Worm Fun - Science in Disguise

Because the majority of my kids like worms (as Meatloaf once opined,  two out of three ain't bad), when I came across this post, I decided immediately that a big bowl of gelatin worms would be in my family's future!  I figured this little hands-on project would make stuff they learn on plain old worksheets seem more interesting.


(Who says Pinterest is a waste of time?!) 

Since orange jello was the only flavor I had two boxes of, I modified this a bit and added both red AND green food coloring.  I didn't count the drops, I just did my best to make the jell-o mix look as much like a bunch of blended up worms as I cold.  


Blech.  lol.


My friend had dropped three of her brood off to be watched, as well, so all six kiddos had an ooey-gooey good time helping to make these little critters.


This was, without a doubt, the most fun I have ever had while being completely disgusted! 

We opted for the "Straw pinching" method of "birthing" our worms.

Trincy's tended to come out in pieces, due to her technique.  This is also how real life worms typically end up in her possession.   Irony? You decide.

Close up of the DISGUSTING segment part of our worms! Eeew!

This is what was left in the carton after our worm-making.  I called it "compost".

Worm "castings" (remnants from making worms dumped into a bowl)

My friend's daughter, Bananna, enjoying a worm. Note: This worm is stuck to her bottom lip.  The worms really cannot be slurped like noodles, they come out too flimsy for that.  Perhaps another packet of unflavored jello might have solved this?

                                         

                                Kids and I were completely grossed out, but we had a BLAST!

The Best Learning Doesn't Always Come From Text Books

This week, my daughter asked me, "What does S.O.S. stand for?"  She had plenty of ideas of what it might be.  So did I.  Turns out, we were both wrong!

Also this week, my (same) daughter asked me. "Why do sharks die if turned upside down?"

(??????????????)

My response: "Sharks die if turned upside down?"
Her reaction, "I think so.  Otherwise, why would whales flip them over?"

LOL!  I had no clue about either of these notions, so, we looked it up.


Together.

I adore home-education!

The Rest of The Story (About Ping)

This is the third blog entry in a series about Five In A Row (FIAR) study we did on The Story About Ping.  You can read about the FIAR program and our first adventure with PING here.   I also blogged previously about a  science experiment we did as a part of this FIAR study.

Some of our Ping adventures did not really produce much I considered blog-worthy.  This means one of three things:

1. The activity did not lend itself well to pictures/there were no cool pictures to be had.
2. Nothing especially amusing took place
3. We did not enjoy the activity

The Ping Math day was dreadful.  My oldest had a worksheet on which she figured out (among other things) exactly how many ducks lived on the boat with Ping, but she was having trouble understanding the directions.  Meanwhile, on her own worksheet, Trincy was supposed to color the 42 cousins brown, but she decided to color them orange and color 58 of them, instead.  Her big sister, already annoyed by her own confusing worksheet, was chagrined and dismayed about the excessive amount of orange ducks and was very vocal about it.  Meanwhile, Z-Man and I were trying to count ducks, but a chagrined and vocal environment does not make for easy counting.  Somehow, we all muddled through, and were happy to return to our "normal math".

For Literature study, we had some discussion about what makes the story "good" and "compelling", including going through the book together to find the use of repetition, colorful language, and other literary techniques.  My oldest was challenged to incorporate these techniques in her own work, and I hope that she will eventually permit me to share the finished pieces here on the blog.

For Social Studies/Geography, we watched some free online videos.  My kids liked the video we found of people eating scorpions in a Chinese Market. Another notable video we watched that day was this one from National Geographic about the tree-planting efforts of the Chinese government.

While we may have done our Five In A Row readings of Ping, I am not ready to leave China behind!  This unit has inspired me to explore China further this homeschool year.  Additionally, I had chosen the "why don't ducks get wet" over an experiment with buoyancy.  I think that we might re-visit Ping one last time in order to do that experiment, mostly because I think it would be FUN!

Our next FIAR book will either be Madeline or Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.  FIAR is flexible enough that I can do either, and wait and decide when I am good and ready to.  I think it will depend on how I am feeling when we start up.  I am leaning toward Mike Mulligan, with it's possibilities for exploring America's history, and bringing us back closer to home before we launch off into the study of a different country.  After all, I am really not done exploring China, yet!

The Story About Ping - Science

This is my second post about our Five In A Row (FIAR) studies relating to The Story About Ping.  You can read the first post (which includes an explanation of the FIAR program) here.

I was inspired by a blog entry I'd seen to do an experiment with the kids about why ducks don't get wet.  After our reading of the story, I started by asking the children if they'd noticed that Ping never looked soggy in our story.

As I spoke, I started gathering my materials (because, of course, I did not have them prepared the night before).  We contrasted Ping, who stayed dry-looking after coming out of the water, to the boy in the story, who'd fallen into the water and was dripping wet.

Still searching for what I needed to run our little experiment, I explained that a duck's body has a special oil, and that the grooming ducks do, called "preening", spreads the oil all throughout the feathers.  This oil helps to keep them dry.

("Look!  I'll show you" cried the enthusiastic Mother, as she continued to rummage through the cupboards. Popping up some moments later with a handful of brown paper bags and a spray bottle, she exclaimed, "Isn't God so creative and awesome?! .)

I then gave each kiddo two brown paper lunch sacks (NO, not the $290 ones!) and told them that these would be our "ducks".

("Oh! These must be the ducks' feet!" Exclaimed an enthusiastic student, and suddenly,  three pairs of brown paper "duck feet" began dancing all over the  counter.)

Dancing duck feet

I broke up the dancing by introducing crayons and instructing that each child select a bag to be "the duck".  The selected bags were then given duck-y faces.

Three interpretations of a duck's face

Next it was time to cover our "ducks" with oil.  I gave them a paper towel dipped in olive oil and told them to start "preening".

"Preening"

 After the ducks were finished preening, we "made it rain" on the ducks and also onto the "control" paper bag.  The children enjoyed watching the water pool and bubble on the surface of the "duck".   The control, meanwhile, simply got wet.

Made this picture extra large so that you could see the "pools" of water on the oiled "duck"

Next, I had J-Bird round up three empty soda bottles while I filled our fancy-tea-party pitcher (kettle?) with water.  I then let each child pour water into a bottle until it was about half-full, then I added each kiddo's choice of food coloring to the water.

The caps were (tightly!) screwed on, and then my seemingly innocent instructions of "Shake it up until it is all mixed in," were gleefully obeyed.

Next, I put some olive oil into each bottle of colored water and replaced the caps.

I thought the olive oil was ugly, but I kept that thought to myself. 

Once again, the children were instructed to "shake it up until it is all mixed in".  The kids shook and shook their bottles.  They would stop occasionally, watch the oil re-surface, and then shake again.

("It's getting closer!" Exclaimed the enthusiastic J-Bird.  She stopped shaking for a moment, then watched as the olive oil once again rose to the top.  With a sigh, she shook again, this time with more vigor and determination than ever before.) 

Z-Man is shaking it up! 

 Finally, I felt it was appropriate (and probably legally required) that I let them in on the secret: 

("You can stop shaking, now," Mother confessed,  "You will never get them to combine!  Oil and water don't mix!")

I did not have my camera at the ready, because nothing says "I'm about to trick you terribly" like a camera in your face.  

 I had to have the kids re-inact their indignation at my evil withholding of information:

 

 

The Story About Ping - Geography and Dioramas

Thanks to getting a great deal on the first Volume in the series, I am trying the "Five In A Row" (FIAR) curriculum supplement with my kids this year.  The concept of FIAR is pretty neat; basically, you read the same story together five days in a row, and each day you do an activity or project that goes along with a theme from the story.   You would (presumably) cover a minimum of five areas of study throughout the week, all with a unifying theme to make the process memorable and cohesive.

Today was our second day with "The Story About Ping", a tale of the adventures of a yellow ducking who lives in China.

The Story About Ping - Our first Five In A Row book

Today I decided to enhance my read-aloud of the book with some traditional Chinese music.  I selected "River Water", since the title seemed apropos. I allowed it to play softly in the background as I read, and I think it really added to the tone of the story.

Then it was time for the lesson.  One of the great things about FIAR is that you can switch things up; you don't necessarily have to do science every Monday or art every Thursday.  Because I had it ready to go, I decided to cover geography today.

We all found China on the map together, and then my third-grader got a worksheet about China's geography to complete.  The first-grader got a lesson in "North, South, East and West", where the sun rises and sets, and how to locate the compass on a map.  Meanwhile, the preschooler got his hands on some kid scissors and cut himself a "boat" out of a piece of handwriting paper.

This boat originally went the other way. But Junior did not want to show that side, as his sister has written his name on it with pink crayon.  The horror.

This got me thinking about a website I'd stumbled upon while looking up ideas for this Ping unit, where the "Suggested Student Assessment" was to make a diorama of a scene from the book.  I showed my oldest how to make the diorama and explained to her how to make creatures with tabs on the bottom so that they'd "Stand up" inside the scene.

She was immediately excited and enthusiastic.  However, she was NOT excited and enthusiastic to create a diorama of the Yangtze river and Ping the duck.  No, she was excited to create a "savannah" scene.  Being the cool teacher that I am, I decided that since she'd completed her China worksheet, she could make her diorama however she wanted.  Here it is:

Lion, bird, gazelle, and meerkat.  Cute, eh?

Meanwhile, Junior was pressing me to cut out some shapes for his diorama:

According to the Artist: "It's a dinosaur walking around in the ocean. With a dog.  And a triangle."

Sadly, I have no pictures of Little Sister's diorama, which was made up as a dog pound or pet shop, or something.  She was using hers as more of a play-set, though, moving the pieces around instead of gluing them down..  I think she was the least impacted by this craft; much to the delight of her brother, she spent most of the time asking me why we were spending so much time making "diarrheas".

My oldest was very much "in" to this project.  She proceeded to make another couple of dioramas, one of "a library" (not pictured) and this one of "under the sea":

A mermaid and two dolphins

Between cutting shapes out for the kids, I managed to eek out a bit of artistic expression.  If I am honest, I must confess that I just HAD to make one;  it was driving me mildly bonkers that NOT ONE of my kids was paying homage to the original story during this craft session.  So, here ya go:

Interpretation of "fishing birds" scene

My son brought the Ping book to me tonight and asked me to read it.  I'm glad he didn't protest about having to wait until tomorrow to read it again.  That is the one thing I wonder if I will like about this program; I know kids like to hear a story again and again, but I am not sure I can say I enjoy reading anything 'Five in a Row" times.  But, it is keeping them engaged and we are having fun, so we're going to keep it up.  For now.