My 5yo told me she wanted to paint fall pictures.  She wanted to paint colorful leaves and trees and scenes from nature.  After a bit it seemed best that I draw a few simple pencil sketches for her to paint because she was having a hard time getting the paint to do what she wanted and was getting quickly frustrated.  So we started with some leaves.

Next I drew a tree for her and showed her how she could make the tree have many leaves by just using dots and dabs of paint.  First I did up an example and while she painted I pulled out print cards I have of van Gogh's self portrait and a variety of impressionist paintings that use many small strokes like those of Monet and Sisley.  We were able to talk a bit about the different types of painting and what started as an innocent child asking to paint turned into a brief introduction to impressionism and pointillism.  I love it when lessons come out of nowhere!  Here is her finished tree.

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My 7yo son loves to play with pattern blocks.  So today we focused on geometry using the pattern blocks and a book called 20 Thinking Questions for Pattern Blocks (that I'm embarassed to say, was gifted to me when I started homeschooling a few years ago and I have only just begun to use it this year.)

Each question or lesson gives a list of materials needed, a section on how to introduce the question, a box of possible problems that might come up and how to handle them, some examples of what you might see in your student's work, what to look for, discussion questions and then a journal reflection.  This book is geared towards 6-8 graders and I could easily see myself doing this with my 8th grader once a week.  For now, I have just pulled out the bits that I can do with my younger son.  We can't get into the deep detail that the book does, especially in relation to decimals and percents and I don't bother with the journal entries because I don't want to slow him down with tedious writing.

Question #2 asks:  How many different triangles can you make?

We started by reviewing the names of the shapes and then I made a simple triangle and asked ds to make a few of his own.  Once he saw that he could make triangles out of other shapes beside triangles I urged him to make larger, more complex triangles consisting more varied shapes.

Question #11 asks:  What patterns do you see?

This particular activity requires the child to only use one shape to recreate that shape in a larger size.  Once the student can make it using only a few blocks he is challenged to make the next larger size.   It took my son a few tries to get the blue parrallelograms right but he figured it out and found it even easier after that to manage the other shapes. 

After class he had some free time so I let him free play with the hexabits which as is customary with anything ds plays with, he made wheels out of so he could race them and later to play war with.

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We had company this weekend.  A wild dog came tearing through the house like an out of control whirlwind.

Oh right, dh's aunt came too.

She was a little tamer so we let her play with the kids.

;)

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We had a special treat today when our church welcomed Brothers Forever to take over our Sunday morning service.  These guys have awesome vocals and moving testimonies.  I was so impressed with their level of professionalism and thankful for their unashamed love and service to our Lord.  Now I can't wait to go listen to them again on cd!

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A new Yahoo group is under way today!  You are probably familiar with Kris's wonderful blog, At Home Science.  But did you know she started up an At Home Science Yahoo group?  I think this is going to be a great way to share your cool homeschooling sciencey ideas and get your questions answered by Kris and other moms who've been there.  Go check it out and get in the loop!

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 We've been using paperclips a lot lately.  You can use them in lots of electrical experiments and they really are so handy.  With the help of various batteries, homemade and storebought, we've tried lighting lots of little lightbulbs with them.  Sometimes successfully and sometimes not.  I've also burnt my fingers on them a lot lately.  Nothing too serious since we are only using small batteries but yikes, ouch that smarts!  All in the name of science.

Today we made a battery powered motor.  You can find the directions for this and many other cool videos at Wonder How To. 

I have learned that to make these projects go more smoothly I need to gather materials before gathering the children and even then, I still end up having problems.  For best results use small paperclips and a thin copper wire.  And be careful!  The paperclips do get a bit hot.  Ha ha, after my dd burnt herself I asked her if she knew why the paperclip got hot.  (Don't give me grief, it was a prime homeschooling moment! And it didn't hurt that bad...besides she answered it right and the little kids even made some pretty well educated guesses.) 

So what do you use your paperclips for?

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The week's finished dioramas of Swiss Family Robinson:

One of our kiddos did her inventor report on Alexander Graham Bell.  She had a wonderful collection of telephones through the ages:

This week's theme was all about energy and how one kind of energy can be converted to another.  We started with a KONOS game of Polly Potential and Kevin Kinetic.  It was fun for the little ones to "act out" kinetic energy.   The girls collected things from around the house and placed in a state of potential energy.

And then they waited quietly while the boys took turns demonstrating kinetic energy with each of the itmes that were brought into the room.

I admit, some of us moms were a little nervous about how they would demonstrate the kinetic energy but we were pleasantly surprised by how creative the boys were and not as wild as we expected.  Way to go Boys!

Next we used a candle to turn a spiral paper hanging from the light fixture to show how heat does work.  WHile the big kids worked together to make vinegar batteries, the little ones made lemon batteries and then read The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip.

 The end of our day was by far the most entertaining.  We again converted energy by having the kids build a fire for cooking.

We were a little impatient for the fire to die down enough for cooking...

 For dessert the kids assembled banana pockets with chocolate chips and mini marshmallows wrapped in aluminum foil and baked in the hot coals.  A delicious treat!

Dh played the guitar and we all sang songs and danced and played by the fire after co-op was over.  As usual, we didn't want the day to end and it is especially hard to part when the weather cooperates and we can spend time outside.

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Red had some foresight...

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