Science Update

Spike finished up his unit on magnets today. His school supplies include a ring magnet, a horseshoe magnet, two bar magnets, and a latch magnet. Oh yeah, and a sample of the rock magnetite. So he has been able to get lots of hands on experience with playing with magnets.

His last experiment involved finding the magnetic field for his different types of magnets. We put some iron fillings on a paper plate and he took turns putting the different types of magnets under the plate and watched what the fillings did. He then drew it on his worksheet. We all thought the ring magnet looked the neatest.


Princess is studying a unit called Forces in Fluid. It is actually an optional unit, but since she has not received too much science in school up to this point I figured we can use it all. Her latest experiment was trying to crush a can using internal pressure. You heat a can that has about an inch of water in it on a stove. When it has reached a heavy boil, you flip it over as quickly as possible and put it into a shallow pan with cool water. When the gases from the steam cool off and again become liquid, the loss in pressure inside the can causes it to crush. I tried several times, but was only able to achieve a little bit of crunch....and a burnt thumb.


And what has Sprout been up to? Oh, a little of this...

Magnets and Solutions

Along with math and language arts (yep, those are every day), it was science today. Science is much more fun to take pictures of, so that is what I did. Spike is studying magnets, and what kid does not get a kick out of playing with magnets? He did a couple of experiments today. For the first he took a needle and pulled it across one end of his bar magnet 20 times. We then put a section of cork on either end, he colored one end so that we could tell them apart, and then floated the contraption in a bowl of water. And what did we have? A compass! Spike thought it was awesome.
His second experiment was more of a game. I gathered random stuff from around the house, like a bobbin, paper clip, pop can top, CD, et cetera, and put it into a box. He had his horseshoe magnet tied onto a stick and "fished" for things to figure out what was magnetic. I had made him guess beforehand. The big surprise for him was that the top of the pop can was not magnetic. Sprout liked watching him to the experiment, and later tried her own hand at it.

Princess had her very last solutions experiment. For this one, she made 2 liters of Kool-Aid. She put 100 mL of the drink into 6 different cups, and added an increasing amount of water to each cup. If I remember correctly the amounts of water started at none, and by the last one it was 150 mL. She then studied how they look different as the solution became more diluted along with the difference in taste. Spike and Sprout glady helped with the tasting. This lesson, of course, went along with reading about concentration and dilution of solutions. Wow, that is a fun sentence to say aloud. Each of the different solutions went into an ice cube tray section where they became popsicles and she further observed the differences. It was a fun experiment as she understands the concept pretty well now, and even got to drink Kool-Aid, which is a rare treat in our house.

Lipstick and a toddler

This is what happens when I leave Sprout in the master bathroom while making the bed....

I actually carried her and her lipstick downstairs to the school room because that was where the camera was and I was not leaving her upstairs to make more messes, even though I wanted pictures. She unfortunately broke the lipstick while prettying herself up, and was telling me, "It's broken, Mommy....fix it." It is kind of sweet that she thinks I can fix anything.

We have a schoolroom!

We are now officially working from our brand new schoolroom. It is absolutely wonderful. The kids have been able to focus better on their work, I can keep their school stuff better organized, and when we are done with school it is out of the way and no longer taking up valuable family room space. Instead of individual desks, I got the kids a large 6 foot table. This has worked out really well because it gives them room to spread their things out a bit or work on science experiments. The kids still stick to their own side and have their own things stashed there. The big table also works out for me because I will be able to set up my sewing machine on it when I get a hankering to sew. Woo hoo!

We have put up a few posters for things that the kids are trying to remember. Some of these posters are just pieces or paper that I have drawn stuff on, like where the divisor, divided, and quotient go on a division problem for Princess. Others are actual store-bought posters. Currently we have a poster up that highlights some U.S. history. The kids like looking at all the portraits of the Presidents while taking a mid-worksheet break.

And while it does not pertain to school, this room has a nice big closet in which I have begun to store some of my craft stuff.

It was a a lot of work getting the basement finished, but I am so glad we did. I am feeling quite spoiled!

My busy students doing their work.
Sprout watching Dora the Explorer on my computer so Spike and Princess could have some quiet while working on assessments. A view of the other side of the room which holds the school bookcase and my computer desk.

Gingerbread Houses

Today was our first day back to school after Christmas. I know that traditional school kids are not back until after the January 2nd, but the kids were asking me about school, so why not? It beats letting them play video games or watch movies all day; they get enough of that already. School went well today with language arts, math, and history. In language arts, the kids are both studying poetry. For math, Princess started division and Spike is working on telling time. As for history, Spike is finishing up his unit on Julius Caesar and the Romans (he learned about Julius Caesar's death today), and Princess is learning about the French Revolution (today she learned about the guillotine and how it played a part....fun, huh?).

I thought I would share with you today something that we did during our Christmas break...gingerbread houses! I had started this project full force. I spent a couple hours making the dough, cutting out pieces (with some help from the big kids), and baking them up. Sprout kept me company while I was doing this, but only because she really liked the cookie dough.

So I had all the pieces ready when we went grocery shopping for the week. I was planning on picking up candy and stuff for the royal icing. But then, at Costco, we saw the gingerbread house kits for 5 dollars, which was half off. I caved when I realized I would be spending more than that on supplies. So we made houses from a kit, and not my elaborate, entirely homemade plans. The kids did have a great time, and that is all that matters with these things, right?

While the big kids decorated their houses, I gave Sprout a couple of gingerbread men and a bag of frosting to squeeze on them. After I showed her that she could decorate the cookies, she promptly bit off one's head. The frosting was squeezed on for the purpose of licking it off, and when that got old, she ate it straight from the bag. No candy had a chance to decorate her gingerbread men. Princess and Spike thought it was hilarious.

Sprout with a mouth full of cookie.
Spike's finished house.
Princess's finished house.

Happy Birthday Spike

Yesterday was Spike's 8th Birthday. We celebrated it pretty simply, which was actually his request. I had been asking him what he wanted to do for his birthday or where he wanted to go and he said that he wanted a family Wii night. What a sweetie, huh? His birthday actually encompassed the whole weekend, which was a nice and laid back way to enjoy spending time with the birthday boy.

On Saturday we had a party at our house. Me and Spike spent much of the day making his birthday cake. He wanted strawberry cake with blackberry filling, and wanted it to look like a present. It was a lot of fun to make. He enjoyed cutting the stars and dots out with a cookie cutter and putting them on the cake. Grandma Brenda, Aunt Randie, and the kids' cousin Raidon stopped by later in the evening. I let Spike pick what we would have for dinner, so we had pepperoni pizza (and I picked up a stuffed pizza as well) from Papa Murphy's. We had made the poor kid wait to open his present until then, and so we finally gave it to him over dinner. He got the new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii. Since he loves video games, he was really excited. Grandma Brenda brought him birthday money and a jar of pickles (he loves pickles). We all had an awesome time playing Mario for the rest of the night.

On Sunday we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Metcalf's house for a triple birthday party. Spike's uncle and cousin both have birthdays in December. His Aunt Emily and Uncle Tyler got him a silly book called Sir Fartsalot fights the booger (he has already started reading it) and Grandma and Grandpa got him two books that are about Peter Pan before he meets Wendy, and a remote control helicopter that has been buzzing around our house since Sunday.


On Monday I sang Happy Birthday and threatened him with kisses throughout the day. His sisters and Dad joined in the singing too. We all gave him birthday spankings. He pretty much got to do what he wanted, which was to play his new game and some other games we have on the Wii. I also measured him on a spot in our garage where I keep measurements of the kids on their birthdays. He was very happy that he is about 3 inches taller than Princess was on her 8th birthday.

Green Romans

Spike has been studying the Romans, and more directly, Julius Caesar in history lately. A few days ago he was learning about the term Veni, Vidi, Vici and how it applied to Ceasar who conquered many places where he went. I gave Spike this worksheet to complete while I left the room for a couple minutes. The object was to take each of the pictures with the Roman word underneath and fill in what it meant in the thought bubble. I returned to this. He filled in all the thought bubbles well, except for mispelling conquered...which I let slide. He apparently thought the saying lacked a certain something though, and therefore added his own part. The drawing on the righthand side is a Roman showing you his bum with a thought bubble saying, "I pooped." To complete this, he added his made up Roman word of Vode (said vo-dee). To give the worksheet the perfect finishing touch, he colored the Romans green. He shared this valuable new saying with his older sister and they spent a good remainder of the day saying, "Veni, Vidi, Vici, Vode," or "I came, I saw, I conquered, I pooped," in other words. Ahhh...I am so glad I am trying to share some culture with them...