Volcanoes - Saturday Science

Hi there - this is P again after a Saturday Science session on volcanoes.  We've always wanted to make a volcano and it seemed like a great way to get back into some Saturday Science after getting out of the routine for a few weeks.  We started by thinking about what's inside the Earth.  It's very hot in there, so hot that rock melts and is called "magma".  When magma breaks through the surface we call it "lava".  All that separates us from the magma below is a crust of cooled, solid rock.  How thick is the crust?  H, R and K made their guesses on the picture above.  It turns out, if the Earth were an apple, the crust would be about half the thickness of the apple skin!  This is still tens of kilometres thick, but you get the idea.

The crust is broken into tectonic plates which float on the magma below.  Where plates push into each other mountains form (like the Himalayas).  A fun way to model this is with pancakes floating on maple syrup!

The pushing and rubbing also creates heat and releases trapped gas and this is why volcanoes often form where plates meet.  Time to go outside and build some volcanoes!

Take a jar, surround it with soil, add some warm water, sodium bicarbonate, detergent and food dye.  Then pour in vinegar and watch the eruption!

Vinegar reacts with the sodium bicarbonate to release carbon dioxide gas.  This bubbles up in the detergent and causes a magnificent eruption.  Heat causes carbon dioxide to be released also, which is what happens when you cook with self raising flour, and also when carbonate rocks are heated.  Our homemade volcanoes erupted many times until at last our supplies ran out.  It was a lot of fun.  We finished with a great National Geographic video of real volcanoes in action.

Electromagnets - Saturday Science

Hi this is P here for my second Saturday Science entry - this time on electromagnetism.

artist's impression of an electromagnet by P

 A little while ago Moomintroll was playing with a magnet on a string and picking up various items.  When it came to getting them off the magnet some vigorous shaking led to the topic of magnets that you could switch on and off.  Well, here we are on a Saturday and it's finally time to do the experiment!  We started looking at some of Moominmamma's art, and a bug on it seemed to come alive!  Actually, a bug paperclip with a magnet underneath (and some happy memories of a magnetic car driving game as a kid).

How strong are our magnets?  Well, they can hold a paperclip suspended in the air.  SnorkMaiden discovered she could make the paperclip spin by pulling the magnet in and out.  Interesting stuff!

What about electromagnets?  We watched a great video of one in action at a scrap yard

and then made some from a variety of bolts, some insulated wire and a C battery.  Talked a little bit about how all electricity generates a small magnetic field, and coiling the wire around a bolt increases the effect.  We picked up paperclips and a nail clipper and saw that some magnetism remained in the bolt for a short while even when the battery was disconnected.  Watch out for hot wires!

Tried to make a solenoid from wire wrapped around a nail in a straw.  It was much more fun to short out our battery-operated doorbell and watch the doorbell solenoid striker hitting the metal tone bars!  We finished with another video from my new science hero Derek Muller from Veritasium.  We strayed into induction theory, but left with the great image of a levitating BBQ plate

The Brian Street Learning Centre

The girls have come up with a name for our homeschool - the Brian Street Learning Centre. That should keep those pesky supermarket cashiers happy when they ask the inevitable question.
We even have a theme tune sung to the tune of Play School. It's lovely to hear them singing it loudly in the garden whilst performing synchronised jumps on the trampoline.  I'm sure the animals enjoy it.

This week we picked up where we left off last year with Life of Fred for maths. Both girls are enjoying the quietly humorous stories of Fred and Kingie. The level of maths is just right for Moomintroll. It's way easy for the Snork Maiden but we think the revision will be handy for her. I'm letting her get through the books at her own pace; she's already onto book 2.

We then revisited Mapping the World with Art. We went right back to the beginning which wasn't really far at all seeing as we had only got as far as chapter 4.  This time around Moomintroll is joining in too; maybe not with the map drawings but certainly the historical readings and activities. This week we made Babylonian cuneiform tablets out of cookie dough and created maps of various rooms of our house in ancient Polynesian style.
My plan is to merge MTWWA with our Around the World scrapbooks that we began last year.  This way we'll cover ancient history with present day geography/culture at the same time.

Babylonian edible clay tablets

ancient polynesian style map. just imagine reeds with shells tied to them instead of blue paper strips and stickers!

For science this week we began Taxonomy using this great free resource.  We learned about the five Kingdoms and looked in depth at the animal kingdom. The accompanying activities are great fun; we created a bean classification chart and by taping up our thumbs we learnt how important having opposable thumbs is to survival.


Our read aloud this week has been Those Dreadful Children by Enid Blyton which was a great favorite of mine growing up. I remember reading and rereading it endlessly and desperately wishing that I were friends with "those dreadful children". Actually they're not dreadful at all - the Snork Maiden said "they sound just like us!"

One thing we are making more time for is craft. Not just the cut and paste style but real, proper handicrafts that everyone needs to know.  With my help the Snork Maiden repurposed a tired old black crocheted cardigan into a very hip and happenin' sleeveless vest. Think Madonna in the 80's. Very cool.
Moomintroll tried her hand at dry felting and made a little fuzzy face which she attached to her painting from the week before.
Next week we hope to make a skirt for Moomintroll and I may teach Snork Maiden how to crochet something very exciting - dishcloths!  Which leads me to our other fun activity that we've started each morning called 'Tidy Up Time'.  I have a list of jobs that are kid friendly and the girls pick one to carry out. So far so good; the toilet is clean, the washing has been put away and the floor mopped (for the first time in about 6 months I'm afraid to say)!

Finally, our Saturday Science prac was fossil hunting. P and the Snork Maiden collected more 405million year old rocks from our favorite site and brought them home for some serious whacking with hammers and chisels. Most of us found small brachiopod and crinoid fossils and we all made a terrible mess.

a lovely neat presentation.  it didn't last long

Saturday Science

Marbled Nail Polish

Inspired by our friend K and her Scientriffic magazine, we attempted to create some dazzling marbled nails.

 

The girls created their very own marble nail design by dropping nail polish onto water, dragging a point through the circles of polish and then inserting their nail. The swirled nail polish adhered to the nail, resulting in a unique marbled design.

Why is it so?  The oil always floats to the top because it is less dense than water. Oil and water don’t mix because water molecules are more attracted to each other than to oil molecules.

Molecules of water are strongly attracted to each other because they are polar. Oil and water molecules are not attracted to each other because oil molecules are non-polar and hydrophobic or ‘water-fearing’. Oil has a lower density than water, so it always floats on top.

While we were busy with nail art, the TARDIS dropped in for a visit. It's always nice to see the Doctor.

Term 1 wrap up

The end of first term is nigh, so before we leave on our very well deserved holiday to Heron Island, here's a record of what the girls have been up to.


Sport - Ballet, Gymnastics, Kids Cardio, Circus classes.

Music - Choir, Piano lessons, attending concert band rehearsals, concerts and citizenship ceremonies.

Personal Development - Girl Guides.

LOTE - Latin, learning phrases and words relating to the countries studied in our Around the World unit.

Art - Artist Trading Card swap with fellow homeschoolers, batik making.

History - Brief histories of the countries studied in our Around the World unit; Indigenous study (tool making, edible plants, culture and music); Horrible Histories books/DVD; French Revolution video from Khan Academy.

Geography - Around the World unit; preparation for our trip to Heron Island, Qld.

Science - Crystal growing; Tadpole watch; Saturday Science sessions; Rockpool study; marine life study; growing pumpkins; dog, rabbit and guinea pig care; "Hands in the Dirt" excursion involving planting seeds, grasses, analysing compost, identifying animals under a microscope.

English - Shakespeare (H); Headsprout (R); library days; H is writing her own Mr. Men story; writing and performing original plays; atttending a performance of Hamlet; research skills for Around the World project.

Maths - Smartkiddies website; Cool maths games; math workbooks; Pi Day; selling raffle tickets at band concert.

*Around the World countries studied were South Korea, Mexico, Canada and Mauritius.

...and all done in our pajamas! (well, most of it anyway).

a bucketful of egg cases(?) need help identifying these!

investigating at Rickett's Point

snail trail

common sea star

crab shell lineup

Stage 1 of batik making using flour paste instead of wax. Instructions here.

 

Crystal making using Borax, food colouring and boiling water:

 

Torn paper craft:

Hands in the Dirt excursion:

planting Lomandra

Circus time.  R is working towards her Level 1 certificate:

The Doctor is changing daily now.  One day he sprouted a front leg.  The next day the second one popped out:

We will most likely release him back to the creek where we found him at the end of this week.

Bits and Pieces

This week we had a great day out at Funfields with a bunch of other homeschoolers.  We had the whole park to ourselves and made some lovely new friends so it was well worth the 75 minute drive in peak hour both ways!
Our last library day was almost two weeks ago. This is what we've been reading lately:

Very funny and rude!  Reading this lead to learning about Chaucer's life and times.

R really enjoyed this but H has resisted reading it so far as she seems to have an aversion to the word brumbies for some reason...

R very proudly reads this to everyone on her own.

H's bedtime reading

Ahh, Horrible Histories. How boring life is without you..

 

 Absolutely hilarious and highly recommended for everyone

I've stumbled upon some useful links. With a huge range of international information, activities and crafts InCulture Parent is brilliant.  Another is Education.com and I've used it alot over the last two weeks for fun maths worksheets, colouring pages, and paper dolls from around the world.

Our Tadpole Watch is in its fourth week now. The Doctor is getting nice and fat. It shouldn't be long before he starts sprouting his forelegs.

R began her circus classes this week.  She tumbled, balanced, devil sticked and hula hooped her way through the hour and greatly enjoyed it all. 

Here she is fully dressed for her first ballet class.  She's growing up, my little girl.

H started up her piano lessons again this week after a six month break and we've joined up with the home ed choir again too. 

The pigs and buns are sweltering in the heat. Their enclosure is full of holes dug by Nutmeg to escape the heat. But they are happy and slowly eating up all the dandelions in Mitcham.

Saturday Science

Metamorphosis

An ongoing study of ours is watching our tadpole slowly growing and changing. On the last day in January we went to a local creek to catch tadpoles.  Four years ago we caught five tadpoles at the same place, so we expected a similar haul this year. Strangely this time the creek looked dark and unhealthy and we only found one tiny tadpole.  We've dubbed him "The Doctor" and he now resides in a bucket on our deck, feasting on lettuce leaves and mosquito larvae.

searching...

where we found The Doctor and where we'll release him once he's fully grown

week 1

week 2

week 3

Almost doubled in size, eyes obvious, and barely visible beginnings of front legs