12yos needs a challenge to stay on task.  Hence, I posed the question, "How tall is the house?" for his latest science objective.  Our literature and history books have been interspersed by sailors who sight the stars for navigation.  Surely, he could sight the top of our house? ;)

On Monday, I handed him a printout on how to build a sextant. After a fine sextant was completed, I handed him another print out on finding latitude.   He practiced with a height he could measure, our tall bookcase in the schoolroom.  He madea  few mistakes at first.  Undaunted, the gears of his brain whirled while he adjusted his calculations and figured out how to correctly assess height.  He got to apply all of the math skills he's been learning.  He's currently doing geometry and learned a new skill for this lesson, how to use tangent.  This makes tangent quite useful, a handy skill when he officially learns it in his math book!  He'll have a wonderful ah-ha! moment when he meets tangent again in math class! ;) 

Then he was ready to tackle the house! Here he is sighting the chimney. 

 I stood at his side, reading the protractor for him, telling him when the plumb line measured 45 degrees.  He couldn't keep the chimney in sight, so he decided to measure to the top of the eaves.  He walked toward the house, sighting with his sextant, until I told him that I saw the plumb line reach 45 degrees.  At that point he stopped and we got the measuring tape out. 

 I walked the end of the measuring tape to the edge of the house, while he held onto the bulk of it, measuring the distance from the house to where he stood.  That was between 16-17'.  Then he got to work on his calculations. Apparently the eaves are 21'5" from the ground. 

Next questions: What's our latitude?  Can he sight Polaris tonight?