noe schooling

Astronomy Lesson 1: The Universe and our Solar System

This first lesson took us 2 days to complete. But it was full of fun! We went and checked out a whole bunch of books about space and astronomy... I also bought a cheap telescope!

I got the kids excited about astronomy a few days ago by taking them to the Morehead State University planetarium. We watched a show called "Dawn of the Space Age" It was so interesting. I feel like I should have known more about these things... like how Russia was the first in space and sent a dog (who died of heat exhaustion poor thing!) or the race to space. Space missions have got to be some of the most amazing things us humans have ever done. I think of how BRAVE those first people had to have been to go up into the unknown. I think about all that we have accomplished and learned and how much more we have to accomplish and learn and it's a bit overwhelming, really! But SO interesting!

To start the lesson, we looked at a bunch of pictures from the Hubble telescope. Wow is our universe amazing! Since my kids have trouble focusing during any kind of talking, I have been trying a few different things. While Landen needs to concentrate, I give him a bag massage and it works wonders! But so does coloring and giving the kids something to do. They loved coloring the planets and cutting them and pasting onto black construction paper. 



We then went to visit our local Living Arts and Science Center where they have a Space exhibit! It's really really cool and the kids had a lot of fun playing around with all of the activities. Landen especially loved dressing up as an astronaut. 







Learning the scale of the Solar System is also very interesting. If you use THIS activity (go to the bottom where it says students can try the Universe lesson plan on their own. It's SO neat!!), you can get a good idea of how big the universe is in relation to where you live. We also really love the following videos:

So beautifully done. 

To Scale: The Solar System from Wylie Overstreet on Vimeo.

 

I was tempted to stop watching this one when he started a little advertising talk, but I skipped over that and watched the end. It's what amazed me the most. 

 

Instead of making a model with only correct size proportions, we decided to do a scale model of our own with approximate sizes and distances in locations that we were familiar with. We started with Jacobson Park, a place most Lexington residents are familiar with, and headed toward downtown. Now every time we drive down Richmond Rd, we will be thinking of planets... and I think that's pretty neat!

 

All about bones!

The library downtown had a special activity all about bones around Halloween! We went with some friends and had a great time. We dissected some owl pellets, made a spinal cord out of candy, and colored in some day of the dead masks! I need to look into more of these activities!

university of kentucky geological open house

I can't remember when the obsession first started, but one day Joselyn started to get really into rocks. Landen likes them a lot too. On our trip to the east coast, we did a lot of rock collecting and we love finding cool rocks on our nature hikes. One of the homeschooling groups we belong to posted about a Geological open house at UK and everyone was saying really good things about it, so we went as a family. SO GLAD we did. It was a very neat experience for us! There was a lot of hands on fun and they even gave us all some fossils and amethyst/fluorite to take home! We will for sure not miss this next year! (the volcano demonstration- first picture- was really really cool!)

nature pal exchange

I love the instagram community! It's so easy to find others who are just like you and who are doing the same things you do. As I've followed some of my favorite feeds, I have found some amazing things. When I discovered nature pal exchange, I was so excited. Basically, they set you up with another family in a different part of the US and you exchange nature finds! We were set up with a cute little family from New Jersey. During all of our nature hikes and such, we would collect as many cool things we could find. 

We included all sorts of leaves, seeds, pinecones, acorns, feathers, and a few fossils and some amethyst that we got at the geological open house at UK. (that will be my next blog post!) We also included a few FUN things- that a leaf garland and a bird house to paint and information about Kentucky!





When we got our package from New Jersey there was all sorts of fun stuff!! We spread it out all over the table and touched, explored and read all about the cool nature finds they sent us. 




It's so fun to have new shells, snake skin and all sorts of other treasures to add to our collection!! I'm so glad we discovered nature pal exchange and we are sure to do it again!!

What's the MATTER?

Today started out with tears and pouts. It's hard to do school when that happens. The mood usually sticks. And I will admit- it kind of did. It was hard to get through morning studies. I was so glad I had this science experiment planned for today. It lightened up the mood quite a bit! 

These past two weeks we have been learning about states of matter. As usual, we've watched lots of fun videos on the subject, and today we tried an experiment I found on Pinterest. All you need is vinegar, baking soda, balloons, and water bottles!





We filled 3 of the balloons with water and put them in the freezer over night on the day before our experiment. (I had to have 3 of each because I have 3 kids and I wanted to avoid any potential conflict) That's our SOLID!

The LIQUID is pretty obvious... we filled 3 balloons with water. 

For the GAS, you could technically just glow up the balloon, but why do that when there is a REALLY fun way to do it? And it was really easy. We made a little funnel with some paper, and filled 3 of the balloons with baking soda. Then we put some vinegar in each of the water bottles. 




Then we carefully put the baking soda balloon on the water bottles filled with vinegar. When we were ready, we lifted the balloon up so that the baking soda would fall into the vinegar and then we just sat back and watched the balloon fill up with GAS!!! My favorite part of science experiments is watching my kids faces. Chemical reactions are just so fun to watch and to them it's like watching a magic show! 

 

Next we compared the balloons in their liquid, solid and gas states. 

After our experiment, we took the balloons outside and how more fun with them. Opening them up, throwing them etc. That's about it!! Just basically a lot of playing. Definitely helped their moods though!




Here's our little balloon throw/drop. The water balloon didn't pop like I was hoping! Ha ha. 

 

And Joselyn here to tell you the differences between liquids solids and gases. 

 

Study of Light

These past two weeks we've been studying light. When I do science, I mostly want my kids to explore and play with things verses me giving lots of instruction on the subject. We did watch a few videos that explained how light works, but that was about the extent of it. Over the course of 2 weeks, we played with 4 different experiments and then finished up today with a field trip to the Lexington Arts and Science center for their exhibits on light and color. Perfect timing for our study of light!

1. Characteristics of light

For our first experiment I just got a flashlight and we played with it. We pointed the flashlight at black paper dots on the wall, reflected the light off of mirrors, and made shadows on the wall. Then we talked about what light could go through and what it could not go through. (transparent, opaque and translucent or reflective) I put together a basket of things we could play with and the kids just had fun with it. Our favorite was the shell- the light made the shell glow and it was so pretty!



Some of the objects we used:
Handkerchief
Paper
Banana/food
Shell
Light bulb
Spoon
Book
Wooden Box
Shell
Mirror
Our hands
Rocks
Sunglasses
Leaves
Glass
Water bottle
Mesh bag

Now that I think of it, it would have been fun to have colored items to see how that would affect light as well. 

2. Making Light Bulbs out of water bottles

First We watched the following video:

 

We then made our own box house with water bottle light bulbs. It was a lot of fun and the kids played in that box for days until I got tired of it taking up room in our living room. We got the large fridge box from Lowe's. We called them first thing in the morning, and a manager told me they sometimes will keep large boxes behind the box crusher so we were able to grab one of those. I used an exacto knife to cut out the holes. My kids brought blankets and pillows into the box, colored all over the box with markers, and just had fun with it. We covered the "lights" with mugs to see how much light the water bottles really let in. It's pretty neat stuff!



3. Light Refraction

I ordered a prism and we just played with it. We made lots and lots of rainbows and loved to look through the prism like glasses to watch the whole world turn into a rainbow. We put rainbows on our hands, faces and turned Joselyn's hair into rainbow colors too! This was so fun!





4. Sunlight and shadows

This one was really simple. We followed our shadows all day and outlined our shadows on the sidewalk and talked about our observations. 



FIELD TRIP!!

We have a field trip every Friday. There are lots of places to go around Lexington, but I was honestly having a hard time thinking of a place to go- especially because I wanted it to fit in with something we have been learning about this past week. I called the Lexington Arts and Science Center and learned that they currently have exhibits and light and color- how perfect!! And it was free! So we spent a couple of hours there. We studied the artwork, which was all made with light. 

We played in the discovery room which had SO MUCH to look at and learned and how camera's work (using light of course!!)









They had a giant kaleidoscope (small ones too), colorful poison dart frogs, a chameleon, a salamander that glowed under a UV light, a light table with colors to play with, prism glasses to look through, a color shadow room just to name a few... 

Our study of light has been so fun. Next two weeks: ENERGY!!!