Still totally in love with "The Kitchen Counter Cooking School"! I may learn how to make chicken that isn't dry finally! But I'm finished with that, and though I'm looking through all the sticky tabbed pages often, I'm moving on to tell you about science for the year.
This year we're following the recommendations from "the Well Trained Mind" to do Earth Science and Astronomy. I bought the Apologia Astronomy book as our spine for Astronomy, but we're starting with Earth Science. So here's how I'm doing that...
The other day, I went through that section in our wonderful local library, and I pulled out books that I thought looked interesting in a variety of subjects. I've got books on volcanos, earthquakes, landslides, climates, floods, caves, rocks, gems, and minerals. I put them in the science book box, and then I got a few earth science related experiment books. After I looked through those, I came up with a clear winner in that category, and I sticky tabbed the experiments I want to use from it.
This book is "How the Earth Works: 60 Fun Activities for Exploring Volcanoes, Fossils, Earthquakes, and More." Tomorrow we're going to cut into a hard boiled egg and use it to talk about the earth's mantle, crust, and core. Then maybe we'll try and eat the egg. ;) I'm going to let them color and put on the wall the photocopy I made from the book of the layers of the earth.
I bought a couple of $2 laminated placemats at the homeschool conference this year, and they're up on our wall now. They are "Rocks and Minerals" and "The Solar System." After I put them up, Seth spent some time studying them. This year, I'm also planning to have them memorize the different kinds of rocks and the planets in order, and those two things made it into our memory binder.
Oh, and the spine I'm using for earth science is the DK Eye Wonder Earth book. Of all the reference books available at our library, it was the best, and the library had many books to cover the different topics presented in it.
When we read a science book, I'm pulling out a sheet of blank paper and a pen, and I'm labeling the top with the title of the book or books, and then I ask them what they learned/what was interesting about the book. I copy down what they say, and sometimes I have them draw a picture on the paper to go with it. Then I hole punch it and put it in that section of our Wonder book. I'll take pictures of our experiments and hopefully figure out how to make collages to print out and put in the book, too.
Yesterday wasn't the greatest first day of school. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth and complaints about having to put up Legos. Today was MUCH better! Ben wanted to participate in a lot and didn't cause trouble. He's going to know the continents at age 3. Seth had a good attitude about the increased table work that he'll be having this year, and I made a point to smile and let words of praise fall easily from my lips. ;)
To top it off, Papa (my daddy) came through on his way back from the beach and took us out to lunch at Chick Fil A, so they each got kids meals AND chocolate milk. I got a clean kitchen before rest time. Score!
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