Science Festival, 2014

Our family went to the annual Science Festival in the Park last weekend. It is a yearly tradition here, and this year is the 25th anniversary of the "Ten Days of Science". We tend to only participate in Science in the Park for now, until the kids get a little older, but there are multiple interesting things to do every day in various places around town during the festival.

The festival was great. Most of the booths were the same, but Delaney and Sophie participated in more activities than ever before.

We started out at the Coconino Community College booth, where Delaney and Sophie made slime.

Showing off her icky creation.

 The girls painted some fish at the Grand Canyon Youth booth.

Delaney's is the yellow and black fish, and Sophie's is the one about to fall off the board. :)

 Sophie learned to grind corn with a rock.

While Delaney made a paintbrush with a reed from a plant and painted a picture with it.

There was some archaeology.

The girls made bracelets with UV beads, which change color when it is time to put on your sunscreen.

Delaney made a bird's nest with various materials.

And watched some experiments done with dry ice.

The Arboretum booth was fun. The girls investigated some different types of wood and plants.

The girls also got to climb into some of the heavy equipment that the County Roads department uses. I think Cullen wanted to climb up there too. :)

It was a fun morning, and I am looking forward to next year already.

{Resource Review} Learning with Sassafras Science

This spring, while looking up "living science books", I came across the Sassafrass Twins Science books. The books are adventure novels that explore different areas of science. Currently the authors have published Zoology and Anatomy, and Botany is due out this summer. The authors plan to publish eight volumes in total, with subjects ranging from geoscience to physics. The Sassafras Science website offers optional activity guides, lapbooking guides and logbooks that can be used with the novels to fit your family's needs/learning styles. Delaney's favorite way to learn anything is through a good story, and this looked interesting. I purchased the first volume, Zoology, and the activity guide, and our Sassafras adventure began.




The activity guide is an excellent resource. It offers science experiments, lists of related living books, encyclopedia readings, sample lesson plans and many other helpful notes. I started out with lesson plans, looked up related art activities on the web, and started a Pinterest page to save it all. I decided to try some low-key lapbooking-style pages with the girls, and see if their interest levels would maintain that method of learning.

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The girls and I began reading the book together. I enjoy this approach to learning also, snuggled up on the couch in our pajamas. What could be better? Zoology introduced us to the Sassafras Twins, who have to spend the summer with their scientist uncle because they have failed science in school. The plan is for Uncle Cecil to catch them up to speed on their science knowledge, and perhaps teach them to enjoy science along the way. They quickly find that their summer will be filled with lots of unconventional traveling, adventure, and much learning about animals from various continents.

First, we read a section of the book, and looked up the focus animal in our encyclopedia. (We use the DK Encyclopedia of Animals, and the activity book offers page reference numbers for our convenience.) Then, we relocated to the table where the kids could draw a picture of the animal, make an art project if they wanted to, and write down at least three things they learned or found interesting about the animal. Delaney was able to do this by herself. Sophie wrote the name of the animal, dictated the animal details to me, then we "read" it together.

One of our early lessons...the mighty lion...

by Sophie

by Delaney

 The cheetah...

We have some white masks in our craft drawer that a friend gave us. The girls decided to make some cheetah masks...

 

We read about giraffes...

 

And the girls made a cute little giraffe craft from DLTK...

 

The camel...

The Sassafras twins travel to many different countries. I printed a map for each continent, and Delaney found the country on the map and colored it in. Then, we looked on our larger world map, and she found the country there also.

By this time, we were about four chapters in, and the story was getting exciting. Delaney said she'd rather not pause to complete our journal pages and do the art, she just wanted to find out what was going to happen next, and who is the man with no eyebrows??

I have continued to read the book to the girls, sometimes during the day, sometimes again at night for their bedtime story. We are currently close to the end of chapter 11, learning about Australia and koalas.  The more structured side of things has been put aside, but we still enjoy looking up the animals in the encyclopedia, and often Delaney will bring me a Magic Tree House research book that gives a lot more detail about an animal or a region, and we learn a lot that way too. (I say "we" because she teaches me as many animal facts as I teach her geography facts!)

As we used written work less and less, and the book became our story time, I had an internal battle about the journals. My former teacher brain asked, Should I be reading more slowly, making them write more? My homeschool brain said, No, let them enjoy the story, don't take away the joy...it will all come together.

And sure enough, it has.

Delaney found a caterpillar in the backyard and wanted to keep it. I told her about a book I read recently, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly (highly recommend!), and how Callie kept a caterpillar and recorded its growth and metamorphosis. Delaney decided to do the same.

We found a jar, added some fresh leaves, and Dad popped some holes in the lid.

Delaney looked up "caterpillar" in the encyclopedia, and started a journal filled with all of the information she had gathered.

She was very excited to read it to us.

Currently, the little guy/girl is looking really gooey...is he about to form a chrysalis? Is he dying? We just don't know. But Delaney will write it down in her journal!


From a literary point of view, the story does have some big plot holes that might frustrate an older reader who has higher expectations of a story. Our copy has several typos, which can drive me a little crazy as I read. These issues are rather minor in our household for now. The story holds Delaney's attention, and has been a fun introduction to animal science for Sophie. The books are reasonably priced, and activities to supplement the chapters are easy to find online, or in the activity guide. We will finish Volume One soon, and most likely order the second volume, Anatomy, which Delaney is extremely excited about.

But for now, we have to go find out if Tracy makes it out of China safely, and why the man with no eyebrows is after them!

Experimenting with Acids and Bases

"School Time" has been going well. I returned to the oh-my-gosh-I-waste-so-much-time phase of my life, and made myself a new schedule, (I know. I just did that a few weeks ago. It's a problem.) I generally find that what is missing from the day is my own relax time, which leaves me feeling overwhelmed and grumpy toward the end of it when I still need a few hours worth of patience. Hopefully I won't get distracted/guilty from my own bits of time again for awhile. We are all happier in the evening if I have had a few moments to read, or listen to some music and recharge without too many interruptions.

Delaney is such a good helper with Sophie. She loves to "school" her...haha. We have been working on rhyming, and after watching me for a bit, Delaney took over my part in the game Sophie and I were playing, and I got to just watch and help a bit.

 

I often find them like this...

Sophie can almost write her name now.

Delaney is blasting through memorizing her math facts, and I think she might be starting to enjoy competing with the timer.

Delaney has been asking lots of questions about acids. This stemmed from noticing that certain foods make her mouth sore, or a little swollen, and we talked about citric acid, and other types of acids. I borrowed a book from the library about acids and bases. I found a great video on YouTube from MIT that explains acids and bases, and how to test items around your house to see what they are.
 We decided to do the experiment. Delaney chose to test baking soda, bleach, glass cleaner, vinegar, hand soap and Tabasco sauce.


We boiled our red cabbage to make the indicator.

 

I made a chart for Delaney to collect her data.

She hypothesized whether the ingredient was an acid or a base, and what color it would turn, then pour the indicator in. Both girls thought it was really cool to see the colors change, and to be right on several occasions.

 

 

 

We will learn a little more next week about why these things are acids or bases, and how they work as such.

Before we began, we watched part of Crash Course Chemistry video in which the narrator had joked that chemists die earlier deaths than other scientists because they are adventurous with what they put together, and sometimes it doesn't go as planned. I had explained to Delaney that we had to be very careful with all of the cleaning products and not mix them, because some of them cause bad fumes when put together. While doing our experiment, we learned that you don't even have to mix them. Just having the Windex and bleach sit beside each other started to give us both a big headache.  I kicked the kids out of the kitchen, cleaned up, opened up all of the windows, and we all felt better soon. Ooops.

In the next few weeks, we are going to learn about atoms, based on some other questions that Delaney has been asking. If anyone knows of good kid-friendly resources for this big subject, please share! In the meantime, we will try to not blow up the kitchen or ourselves with our experiments. :)

Small Scientists

Delaney has been coming up with her own experiments for awhile now, and Sophie recently decided that she shouldn't be left out of the fun.

I heard some noise in the kitchen and went to check it out. The girls each had a bowl and a spoon, and Delaney had supplied them with water, milk, peppercorns, salt, unsweetened cocoa powder and "berries" from an unknown bush at our neighborhood park that she had been saving for just the right moment. (Don't worry. They both know not to really taste anything they find outside without us determining what it is first.)

They did some stirring and a little tasting...that was the funniest part. Then Delaney decided that this was definitely not delicious, and cleaned up.

Sophie's hypothesis didn't quite turn out the way she expected either...


I recently found a cup of wood chips, sawdust shavings and water frozen together in my freezer.  At least a few unexpected results haven't daunted my budding scientist. :)

The Way They Learn

I took Delaney and Sophie to an outdoor art event last weekend at Heritage Square, hosted by Willow Bend Environmental Center. The presenter talked about the water cycle with some visuals, and had a game/art project for the kids to demonstrate it. They had to begin at a station (clouds, lake, groundwater, soil, ocean, animals and a few others), roll a big die, and go to the station it landed on. For instance, from the ocean you could go to the clouds (evaporation), from the clouds to most of the other stations (precipitation), etc. Each station had different colored beads, which the girls put on string, and had a pretty bracelet by the end of the game. It was a fun way to learn the water cycle.

During the talk, Delaney didn't say very much. I couldn't tell if she was even listening, and she definitely wasn't participating. She enjoyed the game, but I still couldn't tell if she comprehended the purpose. Sophie had a lot of fun running around and making a bracelet, but she is a little young for the learning part.

But then, three days later...

Delaney sat at the kitchen table with Sophie, two bowls of water, a paper towel and some change. I asked her what she was up to, and she told me it was a water experiment.

She explained to Sophie that the first bowl was the ocean, the paper towel was a cloud, the second bowl was a lake and the change was different types of fish.

She soaked up the water from the first bowl, and explained that the cloud was full.

She squeezed out the water into the second bowl, onto the "fish", and Sophie said, "it's raining!".

It was an excellent reminder to me that answering questions when put on the spot is not necessarily the only way to tell if my kiddos are learning, and just because you're only 2 doesn't mean that you don't comprehend big concepts.

My kids teach me something new every day.

Raven Date

The Museum of Northern Arizona hosts a children's author every month or so. Last week, Diane Phelps Budden visited to talk about ravens, and her book, "Shade". Delaney and I made a date of it.

We learned about the characteristics of ravens, and all about Shade, a raven who had been trained to help Search and Rescue teams. He lives in Tuscon and is part of a research program at the University of Arizona. We have a lot of ravens in our area, and we learned how to recognize a raven vs. a crow, which we also see a lot of. It was fun learning about their habits, and how they only have one mate for life. Ravens are devoted birds, and very intelligent.

After the talk, the kids made a raven puppet with Diane.

 

 

 

When Delaney was finished with her puppet, she sat and read "Shade" and told me all about it. In the book, Shade helps rescue a hiker who is lost in the desert near Tucson. 

My girl and I decided to go for a nature walk on the trail by the Museum, since it was a beautiful cloudy afternoon. We saw 8 ravens on our walk, and at one point they were flying rather close to us and making a lot of noise. Perhaps they had babies or eggs nearby? Did they just wanted us to get out of their forest? Or maybe, they were just saying hello, and knew how much fun it would be for Delaney to see them up close?

 

 I didn't take very many pictures, and these are a little too dark to see the birds, but these trees were full of the big black birds.

 

 

They are beautiful!