HOMESCHOOLIN' FUN AND FIELD TRIPS

Every day during read-aloud time, I have the girls work with their hands. It actually helps them to listen better, while exercising their brains at the same time. One of their favorite things to do is work with pattern blocks.

I guess you could call this pre-geometry skills? I love the colorful patterns they come up with.

Boo went with her preschool class this week to our local library for a field trip. Even though we go there every week, she was able to go "behind the scenes" to see how it all worked!

Some of the books that were returned and waiting to be shelved.

A sweet librarian read several stories to them - here they are trying to "spit out" the bug that flew into their mouths during the story!

And Boo was FINALLY able to get her own library card. She has wanted one for quite a while, seeing that her big sisters both had them, but I put it off. Now I'm glad I did - she had the joy of receiving hers with her classmates! She was so proud and excited to sign her name on the back of her card.

Banana and I have started this GREAT science series. I love how we can study the things that really interest each of my kids. Banana is the biggest bird lover on the planet, so this is absolutely perfect for her. The series is made by Apologia. Our kids have used these curriculums in school as well. I love how they incorporate scripture, and God's design into every aspect of science.

And she has started Notebooking along with this curriculum. I love how this notebook is already put together to go along with the curriculum, but you can add notebooking to any subject at all! It is a great way to help them retain everything they learn. The concept of notebooking is not new. In fact, keeping notebooks was the primary way the learned men of our past educated themselves, from Leonardo Da Vinci and Christopher Columbus to George Washington and John Quincy Adams. These men and many others of their time were avid notebookers. We are even reading a book right now called Carry On Mr. Bowditch which chronicles Nathaniel Bowditch's journey, from his modest beginnings, to his first sea-voyage, to his rigorous self-education (read - notebooking!!!) to the eventual publication of his famous work, The American Practical Navigator, also known as the "Sailor's Bible". It is a very interesting biography, we are learning so much about the early history of sailing, and we were excited and thrilled to see he used the process of notebooking too!

One of the experiments we did this week showed us how air pressure works, and how a bird's wing get it's "lift". It's a little hard to see in this picture, but take a full cup of water, and put a straw into it. Cut the straw so that only 1/2 inch sticks out of the water. Carefully hold that straw while blowing through another straw right over the tip of the straw in the water.

By blowing, this will make the air move faster over the top of the straw in the water. As a result, the air pressure above the straw in the water will decrease, and when there is less air pressure above the straw, guess what will happen? A spray of water will shoot up out of the straw in the cup! The blowing air over the top of the straw could not press down as hard on the water in the straw. The air over the rest of the water in the cup was not moving, so it continued to press down on the water with its full pressure. Since the water in the cup was being pressed down harder than the water in the straw, water was forced up and out of the straw! This is a lot like what happens to a bird's wing. Just as the difference in air pressure over the straw and the rest of the cup lifted water out of the straw, the difference in air pressure bewteeen the top and bottom of a bird's wing lifts the wing into the air. Isn't God amazing?