as art aspects to the project.

EASTER EGG MADE FROM STRING:

Materials needed:

Party balloons (in the shape of an egg)
String or yarn - a thinner yarn works better, but any should work.
Table sugar
Water

Directions:

1.  Inflate the balloons to the desired size and tie them off.  This will be the size of your future Easter egg.

2.  Wrap sting/yarn around the balloon, trying to keep the string as tight as possible.  To make it easier to get started you may want to tie the end of the string to the mouth of the balloon.  How much string you wrap around the balloon is up to you.  My daughter went a little overboard, but the result is still nice.

Note:  it is best to leave a little extra string tied off at the top of the balloon to serve as a way to hang it up while drying and eventual display.

3.  In a large mixing bowl mix 2 parts sugar to 1 part warm/hot water.  We used 2 cups sugar and 1 cup water (heated in the tea kettle).  This amount was nearly perfect for our three (3) eggs.

4.  Soak each wrapped balloon in the sugar solution making sure all of the string/yarn is moist to wet.

5.  Hang to let dry.  Remember that this will drip the sugary solution on whatever is below, so you may want to pre-place some newspaper or a towel or whatever below...THIS IS HOW WE GET ANTS.

 6.  Once dry, decorate however your child's mind wishes.  We plan on cutting a hole in the side and putting some Easter type flotsam inside the egg.   


LESSONS:

Science - chemistry:
Discuss how a solution is formed and what it is.
 -discuss how 2 cups of sugar can go into 1 cup of water and the result is not 3 cups of solution.  Right now we are keeping this concept very elementary.

Art: 
Creativity at it's best.

Secular Homeschool Curriculum Lessons

The below lessons were developed solely by us, though I am sure many may not be completely original ideas.  Click on a lesson to follow the link to that page.

Seed class:  Science, Math, Writing

Easter Egg with String:  Science, Art 

Earth History Discovering the Major Eras with Help from the Smithsonian:  Science, Writing, Art

SEED CLASS - combining lesssons of biology, math and writing

un-sprouted peas

We have a theory that knowledge will only be maintained by a child if they think that knowledge is interesting or useful.  As a society we often do not give our children enough credit for their reasoning, their logic and their motives.  We as a society also seldom make full use of the learning potential.  We as parents are trying to remedy that in regards to our children.

LESSON PLAN:

We have a lot of old garden seeds that for lack of space in the garden we have failed to plant. Last week Mackenson and I started our latest science experiment, sprouting pea seeds in moistened paper towels.  We had a few different kinds of pea seeds, all of different ages.  We are sprouting approximately 100 seeds and our methods are below:

Items needed:
1.  seeds of choice:  we had and used pea seeds.
2.  paper towels
3.  zip-lock bags

Directions:

1.  In a paper towel place 20 pea seeds in a grid type pattern.
2.  Fold the paper towel to keep all of the seeds contained.  We actually placed another paper towel over the top before folding.  Kind of like making a bed with a blanket.
3.  Moisten the paper towel with water, but do not make it sopping wet (only moist).
4. Place moistened paper towel with seeds into a plastic ziplock bag.
5. Seal the bag and place somewhere warm (like on on of the refrigerator).

sprouted peas, some were planted directly into the garden and some into indoor pots for further study.

When we look at the seeds we count how many sprouted after 10-14 days and how many did not.  Since Mackenson is learning fractions, we are going to determine the fraction of seeds that sprouted from our really old seeds compared to the fraction that sprouted of our newer seeds.

Science Lessons:
1.  How does a seed sprout?
2.  What does a seed need before it sprouts?
3.  How does the age of the seed affect sprouting?

Writing/vocabulary
1.  Make the child write the answers to the above science questions.
2.  Introduce vocabulary words of "sprout" and "germination".

Math:
1.  What fraction of the seeds sprouted from the older seeds
2.  What fraction of seeds sprouted from the newer seeds

OTHER POSSIBILITIES:
monocot vs. dicot seeds / plants
anatomy of a seed