Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where Slinky Dog Lends a Paw in Science

It never seems like we get much done all week until I set out to editing the photos that I took. Then I'm like "Dang! What was I worried about?" I take a lot of pictures. lol

Mackenzie's Happenings

Well for starters, she has another new leg. Off with the old cast. On with a new one. That was kind of a bummer seeing as it's hot as a dickens and we want to go to the pool. But the new one is a walking cast so while she might not be able to swim yet, she can get her chores back. Yee haw!!! And get them back she did. Woo-hoo!! She goes back in two week and will, hopefully, be free of all casts.

Math

If this child doesn't start checking her answers to make sure that the fractions are reduced...well I can't be held responsible for the crazy that might come out of me. Especially the even ones.  Sheesh!

Science

Our current unit is on the senses.  So far we've covered taste and hearing. We've done a lot of experiments this week.

We tried that "mapping of the taste buds"activity that we all did when we were kids. However, with scientific advancements we now know that scientists have abandoned the idea that taste buds are located in specific areas of the tongue. We also tested the reaction of our taste buds to temperature. The premise is that warm food stimulates the taste buds more than cold food.  So the taste should be more intense in warm food. We used hot (warm) chocolate and cold chocolate milk.  Being the rebels that we are, we experienced the opposite results.

We also did a couple of hearing experiments. used a slinky to get an idea of how sound waves travel.  Our experiment kit that I purchased came with a small, plastic slinky. Epic fail!  Small, plastic slinkies are good for nothing. Metal is the way to go. Sadly we didn't have a metal slinky on hand.  Or did we? I eventually remembered we had a Slinky Dog thanks to my four year old's Toy Story obsession. And even a Slinky Dog is better than a plastic slinky. You might want to write that down.

We demonstrated how having two ears allows you to pin point the locations of sound by blind folding the child and then taping a pencil on a cup in various locations. Phase one worked great. She had no problem pinpoint the location. Phase two involved covering one ear, which should've resulted in her location guesses to be less accurate. Nope. She was still spot on. And yet she still claims that she doesn't hear me when I ask her to do something. Now I've got your number girly! No excuses. You've been outed!!!

Language Arts

We're plowing through Growing with Grammar despite starting it mid year. I was really surprised to see that we're more than half way finished. Woot! She also asked to get back out WriteShop because she was having writer's block and wanted to work on some stories. Our newest lesson is on science fiction. We got to have fun learning about the parts of a story using a sandwich analogy.

Kayleigh's Happenings

Raising Rock Stars Preschool

This week our verse was 147:1 so we took some time to do some extra praising of the Lord. As is typical of late, the verse wasn't long enough to satisfy Kayleigh's love of long verses. She did like the extra singing. We haven't gotten to this week's craft yet but I hope to finish that later this weekend.

 

All About Reading

Porcupines were the animals of choice for AAR this week. We had lots of fun gluing spikes (spaghetti) on her porcupine craft. The game for the week was "Counting Words." "Zecora" would give her a sentence and she had to lay out a block for each word in the sentence. This gave her a bit of trouble because she tended to rush and not give each word it's on letter. By the end of the week she finally got it.

Sonlight

We are back to reading the Flip Flap Body book this week and as it happens she is reading about the 5 senses too. I'd have never imagined my girls, with a seven year age spread, studying the same thing. LOL This week we talked about our sense of sight.

She used her eyes to to look at objects that I had placed on a tray and then used them again to discover which one I removed. Then she used her eyes to draw a self-portrait. We didn't have a portable mirror so we used Photo Booth on the iPad. She's always loved looking at herself in the iPad. We have 8 billion photos of her between the iPad, iMac, and iTouch. She's a Photo Booth expert. LOL

Other Stuff

In the spirit of P...we made a water color P by blocking off a P shape with tape. It came out so wonderful I wish I'd done it for every letter.  I'd hang them all around my school room.

Kayleigh, with Mackenzie's help, made pudding for a snack. Yum! The Kayleigh wanted a photo shoot with her (guinea) pig because she said that pig and picture started with P. I also had a really cute peacock craft planned but we were slackers again this week, so maybe we'll do that this weekend too.

And she did a shape activity involving blocks and shape outlines.