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!

SOLE: A NEW TEACHING APPROACH

SOLE:  A NEW TEACHING APPROACH

STUDENT ORGANIZED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Today my handsome prince sent me a video link that he had watched and encouraged me to watch.  I was so inspired by this that I am jumping in with a trail run tomorrow in our home school!

We have such a variety of levels and personalities in our 8 home schoolers with a wide range of ages -- 4 1/2 to 17 1/2!!

It will be interesting to see how this goes!

I had all ready planned to do an activity to go along with our brief study of Robert Fulton, so it will be fairly easy to adapt this lesson to follow the 

guidelines of the SOLE approach.

Watch the video, look at the packet, and check back to see what happens tomorrow!  Wish me luck!!

School in the Cloud 

SOLE Tool Kit

With our variety of kiddos, some unfortunately with some baggage from their past in Russian orphanages, I think that this "group" work and the guidelines presented could be some really good learning experiences.  It could also end up being chaos -- but we are going to try.

As I have summarized this in my mind: we will do a 1 - 1 1/2  hour session learning about submarines, they will gather information, create a poster and make a submarine out of supplies that I provide.  I have the supplies to create pop bottle submarines but I think I will give them a little start and then NOT provide any instructions.  I will see how far they can get with just an occasional question from me to encourage them.

A KEY COMPONENT in all of this approach is the "GRANDMOTHER ROLE."  That is defined as having someone complimenting their efforts and telling them how clever and smart they are for figuring out what they do!!

My role tomorrow during this activity will be to present a short youtube video linked here:

US SUBMARINES

and get them excited about how cool subs are!

Then set them loose to figure out how they work, where they came from 

and with the assignment to build one!

As they work and progress, I will help with behavior, be a sounding board that doesn't give answers, encourage problem solving and mostly tell them how great they are doing!!!

I am excited to see what happens!!!

I am pretty sure I will have one son who will get mad and will end up with everyone leaving his group -- there is always the option of changing groups at any time in this philosophy!!!

There will be some good social experiences and learning how to get along and to behave in a way so that people want to work with you.

It will be interesting!!!

I wonder if we will end up with 2 groups or 7 by the end of the activity!!! :)

FAYETTEVILLE, AR HISTORY -- WALKING TOUR

WALKING TOUR OF FAYETTEVILLE

We have lived in Fayetteville for about 7 years now and we finally took the time to do the historical walking tour around downtown Fayetteville, AR.

The tour starts at "The Square" and was quite a fun and educational outing!

Finishing up a scout merit badge helped us push to take this outing!

 Rachel stands outside the "Old Post Office" that was built in 1909.  The first government building to occupy this land was a courthouse that was built in 1837 at the cost of $49.75.

 This is the Old Washington County Courthouse that was built in 1904 of native stone that was hand-cut and hauled to this site by ox wagons.

   

 Daniel stands by a marker that marks the location of the original Butterfield State Line Depot.  It ran between St. Louis and San Francisco from 1858 to 1861.  The cost to ride that stage was $200 in gold.

 

 David stands by a plaque honoring Archibald Yell, one of the best known men of this area.  Yell came to Fayettevile in 1833 after being appointed a judgeship by President Andrew Jackson.  He was then the first congressman from Arkansas and the 2nd governor of Arkansas.

This painting is one of Fayetteville's largest and most important and it is located in the Old Washington County Courthouse.  It depicts uniformed soldiers from WWI, preceding wars and some key historical events.  The mural was paid for by 10 cent contributions from school children and was sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

 We had an unexpected treat as we explored.  The kids found the door to the "Archives" unlocked and we went in and there were a few wonderful ladies there who were thrilled to give us a tour!!!  They took us back into room after room that are sealed behind sets of double vault doors.  These rooms contain wall after wall of old documents from our communities history!  It is absolutely amazing!  It was like something you see if a movie!  It was "jaw dropping" for me as I thought of the family history extraction that could be done!!!

Bethany, Rachel, Mason, David, Chase, and Daniel

 What is this????  I went through a description with 

Rachel of how a typewriter works!!

 This is an old "Jury Selector" box that was used to randomly select folks for jury duty.  It was used up until about the mid 1900's is I remember correctly.  Longer than I expected it would be used.

 Benjamin really thought the huge double vault doors were impressive!

This is the oldest book of records that they county owns and it dates back to 1834.  The first item logged was a passing of ownership of slaves from a father to his children.

The nice ladies in the archives room found a security guard who let us in to see the original courtroom that has fairly recently been redone.  They still hold court hearings there today, though it wasn't in session on this specific day.

 Mason is the judge!!!

Daniel takes a turn saying "Order in the Court!"

 What a jury!!!  They look tough to me!

 

The location of the First Christian Church was built in 1913 on the site of the original site of "Arkansas College" which was chartered in December of 1852 and awarded the first collegiate degrees in the state of Arkansas. The college was burned to the ground during the Civil War.

The intersection of College and Dickson is the site of "The Battle of Fayetteville."

 The Headquarters House was a family home that was also used as the Headquarters for first the Union and then the Confederate Armies 

during the Civil War.

Though it is mid-January, the bulbs think it is spring because it has been so warm.

After our walking tour, we ended up back at the square and 

we had a picnic lunch!  

What a treat to be able to have a picnic lunch in January!