Rocks and Minerals

We've been studying rocks and minerals. I tried to pull together a unit that would cover the Girl Scouts patch Rocks Rock and the cub scouts achievement Geologist.

To begin this unit study the kids started (or added to) rock collections. We worked on identifying some rocks by type (igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic) and also determined where they might fall on the hardness scale. We also examined the soil in our area.

We learned how rocks and minerals are used in building, in jewelry and other ways also rock use through history.

We discussed careers that have something to do with rocks and minerals.

We learned more about the weather and it's affect on the land. Volcanoes, earthquakes, other storms, erosion, freezing temps- frost heaves....

Looked online for aerial photos of the earth and landforms.

Draw pictures of volcanoes and label the parts

Researched the effect a volcanic eruption has on the surrounding area, people, plants, animals

Looked at various rocks under the microscope

Experiments included freezing bottles which were completely full of water to see the effects of freezing temperatures on the land (and roads). Making "fossil" imprints with plaster. Basically just made up a batch of plaster and the kids pressed leaves, rocks and such into the plaster, then let it dry. Removed the items when dry and notice the fossil like imprint.

Just for fun we made pet rocks.

Resources:

Videos:

Eyewitness Volcano

Eyewitness Rocks and Minerals

The videos were short, about 30 minutes each yet very good and full of information.

online

various including Google earth

Books

Junior Girl scout handbook

Webelos Cub scout handbook

Evan Moor Giant Science Resource book- earth science pages

DK Eyewitness Explorers Rocks and Minerals

DK Eyewitness books Rocks and Minerals

DK Eyewitness books Fossils

A Look Inside the Earth

Rock Collecting- Roma Gans

If You Find a Rock- Peggy Christian

There were a couple more about volcanoes and the earth but they've gone back to the library and the titles escape me.

Hayley, Colin, Tristan show off their fossils and pet rocks, Trevor didn't want to make a pet rock!

Colin's Critters

Spring means many things to many people but to Colin it means salamanders. He's always so happy to see them back after the long winter. He always keeps some for a day or more in various habitats. This year I helped Colin make a bigger habitat for his critters. He can keep things for a few days, release them and find new ones.

For some reason though Colin was feeling anti-photo this day and did everything to avoid my (well Hayley's mine is still broken) camera!




For the terrarium we used a 30 long aquarium that we already had. We bought 4 terrarium plants and some salamander and newt food and the rest came from the outdoors. soil, moss, rotting wood and some salamanders.



a red eft newt is peaking out from the moss below. Red eft's are by far the most common salamander we find around here. They are the juvenile stage of eastern newts. Colin's favorite color is orange so he loves these newts for their bright orange-red color. They are a very interesting creature to study.

The terrarium came out nicely and Colin has fun finding various salamanders to keep in it.

Girl Scouts and the Bronze Award

Today was a girl scout day. When my only girl was little I never thought of Girl Scouts as an activity she would likely do. Yet now she has been a girl scout for 5 years and has had a lot of fun with it. Hayley spent two years as Brownie in a homeschool troop, one year as a Brownie on her own (a Juliette) since the troop she was with ended and we couldn't find another. Then 2 years as a Junior Girl Scout with another homeschool troop. Next Hayley will become a Cadette Girl Scout. She bridges to the next level soon. Cadettes wear Khaki colored vests and work on harder requirements and projects. Most of the girls Hayley has been with for two years will be bridging to Cadettes as well. The time and place will remain the same. Not much will change except the vest color.

Hayley and Freeze heading home from Girl Scouts.

One of the things the leaders had the girls work on this year was a Bronze award project. This is the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn. The project needs to be fairly independent and must take at least 15 hours to complete. Hayley's project was to clean up the beach area at our nearby lake. There was a lot of ice storm damage and a lot to be done. After the project was complete there was a lengthy packet of forms for the girls to fill out (by themselves no leaders or parents could fill them out). I heard the girls talking and they all seemed to think filling out the forms was harder than their projects. LOL Basically they had to describe their project in depth and also make note of other girl scout patches and awards they had earned as Juniors. Some of these things were required before they could do their Bronze Award Project. Lastly we found out that the girls had to add a pretend interview about their project and a photo. We had only a day or two to do this because the forms needed to be signed off on by the leaders today. I think the interview came out pretty well. Below is the interview and photo Hayley used. I eliminated a few identifying details but this is almost unedited.

Interview with a Girl Scout

Hayley is a Junior Girl Scout who has been working on her Bronze Award Project. She chose to clean up a beach near her home. The beach had suffered much damage from last December’s ice storm.

Reporter: What gave you the idea for a beach clean up project?

Hayley- We live near this beach and when I walked with my dog there I noticed all the fallen branches in the handicapped parking spot. I realized that a handicapped person wouldn’t be able to park there and get to the beach easily. There were broken toys and trash all around the beach and the play area too and the rocks from the rock garden had washed away, it really needed to be cleaned up.

Reporter:
What was the hardest thing about this project?

Hayley-Moving broken tree branches, some of them were pretty big!

Reporter: Did you have any help with this project?

Hayley- Sometimes I worked alone like when I fixed the rock garden but sometimes my brothers were working on the beach clean up. They are cub scouts and were doing a service project too.

Reporter: What is your favorite thing to do at the beach?

Hayley- Playing with my puppy Freeze! I throw sticks in the water and he swims out to get them.

Reporter:
What would you say to other girl scouts thinking about their bronze award project?

Hayley- If you’re having a hard time thinking of a project, walk around areas near where you live. You may notice something that needs to be done in your area.

Photo: Hayley relaxes with her puppy, Freeze, who was a big help picking up sticks and even big branches at the lake!

No More Training Wheels!

Tristan has been reaching many milestones since getting his eyeglasses last year. The latest is that he can now ride his bike without training wheels! Colin has worked patiently with Tristan over the last couple weeks to this end. Bobby took Tristan down to one training wheel last week, removing one since Tristan didn't feel ready to have them both off. Suddenly 2 days ago, Tristan decided the other training wheel could come off- and off he goes! Tristan is now able to ride around fast with his siblings, no more training wheels slowing him down. It now makes sense why he couldn't seem to do some of these things before...he could not see well and felt unsafe!

Go Tristan!


I caught him riding with his ferret!


I mentioned that this was not safe and his ferret needed to stay with me.

Tristan said "we could get my ferret a helmet then he'll be safe". LOL


Off he goes! Freeze watching and wishing he was loose not harnessed!

Poppy watches too and she was on the loose. She is a very good dog and never tried to escape the house loose until she saw Freeze making a break for it. Now Poppy has tried to escape 3 times! She is 10 but has been having a second puppy hood I guess. We will keep working on Freeze's training and also retraining Poppy since there is a leash law in our town.

Speaking of Freeze he, took Colin's bike helmet! Ran off with it outdoors and now we can't find it. Colin's helmet does needed replacing as it is quite old and the design had worn off but still I didn't want it to run away before we got a new one! That Freeze is alternately a bundle of laughs and a bundle of trouble!

A fun day for kids and dogs.

Roller Coaster Science

We attended a VERY fun activity today. The theme was roller coaster science. About 25 kids worked in teams of 2-4 to build "roller coasters" from plumbing insulation, plastic plates and tape. The passengers on the ride were marbles. They were also allowed to use chairs or the wall for their pipes to go over or start from.

Here is a random collection of photos from the day, some highly cropped since lots of other kids faces were in them and I don't have permission to post them.


Tristan helps demonstrate the initial idea.


Colin gets to work.


Tristan experimenting.


Hayley and her friend get creative.


They started with small coasters but by the end they were building roller coasters with 4 different aspects such as tunnels, curves, hills and loops.

They had FUN!

Dinosaur encounter

Yesterday we saw a fanstastic show put on by the Dino Pastor. All the family enjoyed this one, there were dinosaur bones (and dung!) to see and a presentation about how dinosaurs give proof of the creation story. Most of these pictures are courtesy of Hayley since my camera is broken.

Colin and Tristan pose in front of a dinosaur skull.


After the show there were games for the kids. Dino golfing such as this, most of the games were dinosaur themed a few were other science topics. Tristan liked golf the best.


Colin liked golf too, and the various frisbee or hoop toss games.


Tristan playing a game.

After the show quite a few children were playing at the pond outside the church.

No good can come of a stick this size!

Colin reflected in the pond, he loves looking for creatures.

Colin caught some newts, another child found containers to hold them in their van. All creatures were released back to the pond.

The pond was just teaming with life, newts, snails, frogs, tadpoles, turtles and other creatures.

It was a fun day and the kids hope to see Dino Pastor and the pond again soon. Dino Pastor is out of Maine so it may be awhile before we see another presentation, but the pond is at a church where several homeschool events happen. I'm sure we'll see the pond again before too long.

Super Sized Saturday Blog Post- Storage Tips

I saw this on De'Etta's Blog. The theme for this Super Sized Saturday is Storage tips, see the original post for posting guidelines and to participate! I think that storage tips are something many mothers and homeschool parents really need! Things can pile up over the years of being a parent and also being a homeschooler. I think that I have some pretty good storage tips for homeschooling items, books, and kids stuff. Hopefully photos will follow later, camera issues again.

For kids stuff, especially when you have children sharing rooms and rooms having little storage themselves, I use spaces that might otherwise be wasted space. For some kids clothes I use a space at the top of the stairs to hang a pole. My two younger boys clothes that need to hang, as opposed to going in drawers, goes on this pole. Under the pole I have a large Rubbermaid 3 drawer unit for my youngest child's clothes. His items are still small and there is just no room in the shared bedroom for another set of drawers. Above the pole I have a shelf. On this shelf stores out of season items such as a bin for hats, mittens and scarves. Also ski and bike helmets store here and the boys hats and belts. There is a small amount of room beside the drawers and here I store ice skates, out of season or currently unused shoes and boots and a sports bag with some ski and other sports equipment that's not currently in use. This is all on top of the stairs but in the corner.

Use an overlooked space- top of the stairway in the corner is now a boys clothes storage area (and a few other things too)

Another storage area is at the very top of the stairs I have placed a book case to hold all manner of kid stuff. I found that I had no more room for books o had a big clear out. After downsizing books I was able to eliminate one bookcase from the book area. This bookcase was immediately pressed back into service at the top of the stairs to hold kids' stuff. There is another smaller shelf unit used on an overhang at the top of the stairs, this holds toys, games and smaller kids series type books such as Puppy pals, etc. In other words not books I need close at hand for homeschooling just kids own stuff.

Top of stairways, hallways, areas behind a front door, alcoves, corners, under beds, under couches... there are areas that can be used for storage. Look at your space and assess. There might be an unused or underused space that can be transformed into storage.

Now for books and homeschool materials. I find that I best utilize my HS materials if I know where they are. I try to organize my shelves and bins every so often because things do get messed up. I have my books and materials organised by category or even sub category where possible. One new idea I'm trying this year is to take science books and put them into topics. I have a bunch of books that I may never use if I don't use them in the next year, because my youngest kids will outgrow them. I took all my science books and put them into categories for unit studies through the year. Some topics are Dinosaurs (which we will use soon due to an opportunity to see a show by a "Dino Pastor" next week.), solar system, birds, oceans, mammals, bugs, reptiles and amphibians, inventions and more. I like to have books look "nice" on the shelves but it will work better to have units together even though it means groupings of tall and small books and an occasional kit or toy are placed together rather than a more traditional shelving of tall books here, short books there and kits somewhere else. I feel I will USE the materials more effectively this way.

BOOKS and MATERIALS all together in categories

An observant eye might notice Betty Puddles and Glacier on top of the shelves, our homeschool mascots. These are two travelling animals of ours who had adventures and came home again. Others are still out there in the world wandering!

Another good idea for books and homeschool materials is use it or lose it, even if you only lose it temporarily. I hadn't cleared out (in a big way) in 5 years so had to do a big overhaul of my materials. These are the steps I took:

Try to sell online- this seems to be best for pricey items with a lot of use left in them.

Try to sell locally- best for smaller items or large amounts of items.

Donate online- see a need, why not fill it if you can.

Donate locally- do you feel happy to find something great in a "free pile"? I sure do, it's almost as fun to put your own things in the free pile and think of someone else' happy face when they find an item they can use.

Donate to a library-I know our small local library loves to see people coming with books to donate!

Lend- either locally or online. This involves a certain amount of trust and a willingness to let it go if something happens, people might lose your items or they may become damaged but most likely things will go fine! If you have materials you are not ready to let go but won't need for awhile, see if someone else can use them for a year or two. I have loaned a few things this year and will loan a few more next. I don't need these things for my younger kids for a couple years. Someone else can benefit and I have freed up shelf space!

Borrow- need something pricey, big or something you're not quite sure you'll use but want to see it? Ask around to see if you can borrow it. Ask friends locally if they have it, put the word out on email lists. Maybe someone has that item just sitting and they won't need it for a year or more. They might love to share, saving them space and you money. It also saves you space because you will use it and return it not use it and then let it take up space until you decide to let it go. I have been happy that people have allowed me to borrow a couple things from my wish list this year, which I will soon return and I've been thrilled to be able to borrow a couple more curriculum sets for next year!

Borrowing for shorter term- think library, inter library loan or Netflix if you're a member. I do not have space to store a lot of movies so we borrow a lot of them from the library and netflix. About half of these are educational and half for fun.

Last thought for now is rooms themselves. I use rooms for more than one purpose. The main one is the dining/library/computer room. Perhaps not ideal but workable.

MULTI PURPOSE room library in one corner, dining area in another (and computer station and terrarium discovery tank are in another, also there is normally a tv table/game system area in this room but it's taken down at the moment since I've been painting. Last a couch or futon to be added to this room for kids to sit on when playing the game system, currently they drag chairs over to the game system, when funds allow this room is in transition.

Photos were added and if the formatting is funky now I've tried and failed to fix it!

Raising Freeze

Freeze, Hayley's black Labrador puppy, will turn 1 year old next month. Daily we are amazed and surprised that he has made it this far. Freeze is trouble, that's for sure. He is stubborn, determined, perpetually hungry and clearly doesn't have a fully developed brain as yet. Freeze eats things that in no way could be mistaken for food. Freeze chases cats and then pays the price since cats are smart and have sharp claws. Freeze wakes the kids up early if he is bored in the morning and they get mad at him. Freeze escapes from the house, pulls on the leash and thinks everything in the house is his toy. The only good things about Freeze are that he is cute and that he is potty trained. Those are his saving graces. We have never had a dog like this before. It's one of those cases where we can say if Freeze had been the first dog we had then he would have been the last. We read books and watch videos and try to train the rascal. I *think* he is making some progress but it might be wishful thinking.

This day Freeze had to join us on a trip to drop off some books and curriculum for a homeschool book sale. He had eaten something inedible and although we were pretty sure it was no longer stuck we didn't exactly know where it went after it ceased to be stuck. Unsticking is is yet another long tale involving the entire family, Internet searches, tongue depressors and flashlights. It may never have been stuck but he coughed hard a few times and we just weren't sure. The re-assuring part is that we knew there were two veterinarians on the route we would take to drop off the books. Thus we had a good chance of being within reach of emergency help if needed. Anyway, that is why Freeze joined us for a trip that day, we didn't want to leave him home in case he did have something stuck in his throat.

Freeze seemed all better once in the car he didn't like being in the back seat though and kept trying to get up front with all his might.


I suppose he wanted to drive.


Freeze enjoyed the outing and by the time we were home we felt that whatever had caused the choking incident earlier had resolved.

On to the next adventure with Freeze.

April fools, rains and melts

On April 1st I decided to play a joke with Colin and Tristan. I gave them each a math book which appears like the ones they work in but was a much higher level. I though they'd catch on right away and I would get some funny surprised faces. The silliest thing was that they both tried to work the problems even though I'd made sure to choose pages with math problems they'd never encountered before such as pre-algebra topics.

Tristan eventually decided the print was way too small and gave up.


Colin "did the math" just did it all wrong. LOL I stopped him after a few problems and let the joke out of the bag so to speak!


I asked the boys didn't they think anything seemed wrong or really different and they both just thought they were being introduced to new topics that day and were trying to work them out. Guess I must give credit for trying!!! It was funny, especially since they didn't react the way I thought they would.

Getting plenty of walks with the dogs now that better weather is here. It sure is raining a lot but at least it melts the snow and ice!

Poppy enjoying a spring day.


The ice on the lake is starting to melt around the edges.

What a mess the lake is though! Nobody ever took in the communal toys, maybe they were buried in snow too soon and nobody noticed. Suddenly the other day we saw them uncovered again. So much tree damage left from the December ice storm too. We've been cleaning up a little each time we take a walk to the lake.