Week 25 Day 3

Our day started off with some science experiments. As I did not have any sugar cubes or cucumber at hand today, I promised Andrew and Saara, we will do those experiments over the week end. Today, however, we worked with dehydrated materials and tried to find out why it is good to dry out some things. Our first experiment of dried beans soaked in the water behaved just as expected: the swelling beans popped the lid of the container right off. Our second experiment will take a while longer as we are waiting for mold to start growing on one of the pieces of bread - just to demonstrate that dried foods keep longer.

Andrew and Saara have always loved rhymes and poems. I have had them memorize a few over the months. Today we looked at some of the poems published in the High Five magazine. We read them and examined them and shared our thoughts about the content of the poems. It was a rather good exercise and I am thinking about doing it again tomorrow as we start reading our March issues of both Highlights and High Five.

I had to include a picture of the birds. Andrew and Saara are very familiar with the word 'migration' because twice a year our pond is a pit-stop for flocks of black birds. They never fail and for us they usher in either the fall or the spring.

Week 25 Day 2

Our day went according to the plan and we were done with our classes rather fast - free to go outside and enjoy the beautiful afternoon.

Three things I would like to mention about today, though: first, the children really like "The Wizard of Oz" (or as Saara calls the book "The Lizard or Oz").

Second, I had no reason to fear that Andrew would have hard time understanding fractions. We moved on from 1/2 to 1/3 and 1/4.

Third, games as part of a school day is always a welcome change. Today, we played a memory game that was included in the High Five magazine. Very simple, but a lot of fun. We also played the "21 Questions" game suggested in the curriculum. It was a bit harder but both kids understood the rules and found a better way to ask questions to reveal the object that I drew on a paper.

Tomorrow will bring us some science projects. We are still exploring the Land of Evaporation.

P.S. Do not ask me about the Santa hat Andrew keeps wearing. I am greatly puzzled myself.

Week 25 Day 1

Quite a lot happened today and past weekend. The 'rainbow sugar' experiment was a colorful and tasty success. Right after church on Sunday, we crumbled up the dehydrated mass of sugar water or something like it. It was rather pretty.

Our science lesson today talked about what happens to molecules when a material is heated up or cooled down. The suggested experiment with a water bottle and a balloon worked 50%. The cooling down part with the air contracting and sucking the balloon into the bottle worked nicely. The opposite of the air heating up and filling the balloon worked somewhat but not enough to get the kids excited. But they did get the idea across of materials expanding in heat and contracting in cold very well.
In our studies about the world and people and cultures we talked about clothes and how different countries and cultures and regions have their different national costumes. It prompted me to dig up my Estonian national costume. I made it like 20 years ago. Last time I tried it on was ten years ago. Thank God, moths had not found it yet, but it sure needs some tender loving care if I intend to pass it on to my kids.
So far, so good.

Week 24 Day 5

It being Saturday and all plus having Daddy around all morning, I wanted to keep our school day today 'fancy fee', i.e. all the extras that I insert to our daily studies, like reading the "Highlights" magazine and some other things. Besides, the weather was too beautiful outside to sit around the table too long. So, we got done with the day's requirements and off to see the sunshine outside we went. By the way, so far both of the children like the book very much.

Week 24 Day 4

February the 24th is Estonia's Independence Day! Made me a bit home sick. But my two half-Estonians colored beautiful pictures of our national flower - the cornflower - , our national bird - the swallow-, and the Estonian flag - blue, black, and white. Heritage studies.

The rest of the day was spent doing the regular drills of letters, hand writing, and math. We also tiptoed into the realm of energy. It is a rather hard subject for my five-year-old to grasp, so I tried to make it as simple as possible, focusing on the energy we use up moving around and where it comes from. All the 'kinetic' and 'potential' and other alien words can come later.

Week 24 Day 3

We started reading the New Testament in our Bible Stories book today! Amazing! The children have heard all the major stories in the Old Testament. I do not expect them to remember every single name they were exposed to, but it will make it easier to recognize the characters next time they run into them.

Our afternoon after the library's story time was dedicated to science. We watched the video as usual and copied the experiments in our kitchen. It was all about evaporation. Andrew and Saara are very familiar with this process because we almost lost our pond due to the water evaporating. So, it was already months ago that we had to answer their question "where is the water disappearing?"

First, we soaked two dish cloths. We laid one out on a plate and the other one we folded into a plastic bag. In the evening, the cloth in the bag was still damp while the cloth on the plate was bone dry, of course.

Second, we added some salt to some water and covered the bowl with plastic. We let it sit in a warm place (in the sun) and in the evening checked the plastic. Water that had evaporated had condensed on the plastic and tasted like distilled water should. How on earth did the 'scientist' in the video taste saltiness in the condensed water, is beyond me. He himself said the salt stays in behind in the water ...
Explaining why the ocean water was salty, was part of the lesson here. I drew a simple picture of the water cycle adding the elements the rivers carry to the ocean.

And third, we are still waiting for the outcome of the 'rainbow sugar' experiment. We added food coloring to the sugar water we mixed and now the colorful spoonfuls are waiting for the evaporation to take place.

It was fun. Let us see, what tomorrow brings.

Week 24 Day 2

Our school day was fun filled but rather intense - I did not have time to take any pics. The only shot I managed today was of Andrew inspecting the science experiment. The water in the small containers did push up and out of the neck a bit and made the sides and bottom of the containers bulge. Not much, but it was enough to deduce that ice needs more space than water.
I hope, Andrew will remember that and not end up like a friend of mine 15 years ago who could not figure out why his Coke bottle burst in the freezer. Teenagers then, let me tell you ...

Week 24 Day 1

What a busy day! A good one though. We learned about cities and towns. The fun part of it was that I tried to play an artist and draw on the white board some scenarios how towns could have started, like a village supplying the castle on the top the hill with food and services grew into a town, or a good port grew into a busy trading town, etc.
In science we learned more about materials and how they change with heat or cold. We also started an experiment of watching the 'frozen water grow'. We will see if the ice expands over the top of the containers or not. Only tomorrow will tell.
Our school day ended on a very upwards note. Literally. Andrew had tryouts at the Upwards Soccer in town. He is all excited about it. Good.

Presidents' Day

Although we did no school work today, I gathered the kids around the table for a little Presidents' Day activity. It is high time Andrew (and I) got to know some of the past US Presidents. We have been working a lot with coins in our math class, so we brought them out again this time to look at the pictures rather than work with their values.
We made some coin-rubs and found the pictures of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson on the web just to see what the men actually looked like. Andrew loved the activity so much, he went on rubbing the coin images for both heads and tails. The best part: later in the day Andrew recognized Washington in a picture he saw. Good. He was only the fist one. There are still dozens of Presidents we will get to know in time.

Week 23 Day 3

A rather eventless school day. A good one, though. I am thankful for Andrew's progress in his reading assignments and his creative writing assignments. Today he managed to keep his story short and sweet and did not chase any rabbits. His reading ability is increasing. We started to borrow beginner reader books from the library and I can tell a little boost in his self-confidence when he actually reads a book from cover to cover. Way to go Andrew!

Week 23 Day 2

The two last lessons we had today were the most fun. First, we reviewed everything we had learned about houses since the first people to the Victorian times. We also explored the houses we are living in today and checked if Saara's doll house has all the parts mentioned in the lesson. It was missing the attic and the garage, but that does not really matter - our house does not have those either. Neither do we have a cellar or basement which to Andrew was such a fascinating part of Grandma's house in Estonia.

Our science lesson proved to me that chemistry can be a lot of fun (I have no clue, how I survived it at school). We talked about solids, liquids, and gases, and how the molecules behave in them.
In solids they stick together closely and barely move:


In liquids they are together and move faster:


In gases they do not touch and move very fast:


The best part of the science class was another vinegar + baking soda experiment (the first one being the volcano we made to erupt months ago). This time we used a liquid and a solid material to make the gas CO2. That was way too cool.

Week 23 Day 1

Andrew had not seen this many (two) MDs since the day he was born. Yesterday, he had two appointments and now a new bottle of medicine. This pesky cough just does not leave him alone. Nor does the runny nose. Obviously, I did not schedule any school work and so, with us taking a trip this week end we will do school only three days this week. But busy three days they will be.

Today, we started reading "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". I remember reading it as a child and thinking what a silly and boring book it was. My husband said he was scared of the characters when he was little. Well, how be! After the first chapter, the kids are liking it. Let's see what happens. They liked "My Father's Dragon" (a rather silly book, in my opinion) so much that I borrowed two following books from the library. As our Vocabulary Development, we are reading "Elmer and the Dragon" right now and hopefully will be finished before we need to return the book. I guess, silly or not, it is a healthy sort of story and has good words in it to learn and explore.

Week 22 Day 6

We had a very science centered day. First thing after the Bible reading and prayer, we talked about what scientist do and how they do it and why they do it. I had them pretend to be scientist (I wish, I had had a white lab coat for them to wear!) and go through the basic rigamarole of asking a question, coming up with a theory, conducting an experiment, observing, and drawing a conclusion. Our object was floating items in a fresh and salt water. The kids started cheering when they saw the egg in the salty water float! That was cool, both the kids screaming and the egg floating.

And we finished out school day with a number of experiments about the acidity of various foods. We also dropped some coins in a cup of cola for cleaning (the next day we checked if the acid had worked, one coin out of six looked sparkly, the other ones most likely would have required a longer soaking time or a stronger acid).
The kids tasted some foods and liquids and decided whether they tasted sour or not. So, we grouped them accordingly. Our Not-so-sour group was much larger than the Sour group. Later we conducted the 'red cabbage water' test and found out that most items in the first group actually contained acid, like cola, orange juice, and apple cider. The children had fun watching the blueish cabbage water turn pink or read as the acid reacted. Way too cool.
And again - the kids ate their school work! While I was preparing the foods for the taste test in the kitchen, the kids were shredding the red cabbage: "One for me, one for the bowl. One for me, one for the bowl." Needless to say, the orange disappeared as well as soon as our experiment was over.

Week 22 Day 5

We started our day out with exercising again. This time the routine came from a book called "I Love Yoga". It was fun to try the different yoga poses and their names, like 'dolphin' or 'downward dog', made us giggle. We will try to go through the whole book and try as many poses as we can. It is fun. And good for our bodies.

If the exercises made us giggle then the history lesson or rather now basic cultural studies of the nations of the world had us in stitches. I laughed till my head hurt. After reading about how different we all are in this world of ours, we tried to greet each other in different ways. The common handshake and even the Asian bowing was easy, but when we got to the Continental (French) style greeting of three pecks on the cheeks, things got out of order. I kind of knew it was bound to be hilarious, so I captured it on the camera.

Here's take one: I just told Andrew and Saara to try to greet each other:



Take two: Saara decided not to let Andrew get away this time:



Take three: Finally, Andrew gave up and agreed to be greeted:

Week 22 Day 4

School day was good. Library was fun. Not much happened except I shot a short video which I titled "Caught Doing Math." In our Wednesday Night class at church we made a Valentine's Day craft - love bug antennae. Andrew has been wearing his two days in a row now, buzzing around even while doing school work. i had to catch that phenomenon on camera. He had no idea he was being filmed and looks pretty confused ...
Here it is.

Week 22 Day 3

Looking back at the school day, it seems that math and science dominated over other subjects. Beside the usual additions and subtractions, every now and then we go over and learn more about money and time. Today we did it again, and again I saw that Andrew likes to count money himself (with me telling him the amount of cents to count) rather than guess how much money is in front of him. Counting coins is fun. I will not be surprised to find Andrew one day emptying his piggy bank just to count how much he has in it. As a child, I did it countless times.

Our science class brought us to a make-believe doctor's office. Saara volunteered to be the doctor. It was not just role playing but serious lesson on what are doctors for and how do they find out about our ailments. Of course, the whole time I was entertained by the pair of them recounting the numerous stories of our visits to the doctor's office. One would think we had been on a field trip!

In our history lesson, I brought out the computer to show some pictures of the decades after the WW II. We looked at the photos of the first television sets, mobile phones, etc. At the end I asked them, would they know what a type writer was. Their answer made me feel SO incredibly OLD.

Week 22 Day 2

Right after prayer and Bible reading we dove into our science projects. We taste tested sweet, sour, salty, and bitter things on different parts of our tongue; we also tasted chocolate milk and strawberry milk both with our noses plugged and unplugged, and we tested our reactions to green and blue scrambled eggs.
Our milk test failed because Saara guessed both milks with and without her nose plugged. Andrew did not guess right neither with or without holding his breath. I tried it too and ended up with milk up my nose. May-be this works with shakes but not milks.
Andrew was very suspicious about the green and blue eggs. Honestly, they did not look appetizing at all. Saara, braveheart, did not mind the color and dug right in.
The children liked the taste testing the best, mainly because I let them finish the bowl of powdered sugar once we were done.
All this fun energized us for the rest of the school day which flew by fast.

Valentine's Day Is Coming

We love Valentine's Day! Tonight we sat down with some construction paper, glue, scissors, ribbon, branches from our forest, and pebbles from our creek ... and - voila! - our first Valentine's Day decoration is up and pretty.