What a Week!!

It's been a busy week.  We had Bricks for Kidz at our homeschool charter school, Dallas Community School, on Monday.

Tuesday we got ready and went up to my Dad's boat on the Multnomah Channel.  We settled in, went fishing and spent the night on the boat.

Wednesday we woke up on the boat, went fishing again and this time caught a very large sturgeon.  You can't keep sturgeon right now, which made me happy.  He was sent on his way after we got to take a good look.

Then we traveled back home.  Thursday we hunkered down and got a lot of school done, reading, writing, lots of math, and spelling.  We finished our day at Karate class.
Friday morning we went out to farm school with our co-op.

Adam found a dead snake.

We came home for lunch and after a busy and exciting and exhausting week like the one we had I thought learning through play was in order.  Of course I turn straight to Mother Goose Time.  It's lots of fun for all three of my boys, 7, 5 and 2.  I was not disappointed.

We started our day of learning with the discussion question, how is a bumblebee similar to a honeybee?  Or, how is it the same as a honeybee?  Lachlan started shouting answers and Peter raised his hand to speak.  He started getting upset when Lachlan said what he was going to say.  This has happened a lot lately as Peter has grown fond of raising his hand.  None the less, this was our first step into science for the day.  We reviewed the vocabulary of similar and different and we studied and talked about the details of a honeybee and a bumblebee.

Next we tried to recite a tongue twister three times fast.
"The busy bee buzzed back to its beehive."
When I said we were going to say a tongue twister I asked the boys if they knew what that was.  They said no, so I explained that it's something hard to say so it feels like your tongue gets all twisted up.  Of course they were being tough guys and said it was easy for them.  But it got a little tricky towards the end of the 3rd time through.  We talked about all the /b/ words in that sentence and how it's easy to get them all mixed up.  Literacy, check!

Next we did the How Many Stings? activity.  We got out our number spinner which has numbers up to 16.  We spun the spinner and we pretended to be stung that many times by placing that many red sticker dots on our bodies.  Adam spun 13 so I put one dot on at a time counting as I went.  This was a perfect math lesson for Adam.  Every time he hears us count he learns to count higher and higher. 

Peter also spun a large number.  I made it more challenging for him by stopping halfway through and asking how many more dots he needed to get to 13.  Math for Peter, check!

 Adam really enjoyed pulling the stickers off which was an awesome fine motor building activity. 

 So I gave him a white paper to stick them to.

Peter stuck them on by himself the next time and put them in a row up his arm.  He also wanted to pull them off and stick them to a paper.

 Lachlan got stung on the arm and posed for the picture by making an ouch/yuck face. 

Next we did the Baby Bumblebee activity.  MGT provided us with a Rhyme Time Poster that we read/sang.

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee.

  Won't my mommy be so proud of me?

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee.

Ouch! It stung me!

We talked about which words in the song rhymed and sang it through a few times.  More Literacy and Music, check!

In the explore part of this lesson it had us provide pompoms and have the child pretend they are baby bumblebees that they are teaching to fly.  I had seen some of the other bloggers provide an egg carton to use as a "hive".  All I could find was this plastic one, but Adam seemed to enjoy it.

I went backwards a bit here by going to the "explore" section of the How Many Stings? activity.  I gave Peter some play-doh and a toothpick to discover what it would be like to have a stinger. 

We also learned that unlike honeybees, bumblebees can sting multiple times.  But since they are so gentle, they rarely do. 

This was the grand finale of the day!! It was a science experiment called Vibration Pollination.  Bumblebees shake pollen off of their wings to feed the baby bumblebees.  When they shake their wings the vibration shakes the pollen off.  The vibration from their wings also helps with the pollination process.  This was the concept we were exploring with this experiment, but this could simply be used to teach about vibration, even with out the bumblebee part.

This was the set up.  An upside down paper plate, cornmeal and tools for causing vibration. 

I had my oldest (7) come to the tray first and read the instructions that MGT gives us on the experiment card.  They are in words and pictures so that pre-readers can work independently as well. 

 He scooped some cornmeal onto the plate. 

 Then started tapping. 

 I had to come back in for something and Peter was still at the table working on his "baby bees with stingers".   I encouraged Peter to come out for the science experiment and he followed me out.

 Lachlan was done with his exploring and now it was Peter (5) and Adam's (2) turn.

 They spread more cornmeal on the plate.

 And then started tapping.  You can see the cornmeal jumping just a bit off the plate.

I was surprised that I had to encourage Peter to hit it harder, but eventually he did.  Now you can really see it jump.  Since we were outside I could have my shutter speed really high and I could catch it in motion.  So cool!

They experimented between little taps and hard hits. 

 "Ooh"

 Peter started using his spoon to push the cornmeal off of the plate.

 Stop it brother, I want to wack the plate. 

 They had to scoop some more cornmeal onto the plate. 

Big hit!

Look at it fly.  Adam rubbed his eyes a couple of times during this experiment.  I didn't' realize how far this stuff was flying until I was editing these photos.  So I do recommend setting this up outside if possible and a pair of sunglasses might be a good idea. 

 Mom, it's all gone!  Science, check!

What a week!!!!  We did so much learning this week through play.  That is what Mother Goose Time has mastered and I think we needed a week like this to remind us to learn and grow in the everyday moments and the not so everyday adventures.  I don't think this week could have ended in any better way.  Science experiment craziness and Mother Goose Time learning at it's best.

Thank you Mother Goose Time for covering so many subjects, Literacy, Math, Music and Science, check, check, check, check!!!