Weather was the last stop of our Earth Science unit.  As has become our end of unit habit, the kids had to develop a presentation to show something they learned.

Mahayla chose to write a letter from the viewpoint of a drop of water going through the water cycle.  It was very cute!  She also drew a nice picture of the water cycle to go along with an experiment that demonstrated evaporation and condensation.

Caleb did an experiment that demonstrated evaporation and condensation, too, but in a different way.  Both experiments worked very well!  He also created a "rain alarm".  Marbles are placed in a film canister.  The canister is propped on a small slope with sugar cubes.  When it rains, the sugar cubes melt allowing the canister to roll.  The noise from the rollling canister is supposed to alert you when it starts raining.  :)  And he wanted to be sure we noted the cumulus clouds in the sky!

What a fun 4-H class this month!  The extension office's horticulture agent taught a lesson about indoor plants, then each child created their own planter.  He even brought a plant from his office and let the kids take a piece home to try their hand at rooting a new plant.  Our little guys (and moms) were full of questions, which he happily answered no matter how silly or serious.

We finished our astronomy unit this week!  The kids spent a couple of days preparing final projects and presented them in front of the video camera on Thursday.  They were able to choose whatever astronomy topic most interested them.  It's no surprise that Caleb chose astronauts as his topic.  Mahayla focused on stars.

Caleb's presentation included a talk about astronaut suits (see his helmet and jet pack?), space shuttles, rockets, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, dehydrated food and thrust.

Mahayla's presentation included information about the sun, other notable stars, constellations, how to use an astronometer to tell the brightness of stars and some information about light years.

Using Exploring Creation with Astronomy as our main text, we did many of the free notebooking pages the author offers on her website.  We also added in a few lapbooking activities and lots of hands on projects.  I put what we had into modified lapbooks.  The lapbooking activities were glued on the first flap, while the notebooking pages were simply stapled together at the top of the other side. 

Our trip to the Answers In Geneis Creation Museum's Planetarium earlier this year was a great addition to this unit!

Here are a few of the fun website games the kids enjoyed during the unit. 

Solar System Trading Cards

Problems in Space 

Make Your Own Solar System

Christmas science doesn't get much more fun than solving this mystery!  You can find the directions and worksheets here and here.

Basically, a sneaky little elf switched some of Mrs. Claus' cookie baking ingredients.  My children had to test three mysterious white mixtures to determine which one was the cookie mix.  Gathering materials takes a little effort (and we didn't even have the iodine), but it was worth the time.  

This was so much fun!  (And it turned out way better than the first chromatography experiment we did.)

I found the original idea here, then tweaked it a bit using Tamara's Thanksgiving leaf example.    The pictures don't do justice to how pretty these are in the window.

Here's a peek into some of the fun we had during our astronomy unit..... 

 

Grandma, read no further!

Here's an idea from the Holidays Around the Year book that we did as part of our seasonal Friday lesson last week. 

We learned the science behind suminagashi art (marbling paints) and created beautiful card covers.  Inside the kids have written letters to both sets of grandparents for Grandparent's Day.  We finished them off with some raffia decoration and, voila, a great keepsake for the grandparents (and a nice science and writing lesson for school!)

 **Editing to add:  I bought a marbling ink set several years ago that has lasted me forever.  That's what we used.  You can find something similar here.   I'm sure you can make your own inks, but I haven't been successful finding a recipe on the internet.  If you find one, I'm sure others would appreciate you passing it along in the comments!  :)

Here are several great links for chromatography experiments!  I think we'll dive into the candy experiment next.  

Why Do Leaves Change Colors?  Go down a bit for the chromatography experiment

Chromatography Forensic Science Experiment 

Paper Chromatography

Paper Towel Chromatography

Candy Chromatography

Our Fun Friday activity last week was an experiment from Science Projects For Holidays Throughout the Year on chromatography.  That'a a big name for separating mixtures, or in this case pigments.  As complicated as the word sounds, the experiment was really very easy. 

We started with chromatography of a black water-soluable marker to get a good picture of how pigments are separated during the process.  Black markers are made up of many other colors and they all show up brilliantly during the experiment.

Then, to tie the experiment in with autumn, we did the experiment with green leaves.  Since they'll soon be changing colors, we talked about photosynthesis, chlorophyll and the true pigments of leaves.  The chromatography experiment allowed us to take the current green pigment and find out what other pigments were in the leaf.  In other words, we were able to get a sneak peek as to what color the leaves will be in a few weeks!  Unfortunately, we've been in a drought this year, so the leaves are rather dry.  It took quite a bit of effort to get enough green rubbed onto our coffee filters for the experiment to work.  Even though the results weren't as brilliant as the markers, we were able to tell that the leaves we chose will be yellow this fall.