One Thing Leads to Another

One thing I do like about homeschooling is that we can make a lesson out of anything, and what started out as one thing can turn into another. At Easter, Toby dyed eggs for the first time. Since then he continuously crawls up on the counter and starts poking at the box of food colouring (that STILL hasn't been cleaned up.... sigh...), or coming out to where I'm working with the bottles in his hands asking if we can do more science with them.

So ok fine, I poked through some books and online for colour mixing experiments and came across this paper towel one. The outline on the site just used a few colours, but I figured we'd do a whole colour mixing lesson. Once Toby figured out which were the primary colours, he coloured one of each on each side of our rows.

Next we tented paper towel from the coloured cups into the empty cups. We watched the colour crawl slowly up the paper towels and noted that the paper towel was wet before the colour crept up, which meant that somehow the paper towel is separating out the water from the food colouring, which my inner geek finds FASCINATING.... I'm sure there's a 4th grade science fair project in there somewhere...

 It took about an hour or so, but finally the colours made it up over the hill to mix at the bottom of the empty cups. We talked about how the paper towel was kind of like a straw or a sponge and it sucked everything wet up until there were no more dry spaces.

I asked Toby what else soaked up water like a straw.

"Umm... me drinking with a straw."
"Yes, but what ACTS like a straw, and brings water up from the ground?"
"Mmmmm... plant roots?"
"And what do you think would happen if we gave all our plants coloured water instead of clean water?"
"I dunno, nothing? Would they turn colours? CAN WE DO THAT?"
"Dunno, let's try!"
So off we went to town to find some white flowers, and more food dye.

When we came home several hours later the paper towel colours looked amazing.

So now armed with a completed colour mixing palette, we mixed colours again and put them in rainbow order...

And added our daisies.

After several hours we only had a faint tint at best, which was a little dissapointing. Even after an over-night they didnt look much better.

Then I actually read online instructions for how to do it right, and apparently warm water makes the colour absorb faster, and I had used cold water before. This time I also used half the water and twice the food colouring to guarantee some results. After a few hours we noticed a big difference, and after 24 hours the results were spectacular.
(My inner geek would also like to note that in the case of orange and purple, the plant separated out the mixed colours at first, with the tips of the petals taking the lighter primary, and the centre of the flower taking the dark. The longer we waited the more they mixed though)

Toby the asked if we could do the coloured baking soda and vinegar fizzies again. I don't mind doingit but went online again for other ideas and came across this blog.

Though the science behind it isn't really explained, I would assume that by mixing the baking soda and epsom salts, the baking soda would react, but the epsom salts make it last longer. Also the lemon juice acts as the acid and smells way better than vinegar.

Some small fizzies at first....

Then we got more confident in our fizzing..

Then we thought we should make prints like we've done with coloured dish soap bubbles. The dried result was pretty cool because the baking soda and salt dried with the colours and made little star patterns.

Then we got carried away....

 And Toby wanted to know what it felt like to have baking soda explode in his hands. (this was just from a small dusting he had leftover on his fingers and a ton of lemon juice)

 So we 'accidentally' packed in science, art, play, problem solving and math into the past week.... makes up for being outside 'doing nothing' this week :P

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Wordless Wednesday

Easter and Earth Day

It seems the monotony of the last month has caught up to us... or maybe it's because the snow's gone... but the last few days have been packed full of activities.

We don't usually do much for Easter. We used to decorate eggs like crazy when I was younger and we've dried them and kept them because some of them are pretty outstanding, but because Toby is allergic to eggs I've never really pushed the egg decorating thing.

This year though, he's old enough to look at it as an art project and not just as something he's left out of eating.

First of all he reminded me that we bought baby animal cookie cutters to make Easter cookies, so we did that. He keeps staring at these photos of ornate cookies and lamenting that we never put icing on ours, so we decided to paint-ice these ones.

A lesson in colour mixing before we begin.

Our masterpieces.

After our eatable eggs were painted, we coloured our real eggs.

Toby's first time dying Easter eggs.

I wanted to use natural dyes, but didn't plan ahead on this one at all so I scrounged together what I had. I found some frozen blueberries that we used for blue/purple, we used tumeric for yellow, and I tried to used some leftover artichoke water for green, but when you mixed in the vinegar (to act as a fixative on the eggs) it turned a horrible shade of apple juice.... so we used green food dye for green...

Ended up looking pretty good!

(Toby's favourite colour is green, can you tell?)

I hard boiled the eggs, foreseeing one being dropped, which it did. Toby was mortified, but I said it was ok because we could do something cool with it.

This Martha Stewart Spiderweb Eggs idea is in a book I have, so we tried it.
You're supposed to cook the eggs with the blueberries, so ours wasn't as dark, but still cool!

Because we used vinegar in the egg dye, Toby eventually piped up "Isn't vinegar supposed to explode or something when you put stuff in it?"
I confirmed that he meant baking soda, so we experimented with the leftover dye and a big bowl of baking soda.

SCIENCE!

The reason I've included Earth Day in this post is because Toby, knowing that the eggs we did would need to be broken so we could eat them before they went bad, still didn't want to get rid of the shells.
I said they're hard to take off in one piece when they're boiled.
He said he knew that, but maybe we could make an art project out of them instead of throwing them out.

So today he drew a picture of the Earth and we made an egg shell mosaic.

Our Earth Day  activities also included a clean up of the road in front of our house and discussions about littering and looking after the planet.
We thought we'd maybe wander around and get a couple grocery bags of trash, but we ended up with 6 grocery bags, plus three garbage bags we found in a ravine and a bucket full of dried cement. GROSS PEOPLE.

Happy Earth day everyone!

The Lego Homeschooling Method

I found my scheduling calendar the other day for all the notes and things I wanted to do with Toby while homeschooling.
The word 'found' maybe indicates how long it's been since I've opened it.
I looked inside and my chest sank as I realized I hadn't made notes since the end of February. We were going to do 'green' projects for St.Patrick's Day and the first day of Spring. We were going to do seed sprouting prior to planting our early peppers so we could see how seeds grow. We were going to talk about trees and maple syrup, but it was too cold at the time for the sap to be flowing.

What the heck had we done for the entire month of March? I felt busy, we must have done... something?

Then I clued in. Toby had been bitten by the Lego bug. All we had done the last month was Lego, lunch, Lego, outside (maybe), Lego, dinner, Lego.

I felt a sinking feeling again as I looked at his word and math sheets that had all but been abandoned over the last several weeks.
We HAD to get back into a routine....right??

I left the office to find Toby, again, at the table with a tray of Lego in front of him.
Our current obsession is a create-and-rebuild Lego truck set, and Mixels.
If you haven't heard of Mixels, it's these little Lego creatures that have three to a 'tribe' and nine to a series. If you have all three form the same 'tribe' you can find instructions online to make a big guy from all of their pieces. If you have all the guys from the series you can do infinite mix variations with all the pieces from them.
For my 8 year old self, this would have been a terrible idea since I treasured every Lego thing I built, and played with it as a toy, never daring to take it apart again.
For Toby though, this is brilliant. He's constantly inventing things in his head and trying to draw them and taking things apart JUST so he can put them back together.

He proudly showed me his new characters and told me all about the things they do to help the other Mixels. It finally hit me as I sat and listened to him for the hundredth time just how GOOD his designs were. Every character was different. Every time.
Maybe... just maybe... he was actually learning something...

Here's what I've finally figured out, just by watching him.
He's learning:

Engineering: the most obvious Lego skill. Everything is trial and error, and every time he makes a mistake, he makes the design better. Supports, locks, braces, everything in the right place to make the design work.

Counting: '2-piece' '4-piece' '6-piece' '4-cube' 'single-square/circle' and  'two-ramp' have all become common parts of our vocabulary when playing. Being able to sight-see those number figures, as well as count how many pieces you need, is something that used to take ages, and now happens almost instantaneously.

Colour: Again, obvious with Lego, but we're learning new colours like burgundy, gold, and the difference between dark grey and light grey.

Balance: Both structurally and artistically. Sometimes the creations are symmetrical, and other times they're not, but he's always figuring out that it can't be too heavy on one side, or that he needs another piece to even it out.

Following direction: 6 months ago he would get through 4-6 steps of Lego instructions, with help, before either skipping ahead or wanting to do something else. Last week he followed online instructions, start to finish, 30 something steps, with no help at all, except to ask for a few pieces he couldn't find.

Focus: Hand-in-hand with the last point, his ability to focus on something for more than 10 minutes has increased SIGNIFICANTLY.

Fine motor skills: What he got frustrated and cried about a few months ago, he now does with determination, accuracy and care.

Hand-eye co-ordination: He used to hand-off Lego pieces to me that "Just don't work" after one try, and now builds with precision and speed.

Physics: "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction". ie: when you push a piece down really hard on one side, and the other side isn't braced, everything smashes and/or flies across the room.

Creativity: When he first looked at all the lose pieces and began sticking them together, he gave up pretty quickly without instructions. Now every time he makes something it sparks an idea for something else and his general creative instinct grows stronger. Today he told he in immense detail a scene he wanted me to make out of food for his snack, and what foods I should use. He's never done that before.

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This is a tow truck with a spare tire and special turbo jets so it can haul heavier loads, and flames shooting out the back so it can melt the ice on the roads on slippery days.

The big guy is the combonation of the three red guys.
The one on the left I started, and Toby figured out the rest.

More guys

The two on the right were started by Anthony.
Toby did the rest.

The three 'Max' combination guys, and little friends Toby made out of the extra pieces.

The three grey guys that Toby followed the instructions for, almost all by himself.

More made-up critters

So, what do you think? Is 'The Lego homeschooling method' a thing?

Mom Olympics

With the wrap up of the Olympics for another few years, I thought I'd pitch my idea for some Olympic events, specifically for parents.
How many events would you enter? What are you the best at?

Event 1 - The Floor Routine: Participants are put in an enclosed ring with 100 tiny Lego pieces, 100 Rice Crispies, 20 Marbles, 10 dust bunnies and an eleven-month-old. Clean the floor in the fastest time to win. Points are deducted if the baby eats some cereal. Disqualification occurs if the baby obtains any of the other items.

Event 2 - The Multi Task: Participants must make their way through  a course of randomly placed Duplo bricks, while holding an overflowing laundry basket, talking with phone tucked under one ear, and balancing the smoothie you just made on top of the laundry basket. Points are deducted for each stumble. Disqualification occurs if you drop anything. The stairs in the last leg of the course have brought down many-a professional.

Event 3 - The Stress Test: Participants are placed in an enclosed room with a dog, a two year old who is an hour overdue for a nap, a six-month old, and one broken toy. Whoever lasts longest without losing their mind wins.

Event 4 - The Biathlon: Participants jog on track with jogging stroller. At each check point participant must stop, change baby's diaper, and toss diaper into appropriate receptacle. A missed shot results in a  one minute penalty added to their time.

Event 5 - Backwards Day: Participants bend to the whims of a 5 year old through a backwards obstacle course. Participants must successfully build a Lego set with the instructions upside-down, crawl backwards through a fabric play tunnel, run backwards through a series of hula hoops, and sing any nursery rhyme backwards that the child comes up with. Points deducted for hesitation or inaccuracy.

Event 6 - Silence: Participants are faced with a hallway rigged with laser alarms. Crossing a laser will sound an alarm and wake the baby, resulting in disqualification. Maneuver the hallway as quickly and accurately as you can. Follow up events require you to be holding either a bowl of cereal or glass of wine. Lose points for spilling, disqualified for sounding alarm.

Event 7 - Strategical Lifting: Unload a car load of groceries, diaper bag, sleeping eight-month-old, and bag of new baby clothes in one trip. Points deducted if baby wakes up before you make it to the house. Disqualification if you drop anything.

Event 8 - Wrestling: Change a dirty diaper on a mobile toddler in the fastest time. Points deducted for diaper contents spilled. Disqualification if toddler escapes the arena unchanged.

Event 9 - The Dash: Participants are handed a container filled with contents resembling vomit, set to explode on a timer. Proceed to dash through hurdles course and land container safely in designated area before contents erupt.

Event 10 - Triathlon: Participants engage in a grueling bed-time routine. First leg of the race is bath time where child kicks/splashes/plays/screams while participants try not to get soap in their eyes. When the baby is dried and dressed they proceed to the second leg of the race, which is the bicycle portion. Ride around track with baby in bicycle car seat until baby falls asleep before proceeding to last leg of the race. Once baby is asleep, remove baby from bicycle car seat and speed walk to the finish line without the baby waking up.

Homeschool: Olympic week.

I think I"m going to try to post once a month about homeschooling just to make myself feel like we're accomplishing things.

After not doing much of anything for a while, THE OLYMPICS CAME.

Our family has always watched the Olympics. Always. We're not huge sports fans, but something about the Olympics is exciting.

Leading up to the opening ceremonies we talked about the Games, and Russia, and Canada.

We've also realized that Toby's obsession love of mazes translates well into map reading. After looking at the globe for a while, we pulled out some local maps and Toby and Grampa developed a game of "If you're here and want to go there, what's the best way?" Also a built in scavenger hunt to find all the churches/boat launches/schools/walking trails/parks listed in the legend.

We read a few book about Russia...

...and Toby thought the 'onion roof' label for the architecture style was hilarious, so we decided to make a Russian building

We used masking tape instead of paper mache because mess. And this was faster.

Lots of painting to be done

Pretty good!! The only thing I did was the white lines, because certain other little people insisted that I put my touch on it.

We watched the entirety of the Opening Ceremonies, which I wasn't expecting Toby to sit thought, but he did!

Grama and Toby made Olympic cookies

We're recording Canadian medal standings

We went skating (Toby for the first time) to get an idea of how much work it takes to work up to the jumps that the figure skaters do.

Needless to say, Toby opted for the sleigh ride after about a minute.

Things I've leaned this month:

There's a two hour window of opportunity to actually do book-work between dinner and bed. The rest of the day, don't even try to convince him.
Toby is quite possibly going to go to the Olympics for long jump. He's jumping about a meter or more from standing at age 5. In the summer I'm going to start actually measuring and not just counting squares on my rug.

Toby can do mazes in seconds.

Winter is lasting a long...long time...