About Lisa B

Raise your hand if you are ready for winter to go away.

*raises hand*

The weather in Virginia finally broke a couple of days ago, and we took full advantage of the change. I let the kids leave their math books inside, their reading on the shelf, and the history DVDs in the cases.

Lucky for me, science is a take-a-long activity– especially physics.

After doing some of the hands-on activities in our Christian Kids Explore Physics book, the girls wanted to keep “playing,” so I went on a search for fun demonstrations of motion, force, friction, and energy.

Here are ten of their favorite demonstrations from the Christian Kids Explore Physics book:

1. Color, Light, and Absorbing Heat: The children put on different colored t-shirts and sat in the sun.  Then we discussed who had the warmer back– the one in the white shirt or the one in the darker shirt.
2. Color, Light, and Absorbing Heat: We used rocks to hold a white and a black piece of paper to our driveway. After a while, we felt under the paper to see which piece of driveway was the warmest.
3. Density: Will it sink or will it float?  This was fun for our preschooler. She didn’t understand the density discussion, but she enjoyed coloring her observations. We took a small tub of water outside, and they gathered items to test.
4. Balloon rockets: Blow up balloons and let them go.  Discuss thrust and air pressure.
5. Car races: Push toy cars along various surfaces: grass, driveway, sidewalk, deck board, etc.  Discuss friction, force, and energy.
6. Motion: We calculated average speed by walking a set distance. Then we tried it while running, riding bikes, and riding scooters.
   
7. Friction: Box Buggy slide each other down the street in a cardboard box. The children discovered that  pushing the 2-year-old was considerably easier than pushing the tween.
8. Sound: After a nice picnic in the front yard, we closed our eyes and listened to the springtime sounds around us.
9. Static Electricity: Separating salt and pepper – mix salt and pepper on a plate. Blow up a balloon and rub it on your hair to create static. Now hold it next to the plate and watch the pepper jump onto the balloon.
10. Make A Rainbow: Use a spray bottle or water hose to create a fine mist. Observe how the droplets of water create a rainbow from the sunlight.

I am certainly appreciating the way Christian Kids Explore Science presents scientific information to children. Even complicated topics with  fancy words are easy to understand. When we were outside, we were able to discuss the physics principles of our games with ease.

Have you ever moved your classroom outside during nice weather?

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In January, most of my friends picked up their homeschool books and began their year with a renewed fervor. I put several of ours away, and tried to stick to the basics. I was exhausted from the drama of the holidays and just wanted to find my floors again. One of the reasons I love our Christian Kids Explore Physics book so much is that once I was ready to tackle science again, we were able to jump in where we left off without a hitch.

With a five minute review, we immediately picked up where we had stopped. Getting kids interested in doing science is pretty easy when you tell them the day’s lesson will involve marshmallows.

Chapter 11 in our Christian Kids Explore Physics book  included an easy, hands-on demonstration of how gravitational force pulls an object straight down.

We started our testing with jumbo sized marshmallows.

Our laboratory assistant wasted no time in testing our ingredients. The scientists were restricted from taste testing until after the demonstration.

Even a preschooler can learn about physics. He sat through the lesson and answered some of the review questions.

Once his marshmallow was gone, his enthusiasm in our project waned. But we had one more thing to test: ice cream cone shaped mini marshmallows.

Sure enough, they fell straight down just like the big ones.

After munching on their school work, the big girls enjoyed finding thing around the house to try and drop into the bowl. Balls and blocks fell straight down. Feathers from our bird were more of a challenge. Then I had a chance to explain things such as friction and resistance.

I’m really enjoying our Christian Kids Explore Physics homeschool curriculum this year because the bite sized lessons explain very complicated concepts with kid-friendly examples. The hands-on activities have been easy to pull together with very little planning. My children, ages 2 to 11, are all included in the activities, making it easy for me to keep everyone together in one lesson.

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“I know you just mopped the floor mom, but how about we cover it in a variety of substances and slide pennies across it, in the name of science?”

Once again, Christian Kids Explore Physics has managed to grab my children’s interest by offering to let things get a little messy.

Glue On Mom’s Floor + Friendly Competition + 15 Minute Lesson = Happy Little Scientists

I should state here, that CKE didn’t suggest the glue, we added that ourselves.

In Lesson 13 of Christian Kids Explore Physics, we began our studies of friction. Trying to visualize a microscopic surface full of bumps and crevices on a surface that appeared to be smooth proved to be tricky. We held up our fists and rubbed our knuckles together to show how those bumps actually get stuck together and make it hard to move.

The bigger girls put their younger siblings in matching laundry baskets and slid them across the carpet. They discussed the effects of weight on friction and had the opportunity to really observe static vs. sliding/dynamic friction. The impromptu demonstration ended when they asked mom to get in the basket.

Penny Races

This hands-on activity did not come with any charts to fill out. I made a simple, lined page, so they could color in the lines to show how far the penny moved across the floor.

We began by test-sliding several pennies across a clean, dry floor. We had to choose our lanes carefully because several were not flush and caused our penny to do Evil Knievel aerial tricks.

After determining how far we should expect the penny to travel, we used furniture polish to alter our coefficient of friction.

The project in Christian Kids Explore Physics instructed us to try sliding the book next. Being the rebels that we are, we couldn’t let the fun end there.

The baby powder did not seem to have an effect. More on that in a moment.

Why yes, I did put glue stick across my kitchen floor on purpose. Three times to be exact, since it really should have stopped the penny but did not.

A quick clean up of the floor, and I let the kids decide what to test next.

They chose salt and pepper.

They had the same result as with the powder and glue. It seems their pennies were going farther and faster with all the added friction. I was pretty sure that was not how it was supposed to work, so I sat down to take a closer look.

How about a lesson in experiment variables? For example, if Child A uses Force X to move a penny in Trials 1, 2, and 3 but uses Force X + Infinity for Trials 4, 5, and 6, your results might be skewed just a tad.

Bright Ideas Press has done a great job of presenting Physics in a way that my children understand and enjoy. The lessons leave room for additional conversations that deepen the comprehension of a particular concept.

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I was excited when my CKE Physics book arrived in the mail last Spring.

My excitement turned to panic when I started planning out our school year and noticed that Unit Two discussed atomic particles.

My children have difficulty understanding that their town is in a county, which is in a state, inside a country, on Earth. How was I ever going to explain that an atomic particle was in an atom, which was part of a molecule, that created compounds, that made their body?

Lucky me, I didn’t have to explain anything. By the time we made it to Lesson 5 my girls were following along very well. They couldn’t wait to build one.

Building Atomic Models {page 57}

The equipment list included Styrofoam balls, of varying sizes, and paint. I’m completely allergic to painting Styrofoam. Not really, but it’s like using glitter; it just gets my blood racing and something best left to Grandma’s house. I expected a lot of fuss because my kids hate to substitute anything; however, PlayDoh seems to be the product that forgives all.

I started out by writing on our board the details for our atom. Doodlebug was quick to point out that the picture I drew looked just like the introduction to Jimmy Neutron.

Since we were skipping the whole “paint the Styrofoam” part and using colored dough, we were able to invite our PreK girl to join in the fun. She didn’t exactly understand why she was rolling up little protons but she had a blast participating.

Everyone carefully counted out how many of each color they needed. I was reprimanded twice for getting excited and making too many.

We squished our neutrons and protons together to form one big nucleus, and used toothpicks to position our electrons in our extranuclear region.

It wasn’t until the project was over that Taderbug recognized the element we were making. Lithium- “that stuff they make our batteries out of”.

We then used their “Think About It” section to add a little fun to our Math Journal by drawing out an atom of lead. The counting up to 125 was a lot of work!

This week we’ll make a few more models with some Atomic Cookies (page 59).

Last week I used Unit Two of CKE Physics as the base for our schoolwork, covering multiple subjects with these lessons. It was easy and very effective with our girls. I wrote more about our week on my blog Chaos Appreciation.

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