Spring has sprung!  Woo hoo! Temperatures are warmer.  That means I have an outside life again! ;)  Last night we went for a walk.  Because dh went with us, that was an hour long walk, so I was wiped out!  lol  Then ds got his telescope out, to look for the space shuttle, ATV and space station in the SW part of the sky at 8:30 pm.  Hmmmmmm, that time came and went without a high flying object, so I ran inside to check the NASA web site.  Although their sighting charts have the space shuttle schedule for nightly viewing across the skies all week, it actually landed in Florida an hour before we were supposed to see it fly across the sky.  Interesting.  LOL  Anyway, I checked the sighting schedule and got more specific information for our area and we looked to the NW at 8:57 pm and we saw the space station.  The ATV was to fly across about 30 minutes later, but the dc had to get to bed.  

While watching the space station, a lady, who had been walking through the neighborhood, asked if that's what we were watching.  She says she has seen the space shuttle, etc often over the skies.  She even suggested going to Enchanted Rock, away from the city lights. They did that one night and saw the Milky Way!  WOW!  I looked at dh and said we need to camp or get a hotel for the night and do that.  lol

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? 

A year and a half ago we switched from A Beka to new science curriculums.  DD completed Apologia's General Science last year and is currently studying Physical Science.  We are halfway through the book.  The second half of the book is all about physics.  One of the things I love about Apologia, along with Dr. Wylie's Young Earth Creation teaching, is the experiments.  We can actually be successful with most of them.  He has us use common household objects and explains what we should be looking for.  Here are some pictures of an experiment dd recently did on velocity.

She released 2 eggs simultaneously, one behind the other, and noted that not much happened.  BTW, see that top book on the stack?  Here's a close up.  The kids thought it would be a hoot to use this specific book on top!

On to the next step!

Then she released one at the top of the ramp and noted what happened when it collided into the egg at the bottom of the ramp.  Don't worry. There was minimal damage.

Finally, she released these two eggs simultaneously.  Prepared for the predicted mass of destruction????

After completing the experiments, she does a KWO (like she learned with Institute in Excellence in Writing-I'll share more about them later) then writes a lab report.  The action of the experiment helps her to experience what Dr. Wylie is trying to teach her in the book.  The write up of the lab report causes her to think through the connections of the whys and hows of the experiment.  This helps her to cement information for the test.

Another thing I like about Apologia are the multi media discs.  She gets to watch cool movies and graphics that pertain to her studies. That's more than I got in public school, even in honors classes!  In addition, while reading her text book, which Dr. Wylie has written to the student in an interesting and personal manner, she listens to it being read aloud on an mp3 file on her pc.  There are also supports on the Apologia web site to help her with her studies. 

When we first got these tomes, I feared how she'd ever succeed, since she's had her share of learning struggles.  With the above helps, she also needed to learn how to study for the test.  She has learned to always study vocabulary.  In addition, at the end of each chapter is a study guide.  After completing that and checking her work, she knows the ones she missed are the things to study for the test.  Dr. Wylie writes excellent tests, I feel, and also gives study tips in the book.  She has done quite well!

12yos on the other hand, won't start Apologia until next school year.  Because he has a naturally inquisitive mind, I sort of let him loose.  Recently he built a model engine from a kit.

He also watched The Magic Schoolbus I had taped when he was a toddler, viewing the episode on engines.  In addition, he read about engines in dd's old 6th grade A Beka science book.  Then he needs to write a summary in his science journal on engines.  

Here he is, giving me a 5 minute demonstration on how engines work!  His next field of study will be Galileo.