A Homeschool Geography...er...Science Series

We started a new series, this week, as a family read aloud, with Lisa M. Cottrell-Bentley's Wright on Time, Arizona (click the link to go to the author's website). The series, of easy reader, chapter books, follows the travels of the Wrights, a homeschool family of four (two children, and two adults), who have taken to their RV for a year or two, to travel the country, state by state.

So far, there are four books in the series, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

I downloaded the first book, Arizona, to my laptop, as a Kindle book (the print version costs $12.99 at Amazon, but the Kindle versions are only $2.99, and you can download Amazon's Kindle software for free to your computer, if you do not own a Kindle), thinking, somewhat naturally, that I'd found a geography series, to read with the children.

As it turns out, it's really more of a science series, with a geography backdrop. In Arizona, the Wrights visit a cave, for some exploring, and mining, finding not only bats, and interesting things, like stalagmites, stalactites, and soda straw formations, as well as too many gems and minerals to name here. There is a glossary at the back, and in the Kindle version, at least, glossary words are underlined in the story.

We found the first book in the series to be well written, and entertaining, as well as educational. The learning flows naturally from the narrative, without being forced. Homeschooling is dealt with in a matter of fact way, without being mentioned too often. And, at least in book one, there is no mention of the family's faith, one way or the other. They are just a homeschool family, on a long series of field trips.

The books would be too simple for my oldest two (ages 12 and 14), to enjoy reading on their own, but they have been happy to listen along, while I read them out loud to the younger children. And, there have been enough interesting facts, and just enough of a hint of a mystery, to keep all of us interested, and engaged. It's a promising series.




To find out what other families are reading this week, click over to the What My Child is Reading link-up, hosted by Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Geography

Just when I think we can't possibly get anymore educational value out of a chocolate chip cookie, I come across a book like Susan E. Goodman's All in Just One Cookie...



...that leads us through, not just a recipe, but a geography lesson, too...


...with butter from Vermont (our butter actually comes from Oregon, but that's okay, because we substituted shortening from Ohio, anyway), and eggs from chickens everywhere (though in the book they are from New Hampshire)...


...sugar from Hawaii...


...vanilla from Madagascar...


...baking soda, mined in Wyoming, mixed with salt from the California coast...


...flour, from Kansas wheat...


...and of course, chocolate chips from West African, or South American, chocolate.


We tried to read the story, which as you might have guessed from the above, is pretty similar to Marjorie Priceman's How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, only with chocolate chip cookies, as we mixed the ingredients, but got lost in the enjoyment of the moment, somewhere around the salt, and settled for making the cookies first, and then poring over the story, and accompanying map of ingredients once they were baked.



For more fun with geography, be sure to check out this week's History and Geography link-up, now hosted by All Things Beautiful.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pointillist Sugar Cookies

I realized, after we started pencil stamping, yesterday, that Carol Sabbeth's Monet and the Impressionists for Kids, also has a pointillism project for children.

Even though it was very similar to the project we were already working on, I knew we'd have to try it, because...well...it has to do with cookies.

We mixed up a quick half batch of sugar cookie dough (click here for the recipe), and cut it out into flower, and apple shapes. Any shapes would do, those just happened to be the first cookie cutters I found.

I placed them, unbaked, onto a greased cookie sheet, and gave the children bowls of food coloring in red, yellow, blue, and green - a few drops in each bowl.


The children applied dots and dashes of color to the cookies with toothpicks. Sabbeth's project suggest applying watered down food coloring with q-tips, but we were out of q-tips, so we improvised.


Finally, we added a sprinkling of sugar over the tops of the cookies, for taste, and to suggest the sparkling light, that seems to play across pointillist paintings.


Then, we popped them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, for 13 minutes, allowing for a few minutes of admiration, while they cooled, before the lesson was devoured, entirely.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pencil Stamp Pointillism

We've been reading generally about impressionism, and specifically about pointillism, this week.



The younger girls decided to try their hands at a simple, pointillism project from Joyce Raimondo's Picture This! Activities and Adventures in Impressionism.


First, they drew the outlines of flowers, with grass underneath, and a sun above.


Then, using the eraser ends of pencils dipped in paint, they stamped on dots of primary colors...


...filling the shapes with single colors...


...then going back over them with additional primary colors, and finally a touch of the secondary colors, they were trying to suggest.



They might not have created Seurat's, but they got the point.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Paper Plate Weaving - Flowers

C (age 5), came home from Sunday school yesterday, with a partially completed craft, she was calling a flower. She was happy, with the help of her older sisters, to finish it up this morning, and to show E (age 6) how to make one, as well.

The first step was to cut slits around the edge of a paper plate, to make petals...


...then to weave pieces of string, back and forth, through the slits, to cover the petals...


...taping the loose ends, at the beginning and end, to the back to the plates.


I'm not entirely convinced they look like flowers, but I'm definitely going to be calling C's Sunday school teacher to thank her for the fun craft idea...


...and the nice Bible lesson, to start off our week.


For more Bible themed crafts, projects, and ideas, don't forget to click over to Bible Alive! Tuesday link-up hosted by The Fantastic Five, tomorrow.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Fizzing Sidewalk Chalk Shooting Stars

Our family read-a-loud, this week, transitioned us from space, back to simple chemistry. Phineas L. MacGuire erupts! by Frances O'Roark Dowell is the first book "From the Highly Scientific Notebooks of Phineas L. MacGuire" series, and deals with Mac (also known as Phin, or Phineas, but never Listerman), entering his first, school science fair.

In keeping with the other books in the series, there are three, go-along, vinegar and baking soda experiments, at the back. But, like Mac's science fair volcano, they are pretty common experiments, that we have done many times before.

Happily, there are a couple of acid/base experiments floating around the blogosphere, that we haven't tried yet, like the exploding sandwich bag, or fizzy sidewalk chalk.

We decided to go with the sidewalk chalk first, because it made for an easy transition from our space theme. And thanks to a quick run in the sprinklers afterward, even ended up tying into the Perseid meteor shower, we've been watching out for, this weekend (so far we've only seen one fireball - but it was very exciting).



As to our project, I started out by giving the girls a small bucket of homemade, sidewalk paint (smashed up pieces of blue, sidewalk chalk, mixed with water), like we made earlier in the summer, to splash and spread around on the cement, in order to make a smeary, swirly, and chunky (because I didn't bother smashing the chalk really well) kind of sky background.


Then, I mixed up a few cups of smashed, yellow, sidewalk chalk, with a cup or so of baking soda, and poured it out in clumpy piles, around the area.


The children sprayed the piles with vinegar, to make them foam and fizz, in a very satisfyingly star-like way.


They were very pleased with the effect...


...and we were reminded of Van Gogh's "Starry Night"...


...especially, as I said, once we turned the sprinklers on, for little more summer fun, and to wash off chalky children, before we let them back inside...


...and transformed our stars, into shooting stars, very much like the meteors we've been seeing in the night skies (this could be accomplished with a hose, or spray bottle, if you don't have sprinklers near your cement).


For more science themed fun, and ideas check out the Science Sunday link-up, tomorrow, at Adventures in Mommydom, or the What My Child is Reading link-up, today, at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns, for more children's book reviews, and recommendations.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Language Arts - An Eight Planet, Solar System, Mnemonic

While we really like the "My Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" mnemonic, for remembering the order of the planets in the solar system, we don't care as much for the "My Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nothing", that we have left since losing Pluto to dwarf planet standing. The Nothing, makes us miss the Nine Pizzas, and missing the Pizzas makes us miss Pluto as a planet.

We decided what we need is a new mnemonic, altogether. Unfortunately, once you have a mnemonic stuck in your head, it can be difficult to come up with anything else. So, I gave the younger children a project this morning, to jump start our creative thinking, and to practice their cutting, letter, and reading skills to boot.

They cut out eight circles, I had traced for them on scrap paper...


...and printed the first letter of each planet in order, with some help, on the circles.


Then, they sorted through a couple of old magazines, and catalogs, looking for, and cutting out, words that started with those letters...



...placing them on their proper circles...


...for us all to use in an attempt at coming with a new, and improved, eight planet, mnemonic.


So far, we haven't come up with anything good.


In fact, after several attempts, we decided we needed more J words, and more verbs. So, it was back to the magazines.


I have a feeling, by the time we actually come up with anything we like, we'll have the order of the planets memorized well enough, not to need the mnemonic anymore, anyway. Maybe then, we can start working on a mnemonic to help us remember how to spell mnemonic.

It's great to be a homeschooler.