Egyptian Art

The kids and I decided to take a little field trip yesterday. We always make several trips a year to the Art Institute and given that admission is free in February... we thought it would be a perfect destination yesterday.

We didn't have a whole lot of time.... just a couple of hours before we had to head to Clara's dance class, so we had to pick a few priorities to hit.

To go along with Story of the World Volume 1, we decided to visit the ancient Egypt section first...

Head of an Official...

Coffin and Mummy of Paankhenamun....Canopic Jar of Amunhotep, Chief Builder of Amun...
Statue of Osiris...
Mummy Head Cover...

No matter how many times we visit this exhibit, we find something new... or we've read something more so the items have even more meaning for us. I love that we have the opportunity to visit these items over and over.

I have more pics and more rambling to do but given that I have a cold that has decided to take up residence in my head... I'm going to save the rest for later and join the kids in the floor (they're working on their pet store!).

a trip to the field

Ugh... our internet went out last night after I typed this so I had to wait until this morning to post...

Today we were asked to join another homeschooling family for a trip to the Field Museum. I love the Field, but today was extra special... we were going to go and see the Mythic Creatures exhibit! It was fabulous! I have to admit, I didn't know what to expect but we really, really enjoyed it. I honestly wouldn't mind going back again and maybe doing the audio tour.

So, since photography wasn't allowed within the Mythic Creatures exhibit, I'll share these instead...

Sue...
Hanging out waiting for our friends...

After Mythic Creatures, a trip through the Ancient Egypt exhibit and a snack, we headed upstairs to see the Pacific Islands section to go with our study of Hawaii...
(this is the Hawaiian Island section of a tile map that was on the floor at the entrance to the exhibit)

Okay... so it was dark in there and I just didn't take any pictures in there either. But it had a great display showing how the islands were (and are being) formed. Cool stuff!
Afterwards the kids wanted to play a bit so we went across the street to a little play structure that's there... we honestly about never got them on the bus to go home! (pics of that are on my other blog)

anyone want some seed cake?

Here it is...
It's sitting on my kitchen counter right now along with this sad specimen...
For the past 8 weeks Alex has been in a homeschool science class at the Notebaert Nature Museum here in Chicago. It's been a fabulous experience! It was a small class (started with 10 students, ended with nine), so there was lots of personal attention. They partnered for all of their projects, changing partners each week. So, it was good experience for them... learning to work with others.

They did all kinds of great thinking experiments... like the seed olympics. They had to study the different ways that seeds travel and then design and built their own seeds to compete in the different events. Alex stayed up way too late one night drawing prototypes... he was so excited about that project.

They also studied trees which tied in nicely with our trip last week to go maple tapping (the same mom who arranged the science class also arranged the maple tree tapping trip).

They studied soil and earthworms too.

If you're wondering about the seed cake above, they gave the kids certain materials to work with and a certain volume to end with and let them create their own "recipe" for the perfect growing medium. I can't remember all of the choices but there were pebbles, sand (I think), clay, plant material, etc. Then they planted seeds in them to see how they grew.

Like I said before, it was a fabulous experience... one I hope we get to be a part of again next year!

the field museum

The Field Museum offers free admission for the entire month of February so today we decided to take advantage of this.

I only had one section that we *had* to cover today, that was the "Arctic People" section to go along with our study of the Iditarod. Regardless of how I prepped them, the kids were expecting to see exhibits on the dogs, sleds and the race itself.... not a great big exhibit about the native people of that region. We did learn more about the people and the conditions in which they lived and saw the reasons why traveling by sled dog would be a good mode of transportation.

Here the kids are reading about the sleds....
... we learned that the basket sled came to be used only after Europeans came into that area.

An Eskimo dog...
An Eskimo dog on top of a traditional house of that region...
Some clothing....

Photos were tough... it was a very dimly lit room and the lights in the display cases were on motion sensors. So, if I took too long fiddling with settings, the lights shut off and I would have to wave my arms around to re-light the lights and then start all over again.

In addition to the Arctic People section, we also covered most of Africa, the What is an Animal section and, of course, Egypt (a definite favorite with Alex and Clara). We had a really nice time, but we were all tired. So, we didn't end up staying all that long... maybe 3 and a half hours or so. That's the beauty of living in the city and the fact that admission is free right now. We could go home, guilt-free, knowing that we could go back again without any trouble.

Chicago History Museum

Today we used the Great Kids Museum Passport we picked up at the library on Monday to hit the Chicago History Museum.

This was their favorite section...
There was an audio tour that was available for free. They also have it on their website so you can download it onto your iPod. I downloaded it but didn't get a chance to preview it so we didn't do the audio tour. I may still check it out and if it seems okay we might do it next time. The kids LOVE audio tours.

Their favorite thing in this section was the old "L" car...
This is Clara demonstrating how slick the seats are... sigh.

The only disappointment of the day was that the Great Chicago Fire section section seemed a bit "light" for my obsessed son. This whole thing started after he checked out this...The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 (from the Graphic Library: Disasters in History series)

from the library this fall. He became so obsessed that this book held the number two slot on his Christmas list. I couldn't even guess how many times he has read it.

We really enjoyed ourselves today. I love museum days and love the winter because of that. So many of the museums in the city offer great admission deals during January and February. In February both the Art Institute AND the Field Museum have free admission. Guess where we'll be going a lot next month! :-)

Misc. fun pics from our day are on my other blog.

Christmas Around the World

My theme for this week is Christmas Around the World since I knew we were going to the Museum of Science and Industry yesterday to see the Christmas Trees from Around the World and the Star Wars exhibit.

The day before we went I downloaded the podcasts found here. They include brief 45 second to minute and a half descriptions of the Christmas customs of each country. They don't specifically describe the trees at the museum so if you're doing a Christmas Around the World homeschool unit study, it could be a fun supplement. I loaded them onto my iPod for the kids to listen to at the museum. However, the podcasts are in alphabetical order by country which is not at all how the trees were arranged at the museum. Alex tried it out for a couple of trees and then gave up. We just read the signs on each tree aloud.

Here are some photos of some of the trees....



(loved this little origami guy!)



And here was our family's favorite tree...the tree form Poland.

Today we continued our Christmas Around the World study. But first we worked on our Hands of a Child lapbook on Snow that we had started. Today we learned about the different types of frost and how artificial snow is made. The kids also started assembling their lapbook.

After that we listened to the podcasts about the trees we saw yesterday while the kids drew their favorite ornaments that they saw. Next we listened to the tape of the book The Legend of the Poinsettia. It was a great little book about Christmas in Mexico. And then we moved on to Japan and the kids worked on origami ornaments from ActivityTV.

Well... that's all we did worth writing about!

Kitchen Science

YIKES!!! Now I've done it! I have a blog on which to ramble on and on about homeschooling. I promise I won't get on any soapboxes... this is just a place for me to share what we're doing, what works for us, and what doesn't.... my periodic curriculum quandaries I go through and those "ah ha" moments when something finally clicks.

I haven't had time to make the place pretty yet.... I just wanted to get started while I had something to chat about. I'll have plenty of time to give the place a makeover during the holiday break. :-)

So.... the title is kitchen science... so let's get to it!

We went to a great workshop today! I love it when local museums are open to planning activities for homeschoolers! Today we went to the Notebaert Nature Museum for Kitchen Science. It was a fabulous workshop! It really exceeded my expectations! I thought it would be fun, but I was expecting more of a kitchen concoction type workshop than an actual science workshop.

Here's the white board with the outline of the workshop down the right side:
Real science stuff, huh? I love it when I learn things too!

The kids started out learning about molecules and polymers by building models out of gumdrops.

Then we did the yeast experiment. Clara's group used hot water and Alex's used warm. That's his with the gold balloon. That group of balloons in the background are the cold water ones.After a break, we moved on to chromatography. After some serious experiments, the kids got to their own fun chromatography experiment with markers, coffee filters and water.

First they folded and colored their filters...
Then put the point of the filter into a cup of water and waited until the whole filter was wet.
Then they unfolded and dried their filters to see how the colors had separated.


The next step was to turn the filters into butterflies with clothespins. They turned out really cute (but my pictures... not so much).

It was a great day and I really hope that the Nature Museum continues to offer workshops like this!