levers

Today, by the request of the kids, we got out this book again...
The New Way Things Work

So we could work on the next unit... Levers...

I even had the DVD already checked out from the library.

We also got out this kit as well...K'NEX EDUCATION Intro to Simple Machines: Levers and Pulleys-178 pcs

First we read the intro out of the book and then watched the DVD. After that the kids started to work on building the see-saw....
Once it was built... the mini figs went for a ride :-)
and then they did the experiments from the teachers' guide...
They moved the load and the fulcrum to see how the amount of force needed to do the work changed. Then they just "played" with it for quite a while... mostly using it as a balance.

This kit has a ton of different levers to build. The kids can't wait to move on to the next lever.... I think it's another first class lever, a balance scale, I think. I love how this little study we're doing using The Way Things Work book has really taken off with both kids. Alex had already read a lot of the book... but between the kits and the movies, things are really sinking in for him!

rainy day to sick day... sigh

But all in all... it was a good school day.

Yesterday we were supposed to go see the Midnight Circus with some homeschool friends... but it was a rainy day here so we stayed home instead.

A quiet day at home was nice after our crazy week last week.

We had finished reading The Secret Garden last week so we curled up in front of the TV to watch the movie.

This is the version I got from Netflix...
The Secret Garden
I have to say that I was not impressed with this version. It might have been okay if you hadn't read the book... but if you had, it was troubling. All kinds of odd stuff went on in the movie that wasn't in the book. One odd thing was that Colin wants to marry Mary and gets jealous of her and Dickon. Seriously? They're 10 years old. Why in the world was that a good idea to add to this story? Anyway... one good thing about movies like this is that I really see how well the kids had listened when I read to them as they were yelling out what should have been going on throughout the movie. :-)

After the movie we watched The Way Things Work - Inclined Planes DVD I had gotten from the library. I will say that it was a bit odd... but it was short and the kids seemed to enjoy it. So, we'll probably keep getting the DVD's as we work our way through the book.

Once we were done with the DVD, the kids and I read some more of The New Way Things Workand built the splitting wedge with the K'NEX EDUCATION Intro to Simple Machines: Wheels, Axels and Inclined Planes kit...


After that we got on our rain gear and got ready to head out the door for Clara's dance... however, Alex rushed back and threw up (lovely)... so Clara went to dance with a friend and Alex and I stayed home.

The funny thing about homeschooling is that school never really ends, does it? Alex settled himself on the couch and wanted to watch some of our backlog of Ancient Egypt shows we had recorded off of the History Channel. One was on the excavation of a tomb and the other was about the 10 greatest discoveries. Then he watched a couple of Cyberchases we had recorded as well.

Today he's feeling much better and the weather is much better so we're heading outdoors after lunch to tackle another nature challenge!

(Kelly... I haven't forgotten about your photography questions... I'll post about that soon!)

the way things work

This year I decided to forgo any formal curriculum for science and just follow my kids' interests (with some sort of a plan... not total randomness...lol). Clara loves nature so our participation in the nature study challenges are for her. Alex loves all things engineering, so here's what I got for him...
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay

I knew I had made the right choice when he insisted on taking the book to bed with him the first night we got it. He read it every night at bedtime until he had at least skimmed the entire book.

Today we decided to start working our way through the book, so we got out this kit that I had ordered to go with the book...
K'Nex Education: Wheels, Axles and Inclined Planes

We also own the other K'Nex Simple Machines Sets that we'll be using as we work our way through this book:
K'Nex Education: Levers and Pulleys
K'Nex Education: Gears

We got everything spread out onto the floor this afternoon and got started...
First we read the pages on inclined planes in the book and then the kids got busy building the steep slide and long ramp from the K'nex kit.

One of these would have come in real handy today...
Spring Scale
But... sigh... we don't have one (something to add to my next amazon order though).

After looking at our inclined planes for a while and talking about what we had read... Alex had an idea. He wanted to get out his stop watch and time cars as they sent them down the ramps.

Here's Clara trying a plastic car...
And Alex trying his big yellow taxi...
They experimented for quite a while longer, trying cars of different sizes and weights. They charted them all out on the white board on Clara's easel.

I'm really enjoying watching them getting into our more open ended science that we're doing this year. They've taken some things so much further than they would have if we were following more of a curriculum as we had done in the past.

Alex seriously cannot wait to do more from this book. We have a splitting wedge to build out the K'nex next.

Oh... there's also a set of DVD's based on this book available from the library. A friend of mine has watched one of them and wasn't all that keen on it.... but given that it doesn't cost us anything, I've reserved the inclined planes one at the library to see what we think of it.