SCIENCE FUN -- NOV 6, 2013

SCIENCE FUN

NOV. 6, 2013

Science is a favorite around our homeschool!  David was doing a lab on solutes, solvents and mixtures. Rachel decided that she must join in the fun!

Life is fun!

SCIENCE DAY: Sept 2013

SCIENCE DAY

SEPT 2013

We are having fun with our science curriculum!!!

Rachel, Rebecca and Bethany make barometers and take weather measurements daily for a week!

David gathers data from his experiment with light, 

temperature and germination!

RICH ACADEMY IN FULL SWING: SEPTEMBER 2013

RICH ACADEMY IN FULL SWING

SEPTEMBER 2013

I have always loved homeschool and I am loving it now though it is crazy busy as we work to get a schedule and flow in place and get the kids all trained on their routine.  This is our first full year with everyone home with a new curriculum and there is transition and training that must take place.  I know it will come -- we just must progress in baby steps!!!

One of our first activities was putting our new knowledge from education week to the test. The girls and I attended a class by "Chef Brad" (chefbrad.com) and learned about using grains and eating more healthy.  We are trying out using Agave Nectar, coconut oil and a bigger variety of grains in addition to our whole wheat flour. We tested this out on a batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.  The ones on the left are the regular recipe with whole wheat flour.  They are pretty!!! The ones on the right are with whole wheat flour, agave nectar, and applesauce. They aren't as pretty, but they taste great and are much healthier!

Here are 2 pumpkins from our garden, our cookies and a large jar that has a LARGE cocoon in it!!!

Bethany helps Mason do some math!

 Rachel's art project

M&M MATH

We needed a powerful example of how important it is to estimate correctly!

You could lose a lot of M&M's if you don't estimate correctly!

WE LOVE SWIMMING FOR P.E.!!

Mason loves this floating alligator -- he says:

"THIS IS THE LIFE!" 

SCHOOL AT THE ISLAND!

BACK TO SCHOOL: AUGUST 26, 2013

BACK TO SCHOOL

AUGUST 26, 2013

Though we technically started school on August 6th, we haven't all had our books and electronic devices and schedule in place.  It has been a work in process.  We finally all have our books, except for Rebecca, and are going full steam with our K12 school program with ARVA (Arkansas Virtual Academy) which is a charter school through the state of Arkansas but is taught at home by me, mom, the learning coach.   Here is our school room!

We turned the office into our school room and we have set up 6 stations for the 6 youngest kiddos.  Joseph and Benjamin do the bulk of their school day up at the university in a computer lab near his office.  It helps them stay focused and  helps us stay focused at home.  We put up a cute pirate display with everyone's name in our school that we call "Rich Academy!"  We have a calendar and cute stuff for Mason -- it is required to have lots of cute and fun stuff for kindergarten!!!

MILL WORM SCIENCE LAB -- AUGUST 15, 2013

MILL WORM SCIENCE LAB

AUGUST 15, 2013

After cake decorating, we moved onto bugs.  Daniel had a science experiment involving "millworms" but I had no idea where you found mill worms.  Thanks to some help from Mr. Google, I called the pet store, learned how they were purchased and requested Dad to make a stop off at the pet store for some live mill worms.  It was an interesting event and 

some of the kids named their little friends!

I made sure that they were all removed from the house at the end so that I didn't have an infestation start in our food storage!!!  We all agreed that the millworms did not like the frozen paper towel and they preferred the moist and dark "climate."

SOLE: HOW DOES A SUBMARINE WORK??

SUBMARINES

MARCH 1, 2013

Today we tried out a new approach.  Today, instead of handing the kids an instruction sheet for building a submarine with the supplies that I had purchased, we took a different approach, thanks to the inspiration of a video produced on TED TALKS at this link:

 "Build a School in the Cloud"

We started our session by watching a short video.

It was pretty cool and got the kids attention!

I then informed the kids that their adventure was to learn how submarines work, to build a model with the supplies that were out on our kitchen counter, then show what they learned on a poster.

There was some frustration from a few at first because they weren't "hand fed" but eventually they joined the others in their excitement and it was really amazing to see what they learned through their "Student Organized Learning Environment (SOLE)."

We are going to do something like this at least a couple of times a month and hopefully more as I get better at teaching this way!

Bethany jumped in, Rachel is a bit stressed at the beginning ---

Benjamin took the "English Grandmother" role

Supplies for the submarine model

Asking questions and gathering knowledge

Bethany, Daniel and David with their submarine model

 Joseph Rachel and Rebecca had a hard time getting their sub to sink completely.

Rachel would not give up and  despite "defeat" from siblings, she kept at it with her ideas and .....

It worked!  Joseph saw her success and said, "How did you do that?"

A great success moment for Rachel!

Mason wants to have a try, too!!!

Rachel and Rebecca working on their sub model

Watching it sink on its own as it fills up with water.

Rachel blowing air into her submarine to displace the water so it will rise up again!

 Working on their poster!

WEAVING AWAY!!

WEAVING AWAY

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

We started a new project for some "hands on" activity.  We took an outing to Hobby Lobby and let everyone choose a skein of yarn and I started them all on weaving either a hat or a scarf.  There was excitement, frustration, a few tears over yarn that wouldn't stay where it was supposed to, etc.  But in the end, everyone figured out how to succeed and they are working away on their projects!  A couple are finished and others still in progress! 
One of the best parts of this all was hearing Rebecca say, 
"I am so proud of myself!"

Mason still loves green!

Daniel had some frustrations at first, but is now a pro!