A Little Science

As I've mentioned before, we love Apologia's Exploring Creation series for Elementary-aged children. Last year we worked our way through Astronomy, and this year we've slowly but surely been learning about the world of plants through their Exploring Creation with Botany book. Its been a lot of fun, and we're learning tons. Isn't that half the fun of homeschooling as a parent - learning things you never learned yourself, or at least had forgotten?!

We recently conducted an experiment. Each of the three boys (we do Science while Nathan and Judah are napping, so its just Isaac, Ezra, and Joel) placed bean seeds (which are actually just dried beans, you know!) into separate plastic baggies, along with a wet paper towel. One baggie we placed in a dark closet, another was hung in a window, and the third was placed in the refigerator. Each boy made a hypothesis about their particular seed and whether or not it would grow, how much, and why or why not.

One of the funniest thing about this is the boys kept calling their hypotheses "I hope these..." as in "My I hope these is that I hope these will grow". LOL!

Anyway, we were supposed to chart the progress daily, but since it was Thanksgiving week, we didn't. But it was an even more interesting discovery to see what had happened in the week that the seeds hadn't been monitored.

Here are Ezra's seeds - his were in the refrigerator (see the little white beans at the bottom?):

His hypothesis was that they would not grow because it was cold and dark, and he was correct. He was a little disappointed that he was correct, though.

Here are Isaac's - his were in the window:

His hypothesis was also correct - he guessed they would grow well because they were in a sunny window.

Joel's are the ones that surprised everyone. His were in a dark closet, where no light ever gets to (in the basement next to the furnace and water heater). Joel's hypothesis was that they probably wouldn't grow, of if they did, it would be very little. The other boys agreed with him. Surprise!

However, we did notice that while they grew the biggest of all of them, they weren't a nice healthy green color like the ones that got sunlight. We also had to determine why they grew so big, despite the lack of light. We finally came to the conclusion that they grew so big beacuse they were searching for light!

This experiment really helped reinforce the fact that the only things seeds need to germinate is warmth, water, and air - light isn't actually needed! However, once they start growing, light becomes a necessary resource to help them be green and healthy. It was interesting to see how the beans kept in the closet were trying to burst out of their baggie in their hunt for light, but the ones in the window just grew at a normal rate as happy little beans.

Just another day in the life of homeschooling :-)

A Few Notes about Apologia

One thing we will be continuing during our summer break is working our way through Apologia's Exploring Creation with Botany, by Jeannie Fulbright. Its just too much fun to give up, and the summer season is a good one for studying a variety of plants. One thing that the boys are loving about it are the hands-on experiments. Something that I love is the Botany Lab Kit that I got to accompany the book. It has made science so much LESS stressful and burdensome to me!

Almost everything we need for every project and experiment in the book is included, and what isn't included are simple things found in most households (measuring cups, water, etc.). The kit even includes tin foil and paper towels! So now we just open up the book and go with whatever is assigned for the day, with literally NO preparation on my part.

The kit comes with each lesson's materials sorted into labeled bags, so I just pull out the "Lesson 1" bag (or whatever lesson we're on) and get what I need out of it. I cannot even begin to describe how much I am loving this kit!

It is produced by Nature's Workshop Plus, which has a ton of other fun science and nature resources, but I was even more excited to find out that Christianbook.com carries it, too - since I am an affiliate, and all! ;-)

There are kits for each Apologia Exploring Creation book - Astronomy, Botany, and the Zoology series, as well. I really can't say enough about what a blessing the kit has been to me, so if you are using any of the Apologia Exploring Creation books, I highly recommend the investment!

Also, another fun Apologia development are the new Notebooking Journals for both Astronomy and Botany. My boys have always found blank notebooking pages a bit intimidating, so we've been using Live & Learn Press's Learn N' Folders. They make a great interactive notebook, but require a bit of planning and preparing effort on my part to print, cut, assemble, and glue them. After looking at the sample pages of the Notebooking Journals, I think we're going to have to give them a try when we begin Zoology (hoping that one for Zoology will be ready by then!) They look like just what we need to graduate into more "mature" notebooking, while still enjoying the process, and saving myself some time!

Wordless Wednesday - A View of Homeschooling

Olympus Mons erupts!

Homeschool Ramblings

I thought I'd go ahead and update how our new year is going along! Ezra is using My Father's World 1st Grade, and we are really loving it. Isaac is weeks away from finishing Adventures, and then, for him, we're not going to jump straight into the next program (which would be Exploring Countries and Cultures (ECC), a year long focus on World Geography and Missions). Instead, I'm going to go back to a more eclectic style, until Ezra is done with 1st. Once Ezra is done with 1st (probably around January, or so) we are excited to start ECC!

For Isaac, some things we'll be using are 3rd grade Rod & Staff Reading (I really love how Bible centered Rod and Staff curriculum is!), Apologia Elementary Science (finishing the Astronomy we started last year), continue math with Math-U-See Beta and Spanish with Rosetta Stone, and also introduce some logic and typing skills! We'll also be getting some United States geography games to help hone everyone's skills in remembering states and capitals. While I'm looking forward to moving into ECC, I'm also excited to have a little time to do our "own" thing outside of the curriculum "box".

This was something I wrestled with for a while. I really enjoy My Father's World curriculum - I like how its entirely focused on learning about and serving the Lord, helping children and families become mission-minded. The lessons are wonderfully age-appropriate, short for young attention spans, the activities are fun but not overwhelming to prepare for, and overall, very enriching.

However, being the perfectionist I am, I really struggled with "marking off the boxes" - feeling pressured to get it "all" done, and if I somehow got thrown off schedule, trying to fit everything back in - while the daily schedule is a wonderful guide, my perfectionism has struggled with it and feeling like I have to do it all "just so". I also struggled with juggling two programs (first, Kindergarten and Adventures, now 1st and Adventures) for the same reasons - I didn't want to leave ANY of the wonderful learning opportunities out, which leads to a very full (and sometimes overwhelming) day!

I definitely feel this is an aspect of my personality that I need to tone down some in order to be a better homeschooling mom! So I freely admit its *me* and not the curriculum itself. That being said, I am both excited for some time "out of the box" and also looking forward to returning to that structure when both children can be in the same program together!

And So it Begins....

Our full-time homeschooling, that is! We now have the basics of what we need for Reading, English, Math, Science and History. We'll be adding on a few more things, but overall we're set to go!

For Science we are starting with Apologia's Elementary Science - Exploring Creation with Astronomy. The book came today, and the boys were SO excited! I love it because its Biblically based, easy to read/teach from, and has fun notebook pages and projects every week. After just leafing through looking at the pictures, Isaac said "Oh, I'm definitely going to be an Astronaut. Definitely! I can find moonrocks to bring home, and if I find any aliens I'm going to tell them all about my family and God and Jesus!"

We are waiting on the corresponding project kit from Creation Sensation, and we'll be off and running. Science is one of my favorite subjects, I'm really excited to be able to teach it!

The only thing left on our must-have list is the Kindergarten cirriculum from My Father's World for Ezra, Rosetta Stone Spanish for all of us, and maybe a few other things like a music program and handwriting helps.

For History, Michael will be spending time reading out of Bill Bennett's "America: The Last Best Hope" to the children.

I am so blessed to be able to learn with my children as we go through our day together. It keeps us always busy, but it is so much fun!