Science experiment: Fireworks Fail?

I told the boys to make an "oops" face with our 1st attempt.

I found an easy-looking experiment on pinterest called "Fireworks in a Jar".

The idea is that you have a jar of warm water. In a separate plate you put oil, and mix in some food coloring. You then pour the oil into the water, and as the oil sinks, the food coloring suddenly dissolves into the water creating the appearance of fireworks. (see link above or watch our videos below)

Attempt #2, using a plate to keep the coloring separate.

In our first attempt we used a measuring cup for the oil and food coloring. There wasn't enough space to keep the colors apart, so we ended up with a black cloud in our jar.
In the second attempt, we used a plate for the oil and food coloring, so the colors would stay separate, as shown in the picture. However, somehow our yellow mixed in very quickly so as the other colors "exploded" in the water, it sort of looked like we had a jar of urine that was slowly getting dirty...again, I missed the fireworks.

Charles watched the videos with me and thought the experiments were fairly successful, so check them out and judge for yourself.

I'm not saying the experiment couldn't work. In fact, I may give attempt #3 a try at some point and try barely warming the water- maybe ours was too hot.

A still picture I took and brightened, so the yellow is a pleasant color.

Either way, it's no problem. It's good for the kids to experience failure (or disappointment)  and try to figure out how to correct, or as in our case, we can just dump out the dirty water and move on.

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

School year 2014-2015, Week 1

 Here we are! Week 1 of the 2014-15 school year! It came SO early this summer, I was hardly prepared, although another part of me was starting to miss the structure of the school year. Owen is attending a Montessori school through the GA pre-k program. It is the same school, same classroom, and two of the same teachers that Leif had, which has made Leif feel very nostalgic this week. Leif LOVED that school, and Owen is also loving it so far.

Leif was very worried about Owen after we left.

Leif and I are adjusting to it just being the two of us, and for the first few weeks we are going to be doing a lot of hikes, field trips and learning on the go, so that we remember how to have fun together.

Our first day of school began with a hike at Leita Thompson Memorial park, one of our family's favorite places to walk. I packed a picnic and some lessons, and we sat in the field after our walk and did our reading lesson together. Then I read a chapter of A Wrinkle In Time. It was a beautiful beginning to our year.
On Thursday Leif had a home school day at Skyzone, and on Friday we had a play date! Each day we squeezed in our math and reading, and then went off to have fun. Even with all of our fun, by about lunch time each day, Leif was asking if it was time to go get Owen.

First day of school "classroom"

Our curriculum so far consists of the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Sonlight curriculum readers and lots of books for reading. We are using Mathematics Enhancement Program or MEP and we'll be in a Classical conversations group which will cover history, latin, science and art, along with some math and grammar facts. CC meets one day each week and we will take the topics from our CC day and use them to create our unit studies each week.

For the first few weeks until CC begins, we figured we would form our unit studies around whatever interested Leif. We recently read The Princess and The Goblin by George MacDonald. (free to listen to on Librivox) The hero of the story is a miner-boy named Curdy. So, Leif has been very interested in mining and precious stones. (also influenced by Minecraft) Charles took Leif by the stream behind our house and the collected Mica and Quartz and studied them. They created a cool little document about their studies that I can't seem to upload here, but these are the stones they collected, which now reside in a small treasure chest on Leif's desk:

Mica & Quartz from our stream.

We watched a YouTube documentary on the 3 types of rocks and panning for gold. Then I took Leif to a local jewelry store to check out precious stones. So now, as Leif plays with his Legos, he will pretend the red translucent single pieces are rubies, or the blues are sapphires. I'm hoping to take him panning for gold this year, and also to the Tellus Museum where apparently they have a precious stones exhibit.

Last year when home schooling hit our family rather quickly, I depended on an online program called Time for Learning. I'm really grateful for that program because it entertained Owen, and helped me survive the transition. It wasn't very hands-on, and it didn't require much teaching on my part. This year, as I'm braving the world of home school minus technology, I'm excited for the time that Leif & I will spend together learning. I'm excited that we can have a picnic and do our work. But, I'm also facing the reality that I am a generally impulsive, unorganized person, and this is going to require some planning! I'm ready to take this on, and I'm excited to learn and grow through all of this.

Science experiment: Inflate a balloon with Coke and candy

Our supplies

 The kids have been begging for science experiments, so I found this one on pinterest. Basically, you combine a bunch of poison Coke & candy, and the reaction releases air and inflates the balloon. Fun times!









Directions:
1. Funnel Nerds and Pop Rocks into balloon.
2. Put balloon on the top of the coke bottle without allowing candy to fall into coke. (see video for that image)
3. Once the balloon is sealed, dump candy into soda and watch.

Before doing step 3, I asked the kids to guess what would happen when we put the candy into the soda. Their hypothesis: The balloon will inflate and then pop. After the experiment we recorded the result: The candy released the air in the soda and inflated the balloon. Despite the lack of explosion, the kids were still pretty happy with the experiment. 
After the experiment was over, Leif asked if they could taste the soda, so I had him guess if the soda would be fizzy or flat. He guessed flat, and was correct. Fortunately neither kid asked for more than a sip...and some candy, of course.