Little Professor Science Kits

One purchase from Convention which I am excited about is the Little Professor Science Kits from the Academy of Science for Kids. As I mentioned in my purchase post, the price of these kits caused me to hesitate. These kits run for $95 plus shipping and because of their size the shipping runs 15-20$. So why would I take the leap for these kits....

*No shipping at convention, even for the one that was not produced yet and they had to mail later.

* Just Add Water. That is it. No looking for cups, beakers, markers or crayons... everything you need for each experiment is included in the box. I love that!


*Each experiment is placed in a labeled baggie... I don't even have to dig through the box for the needed supplies. Talk about making it easy. Thank you!


*Besides supplies the box includes a journal with instructions and lab space, a small science fair display board, online assessment and credits you can earn to trade for science merchandise .

*A year subscription to Discovery Education!!! We do not belong to anything that gives us access to they pay areas of this amazing site. I have wanted to get a subscription for years but could not justify $265. For $95, I got a years subscription plus the kit. That is what really sold me.

The two kits I purchases were Matter and Food Science.

Fieldtrip: Florida’s Space Coast

We went to the Kennedy Space Center the day after Labor Day and it was Empty! We took advantage of this and took tons of pictures.

Actual International Space Station Supplies, some going up in November!

Hint: I was tempted to purchase KSC tickets online but we waited and stopped at the Florida visitor center where they had $2.50 off coupons. Bonus. KSC tickets are good for two days within a seven-day period.

We also took advantage of free admission, part of our KSC admission, to the Astronaut Hall of Fame. It is a wonderful, small museum. The exhibits are interesting and there are many hands on opportunities

Virtual Ball Game

A fun afternoon!

Landing a virtual Space Shuttle

Watching videos at a real mission control table

First: Junior Ranger

Over the years I have “watched” other homeschool blog families vacation in National Parks and participate in the Junior Ranger Program. I couldn’t wait until G had the opportunity to try his hand at this. Well, last month we stumbled upon our first one. We were on our way home from a funeral in Tennessee and stopped off at McD’s in Cave City… and what do I spy? A Momma with an armful of Junior Ranger Handbooks! We were contemplating driving down the road and taking a short tour of Mammoth Cave but now we HAD to go! I hadn’t realized that Mammoth was a National Park; I assumed it was a state park.

We asked about the program at the information desk and learned that G needed to earn 9 points to become a Junior Ranger. The booklet consists of worksheets about being a Ranger and about the Cave System. So while we waited for our tour we found a quiet, cool corner and started to work.

After working in the workbook and seeing the cave, G said he wanted to be a Ranger at Mammoth Cave. He talked to our tour guide, Ranger John, about it. Ranger John told G he could come back when he was in 16 and be a summer intern. High School students intern and learn behind the scene jobs (tickets, cleaning…) and will be giving tours by the end of their stay. I have one very excited Junior Ranger now!

Caves: Mammoth & Onyx

Recently we took a detour on our way home from Tennessee to check out a couple of caves: Mammoth and Onyx. Now my family roots are from Tennessee so I have driven past the exit to these caves 80-100 times over my life and only been to Mammoth Cave twice and never stepped in any of the others. I have longed to go up that tourist trap mountain to Onyx Cave all my life… well we finally stopped.

We had driven half a day in the car, it was 100 degrees, and G had never been in a cave so quick & simple was the way to go this trip. We chose the Mammoth Passage tour. When our tour was called, we met Ranger John who gave us a brief overview of the whole cave system and the rules of the tour. We then walked down the forest path behind the visitor center where the temperature dropped suddenly 50 degrees. Amazing.

As we walked a bit farther we found ourselves at a set of concrete stairs that lead down to the cave entrance. Ranger John discusses how the outside light can only penetrate so far and there is an area in between light and total darkness called twilight. Once inside the opening he turned off all of the lighting so that we could see this transition. It was a bit unsettling.

In the tour we viewed the Salt Petre mine used during the War of 1812.

And learned about the type of lighting used in the mine from reed torches to gas lanterns.

It was quite enjoyable and great introduction to a longer more strenuous tour.

Next we traveled back down the road to Onyx Cave. Don’t let the tourist trappy looks of this place make you skip over it. We really enjoyed. The tour was personal and small. Onyx Cave was discovered in 1971 during construction of a parking lot for Guntown Mountain Amusement Park. While what you can see in Mammoth is dry; Onyx is wet, so there are many formations to be seen. We learned not to touch the wall because the oils from our skin would cause formations to stop growing.

Drapery

Popcorn

Stalagmites

Stalactites

It did actually have some tight spots though but they are short and quick.

Our tour guide, Missy, was knowledge and very personable. Since we were such a small group, two families, she compared what we were seeing with her compared to what was in Mammoth. She shared many personal experiences and stories.

If you have caves in your “backyard” I encourage you to check them out! We cannot wait until our next adventure.

Mr Q Science: Year 1 Earth Science

A few weeks ago I got a question on my feelings about Mr. Q's science after using it this year. I will tell you how I used it and my expectations.

I started the year approaching science as I had before: gathering my own books from the library, scouring the internet and trudging my own path. I am a trained teacher and I love researching and writing my own lessons so this was sort of joyful for me. Well, when I started this year of Earth Science I just could not find the flow of materials I wanted... in step Mr Q. I had never heard of this program and the $50 price tag for a PDF shocked me. After reading all I could on his site I decided to take the plunge. $50 might be worth it not to have to gather books and create an outline. It was. I liked it so much that at Christmas he had a 50% off sale and I bought both the Chemistry and Physics books. So I got 2 for $50. Bonus.

Now, I have to explain my goals for Science (and History). I truly subscribe to the Well Trained Mind ideal of placing pegs for learning. I am not expecting G to memorize or master this information. We are placing seeds of knowledge so when we cycle through this again it will not be totally foreign information. So with this in mind, I did not use all (hardly any) of the worksheets and I did not do an experiment with every chapter. For a 7/ 8 year old some of them were just to dull. Boys this age want OOOH AAAH science and those are the experiments we did. Right now I have a shopping list to get items to make rock candy- crystals & igneous rock I think... But I do not feel like I am wasting my money. As I said, I subscribe to the WTM 4 year cycle and we will cover this again in a few years and I believe I will use this same package again. This time with the worksheets and all of the experiments.

Price of Printing a PDF text: If you have a laptop you could read it off of the laptop. I could have done this but I like to draw on the text to further illustrate things (not something I would ever do to a bound book... oh the freedom!) But I did not just pull up the file and click print. There are a few blank pages and full color chapter title pages, so I would go in and say for example: print 101-109, 112, 121-124 and I would print 2 pages per sheet. I was a little time consuming to pick out all of the sheet numbers but well worth it in the end. And once I decided we were not going to do all of the worksheets I didn't even print those out. I would print 6 weeks at a time.

There are 36 chapters so enough for a typical school year. We completed 24. Our "official" 180 days are done (WOOHOO!!) but we will still be casually doing 4 more math times tables, history biographies, and the remainder of the science over the summer.

So my recommendation would be: If you can do Life Science start there because it is the whole 36 weeks FREE. Then you can try on his style. His chapters are short and to the point but he has a humorous voice. You can get on his mailing list and he sends out monthly lab notes which have an experiment and you will get notice if he has a sale. I think he had a 20% one this spring.

He is not a big company so if you send him and email he will personally answer you. I will say, Your access to the download links only last a month... I did not pay any attention to that when I first downloaded mine. Well, come to find out when we got to the rock chapters a few weeks ago I had not downloaded them... I remember having trouble before. I emailed Scott and asked if he could just send me that unit... he emailed right back and renewed my ES account for another month! It was so quick and easy. I appreciated his speed and response.

So yes, I still am glad I bought Mr. Qs science... I just tweaked how I used it.

TV School- Science

We have watched some amazing science shows this week on TV. I just had to share incase you can catch them on replay.


Raw Anatomy: Inside the Elephant (National Geographic Channel)
We were mesmerized!


Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air (Nature/ PBS)
Slow motion is amazing!


(On DVR) Building Pharaoh's Ship (Nova/ PBS)


ANTS- Nature's Secret Power (The Science Channel)

Coop: Animal Investigations

G has been taking the most amazing class this six weeks. Animal Investigations has been getting up close and personal with animal parts. One week they studied eyes, including dissecting cows. Then cells by making cell cookies. They dissected owl pellets and finally the piece de resistance, pig hearts, lungs and trachea. Their final session was on products that animals give us. I have never heard it is was gross but AWESOME so much in my life. The class was so popular it is beeing offered again next semester.

Earth Science Experiment: 1

Our new science curriculum, which I talked about here, includes two science experiments with each chapter. Several of these experiments throughout the book are Science Fair style with constants and variables, trials and charts. Our first experiment had to do with the distance of a meteor and the size of crater it would leave. G dropped a marble from a set height into a flour/ cocoa earth and measured the crater. It was really fun and provided hours of fun after the formal work was done.

Earth Science: Volcanoes

Our second hands- on activity in our Earth Science unit was volcanoes.
We read several books and watched some great videos (see list at the end).
We create one of each of the types of volcanoes out of homemade dough (not real successful) and made them erupted with vinegar & baking soda.

Earth Science: Starting Over

If you have followed my posts, you know that I piece together my own science curriculum following the Well Trained Mind outline. I was a classroom teacher and have loads of resources and ideas plus I have just not found the spine that speaks to me... until now. While reading through my Blogline feeds the other day, Crunchy Mama from Diosa Dotada Endeavor casually mentioned Mr. Q's Classic Chemistry. Mr. Q? I've never heard of Mr. Q. So a Google we must go. WOW ! Mr. Q is a mild- mannered middleschool science teacher who has written e-textbooks for the 6-12 year set. Each book includes 36 weeks of lessons broken down into 3 days. Day 1- Reading, Vocabulary & Worksheets, Days 2 & 3 EXPERIMENTS!! He will GIVE you the Life Science Book to review, while the other titles (Earth Science, Chemistry, Physics) are $50. I have to say the price tag for PDF made me stop a day and think but I decided it was well worth it. For one, I was having a diffucult time finding the resources at the library that make this topic flow the way I wish. Two, I want to make sure we incorporate lost of hands on activities, something I have not been good at. Mr. Q gives me both! As I mentioned, the texts are written for G's age and each week includes 2 days of experiements. Also the e-books are not skimpy, the Parent Guide for Earth Science is over 400 pages and the Student Text is over 300!!

Having only done two sections so far in my own lessons I don't feel like we will be losing any time. I will post our volcanoes from last week next. Thanks Crunchy Mama for directing me to a new source and thanks Mr. Q for writing your books!

Earth Science

We are starting self-written narrations this year.

This year for science, the Well Trained Mind says we should study Earth Science & Astronomy. So we will be studying Earth Science for 18 weeks this Fall and Astronomy for 18 weeks this Winter. We are starting with the layers of the Earth and moving into Earthquakes & Volcanoes... boy stuff. Lets break it up and blow it up!!! MWAHAHAHAHA

Though I have a whole 50 gallon tub in the basement FULL of Astronomy resources from when I taught school, Earth things... not so much. The first thing in planning, I made a list of all of the topics I wanted to cover so I had a road map. Then I scoured the library for age appropriate ideas. I've not had the luck I had anticipated but I am resourceful and bright so I am making things fit.

The Earth Layers as an Egg from Krista West's Activity book.

Here are a few of the resources and activities I have found useful so far....

Earthquack
Earthquake
NASA : Case of the Shaky Quake
video
resources
Changes in the Earth - Krista West
Geology Rocks- 50 Hands on Activities
Start Science: Earth & Space
The Reasons for Seasons- Gail Gibbons

Silkworms

The theme of summer reading at our local library was nature and over the course of the program they displayed many live life cycles: frogs, butterflies, ladybugs, silkworms. Well, when the program was over the silkworm cocoons needed homes and yep, we got a set. We had studied silkworms last year in history so it was really amazing to watch them grow and change. The new eggs have not started hatching and I don't know what I am going to do when they do.

Flat G- Take a Bow

Well, he's done. Kinda awkward but done. G doesn't love him any less for his wonkiness. I've already had to rein him in as Flat G is not stitched closed yet and G was ready to wrestle the stuffing out of him. hee hee


We used...
2 1/2 yards of poly/ cotton blend (should have used 3)
fabric crayons
clip art from the internet
ink jet T shirt transfer
2 1/2 bags of poly fill (20 oz.)

Nutrition

We did a week on nutrition to go with our digestive system study. I am so surprised in the difference it has made in G's eating. We tracked his eating for a couple of days. He could see that he does not eat veggies and fruits (except juice). He could see that cookies and desserts are should not be a daily thing, and he has quit asking every night. He even tried asparagus, a new food in our house. I am so amazed. Our resources came from here.

Flat G Update

I am getting behind in my learning notes... but I wanted to make sure I posted new pictures of our Flat G. We've studied the Brain & Nervous System, Heart, and Lungs. We are suppose to be doing Digestion and Nutrition this week but G has an ear infection... his first earache ever! So our lessons are minimal at best. After Digestion and Nutrition we will stuff him. I cannot wait!