Tag Archives: grade 2

Air Pressure Experiments

May 19, 2013ScienceAir Pressure, grade 2, grade 3Lucinda

air pressure experiments wtih water and candle

Air is always pressing around everything, but we can’t see it. This week we did some experiments that helped us see air pressure in action.

Experiment 1 – Rising water

What You Need

shallow dish
tall glass
candle
clay
food colouring
matches/lighter
water

air pressure experiment wtih candle and water

What you do

1. Place the candle on top of the clay in the shallow dish.

air pressure experiment wtih candle and water

2. Pour in some water and add a few drops of food colouring.

air pressure experiment wtih candle and water

3. Light the candle and quickly place the inverted glass over it.

air pressure experiment with water and candle

What happens

When the candle burns out, the water level inside the glass rises.

air pressure experiment wtih candle and water

The scientific explanation

When the candle has used up the oxygen in the glass, the flame goes out. The air inside the glass cools and contracts, and water rises up into the glass to fill the gap.

Experiment 2 – Ice Water Can Crusher

What you need

empty drink can
shallow tray or dish
tongs
ice
water
stove or hot plate (and an old saucepan if, like me, you have an induction hob)

What you do

1. Prepare a tray filled with enough ice to cover its base, and water to cover the ice.

2. Put a small amount of water into the empty can and set it on the stove until the water inside boils. (If you have an induction hob, place the can on the base of an old saucepan.)

3. Quickly pick up the can with the tongs and put it upside down into the tray of icy water so that the opening is under water.

What happens

Very soon after it enters the icy water, the can is suddenly and noisily crushed!

air pressure experiment - crushing can

The scientific explanation

When the can is placed in the cold water, the air inside it cools and contracts. The greater air pressure from outside presses on the can and crushes it.

My top tip

We had to do this twice as it didn’t work the first time. I had put too much water in the can and didn’t heat it enough before putting it in the icy water. The second time I used less water and made sure steam was coming out before I put it in the water.

Experiment 3 – Only do this if you have a wide-necked glass bottle

We tried this one but our bottle didn’t have a wide enough opening for it to work properly.

Try to insert a (peeled) hard-boiled egg into the neck of a glass bottle. Observe that the egg is too big to go into the bottle.

air pressure experiments for kids — Don’t try and get an egg into a bottle this size!

Then drop a couple of burning matches into the bottle and try again. If your bottle neck is wide enough, after a few seconds the egg should be sucked into the bottle. This happens because when the air cools the pressure drops and the egg is sucked in to fill the gap.

Our bottle wasnt wide enough to suck in the egg, but the kids noticed that the egg changed shape because of the suction from inside the bottle. We gave it a bit of a push and the egg broke!

To get the egg back out of the bottle, turn the bottle upside down and blow hard into the bottle. This increases the air pressure and the egg pops out. (Or do what I did when I forgot these instructions, and instead light a match under the inverted bottle, which also works.)

Resources

All these experiments came from Science Experiments: Loads Of Explosively Fun Activities You Can Do.

Science Experiments Robert Winston

Join me at Adventures in Mommydom’s Science Sunday for more homeschool science fun.

Lessons Learned – What’s Going Well This Term

May 17, 2013Homeschool Routinegrade 2, grade 3, sensory processing disorderLucinda

homeschool planning

We’re not using any curriculum in our homeschool at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I don’t set goals for what I want us to achieve. In fact without a textbook telling us what we need to cover each week, it’s even more important for me to be clear about where we’re going.

The joy of routine

Detailed plans don’t work well for me, but I thrive on routines. A good routine offers a perfect balance of flexibility and structure. Routines allow us to spontaneously take a sunny springtime day off to play outside with friends, and then to jump back in the next day without worrying about “catching-up”. Routines can be adjusted to accommodate extra practice time for upcoming music exams, and we can make the most of the perks of homeschooling by taking term-time vacations without having to work double-time on our return to cover “missed” material.

The whiteboard in the picture above shows my big-picture planning for this term. Some subjects, like history, science and art, aren’t listed because we were already in a comfortable groove with them. On the whiteboard I wrote new ideas and things we’d been letting slide, but which I knew I wanted to reintroduce into our regular routine.

Read aloud time

We listen to a lot of audiobooks together and individually, but there’s something special about family read-aloud time. This term I’ve prioritised getting together every day to read from a novel or non-fiction living book. We’re finishing The Return of the Twelves at the moment (it’s good as everyone says). Sharing a novel in this way helps get us into the swing of reading aloud, so we’ve read more of all kinds of living books together this term.

Fun maths

I’ve written a lot recently about the fun we’ve been having with our new living maths routine. Definitely a success!

Copywork

I’m a big fan of copywork for teaching kids the elements of good writing. J(8) turned eight at Easter so I thought he might be ready to join C(9) doing copywork. Despite his slight dysgraphia and dyslexia, he seems to be quite enjoying it. He chooses his own book, props it up on a cookbook stand, and writes a sentence using his handiwriter pencil grip. Most of what he’s written comes from a Benny and Penny graphic novel, but that doesn’t worry me. As long as he’s practising writing, punctuation and spelling I know he’ll get there in the end (wherever “there” is).

C(9) has also been selecting her own copywork passages. She picks a book off the shelves depending on her mood. This term she’s written quotes from Magic School Bus books, Usborne science books, Homer, poems and even the back of an acrylic paint pot. Variety is a bonus!

This term I’ve been doing copywork alongside the children – an inspiring quote, a favourite poem or a great line from a novel. I enjoy it, and it reinforces the value of what the children are doing.

Project time

I love the idea of the children spending large amounts of time driving their own projects, with me as their learning mentor. After we rearranged our space to make materials more accessible, C(9) spontaneously creates much more often. I’ve been managing to have project time with each child individually a few times a week, but ideally I’d like us to spend more time doing project work. I’m still working on where to find that time!

Freewriting

Like copywork, freewriting is something we all do together. We set a timer for five minutes and, sometimes using Bravewriter Friday Freewrite prompts, keep writing until the beeper sounds. J(8) doesn’t follow the “rules” exactly – he prefers to tell stories using a mixture of pictures and writing (complete with his own “phonetic” spelling) – but he’s been really enthusiastic about freewriting so I’m not going to interfere in his creative process! Sometimes, in an unusual reversal of roles, C(9) gets cross because J(8) carries on writing well past the beep.

Schedule for J(8)

My final goal for this term was to provide J(8) with a daily schedule. Whereas C(9) and I are fairly free-wheeling types, J(8) seems to work best when he knows what’s coming up, and when he’s done for the day. So for his benefit I’ve been making a daily whiteboard list of subjects which we cross off as we go along. This seems to have been working well.

Lesson-planning inspiration

Julie at Highhill Homeschool has launched a new link-up series to help homeschoolers inspire each other in lesson-planning. For the next month, the link-up theme is successes in your classroom, then beginning 4 July there’s a schedule for sharing planning different subjects across the curriculum. I hope you’ll join me there for more inspiration.

Fun With Tessellations

May 15, 2013Living Mathsgrade 2, grade 3, tessellationLucinda

fun with tessellation

After we read about tessellations in The Great Number Rumble: A Story of Math in Surprising Places we decided to make our own artistic versions. I got the directions from Big Ideas for Small Mathematicians.

Tessellation is about regular patterns that split the plane up into lots of little tiles which fit together perfectly, without overlapping or leaving any gaps. Tessellation is fundamental to maths, because it’s all about symmetry.

We started with a cardboard square each (ours were about 5x5cm). We talked about how we could cover a page with squares without leaving any gaps.

First we cut a piece from the bottom of our square. We were careful not to cut the corners off, and we found it easiest to cut from corner to corner (to avoid having to measure where to reattach the cut piece on the other side). We slid the cut-off piece upwards, and attached it with tape to the top edge of the square.

Tellellation square

Then we did the same on the left side of our square. We cut a piece out, slid it along to the right side, then reattached it.

Tessellating square

I asked the children if we had added any cardboard to our shapes, or taken any away (no). We agreed, then, that our shapes should take up the same total amount of space as our original squares.

maths fun with tessellations

We traced around our shape on a blank piece of paper, then carefully moved it along and traced around it again. And again, and again until we’d covered the page.

Tessellating art — I traced over my shapes with a black Sharpie. (Do you think they look a bit like Fred from the Life of Fred books?!)

Our tessellations looked so pretty, we decided to paint them.

fun with tessellations

J(8)’s didn’t cover his paper without gaps – he was adamant he wanted to create his art his way – but he understood the idea!

fun with tessllations2 — Tessellation-inspired art 😉

The artist M.C.Escher used tessellation to create amazing art. This BBC video clip is excellent!

Mathematicians know that their subject is beautiful. Escher shows us that it’s beautiful.

Prof. Ian Stewart, University of Warwick

For more maths ideas, visit the inspiring monthly carnival Math Teachers At Play over at my favourite maths blog, Let’s Play Math.

maths art fun with tessellations

Join me at:

Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners

Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Look What We Did at Hammock Tracks

Hobbies and Handicrafts at Highhill Homeschool

Creative Science with Ice, Salt and Colour

May 11, 2013Sciencegrade 2, grade 3, iceLucinda

Science Play Ice Salt and Colour

This week we played with salt, ice and liquid watercolours. It was one of those cool activities that combines science and creativity, and has everyone happily engaged for hours.

What You Need

One or more plastic containers – we used several, of different shapes and sizes. Ours had lids to make them easier to stack in the freezer.
Water
Salt
Liquid watercolours or food colouring
Plastic pipettes
Tray or dish to stand your melting ice in

science fun with salt ice and liquid watercolour

What We Did

I filled the containers with water and left them in the freezer for a couple of days.

We talked about the ways ice melts. The children said heat melts ice, so our ice would eventually melt if we left it out of the freezer. Or we could speed up the melting process by pouring on warm water. I asked them how we deal with icy paths in winter and they shouted “salt!”. We recalled how we added salt to ice to quickly freeze juice into a sorbet, and how that worked because the presence of an impurity (like salt) lowers the freezing point of water.

Then I handed over the salt and the liquid watercolours and let the children experiment.

They started out by sprinkling salt on the ice and noticing how the salt melted the ice where it came into contact with it. (Actually they started out by licking the ice – they do like to engage all their senses… I made sure this happened only the once, before any salt or paint had been introduced!)

Then C(9) had the idea of colouring her salt before sprinkling it on so she could follow its path. But she found the salt difficult to sprinkle when wet, so she decided to sprinkle and then quickly add colour. Soon she realised that she didn’t have to be so quick, because the colour always followed the path of the melting ice.

Fun with salt ice and liquid watercolour

More colours were added…

science fun with salt ice and liquid watercolour

And great fun was had by all!

I loved seeing how differently each child interacted with their ice. While C(9) enthused poetically about “glistening cataracts”, J(8) wore his best would-be world-dominating mad scientist expression as he attacked his with three purple pipettes at a time, shouting “I’m going to burn a hole RIGHT THROUGH THE HEART of it!”

Salty icy tunnel

Lots of creative expression, and some science too!

science fun with salt ice and liquid watercolour

Variations

Using food colouring instead of liquid watercolour – I think I added too much water to our liquid watercolours – they were a bit wishy washy (not that the children noticed). While they were busy making cataracts and chasms, I privately experimented with using gel food colours instead. These highlighted the paths of the melting ice much more clearly, but one drop went a long way so the children wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun if we’d used these – their ice would quickly have been saturated with colour. The vibrant colours make for quite a cool demonstration, though.

Gel food colour salt and ice — Gel food colour, salt & ice

Another scientific variation would be to experiment with different types of salt – rock salt, for example.

Science play ice salt and colour

Further Resources

Our arty science project was inspired by The Artful Parent.

Ice Tunnels: Bring on the summer fun! I found this after we played with our ice.

I hope you enjoy playing with colourful salty ice as much as we did!

Pythagoras and the Knotted Rope

May 1, 2013Living Mathsgrade 2, grade 3, PythagorasLucinda

Pythagoras fun for kids 2

Now we’ve switched to a full-time living maths approach, we’re actually making time to play with some of the wonderful resources we’ve had on our shelves for years.

What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras?

On Friday we read What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras, a picture book which tells the story of how the young Pythagoras learns how to make a right-angled triangle using knotted rope, and discovers how to calculate the length of its hypotenuse using square tiles.

Obviously the book is mostly fictional, and it takes some historical liberties – the boy Pythagoras visits Alexandria, for instance, several hundred years before the city was built! – but these are discussed at the back of the book in a way that made my kids laugh and was a handy review of Ancient Greece and Alexander the Great.

How to make a right-angled triangle using rope

In the book, the young Pythagoras notices what happens when buildings are constructed with less-than-accurate right-angles. On a trip to Alexandria with his father, he learns how the Egyptians use knotted rope to overcome this problem.

We tried it out for ourselves. We tied eleven knots at equal distance along our rope before joining the ends in a final knot, so that we ended up with twelve short lengths of rope between each knot.

Pythagoras knotted rope living maths

Then we used our rope to make different shaped triangles. We counted how many lengths of rope were on each side of each triangle.

To make a right-angled triangle, we found that we needed the sides to be 3 lengths, 4 lengths and 5 lengths of rope respectively.

Pythagoras for kids

(Top Tip: Take care to make the knots evenly spaced. C(9)’s rope worked perfectly for making right-angled triangles, whereas the one I helped J(8) make didn’t, oops!)

Using Lego to demonstrate the Pythagoras Theorem

While playing with floor tiles, the young Pythagoras in the story discovers that if he makes a square along each side of a right-angled triangle, the square on the longest side uses the same number of tiles as the other two sides’ squares put together.

We tried this for ourselves with 2×2 Lego bricks.

drawing a right-angled triangle — C(9) measured 3, 4 and 5 Lego bricks and drew a triangle with sides those lengths

lego proof of Pythagoras Theorem — 1 side is 3 Lego bricks long …

Success! — 9 bricks + 16 bricks = 25 bricks

Pythagoras uses what he has learned to work out how long a ladder is needed to reach the top of a wall. He also helps his father calculate the sailing distance to Rhodes. Both excellent demonstrations of the usefulness of maths!

I would never have thought to teach my kids the Pythagoras Theorem at the ages they are (8 and 9) – all we did was read a picture book. But that living book inspired us to play, and before we knew it we were formulating mathematical proofs. Another living maths success!

I’m appreciatively linking up here:

Homeschool Review at Hammock Tracks

Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners

Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Math Monday Blog Hop – Math & Children’s Literature

Miniature Japanese Zen Garden For Kids

April 26, 2013HistoryBuddhism, grade 2, grade 3, JapanLucinda

miniature japanese zen garden

As part of learning about how Zen Buddhism spread to Japan in the Middle Ages, we made miniature Japanese Zen Gardens. It seemed like a great excuse to play with sand!

What You Need

Sand
Pebbles or rocks
Fork or other mini-raking tool
Container (we used chocolate boxes supported on trays)
Any other decorative items you like (marbles, twigs etc)

What You Do

1. Fill your container with sand

Miniature Japanese Zen Garden — Not a very Zen tablecloth – oops!

2. Look at pictures of real and miniature Zen Gardens for inspiration

3. Place your rocks

Miniature Japanese Zen Garden

4. Have fun making patterns in the sand with your “rake”

5. Finish with any other decorative features that take your fancy

6. Place your Zen Garden somewhere you can admire it (and the cat can’t get it)

Zen Soundtrack

You might like to listen to some relaxing Japanese music as you tend your garden.

Japanese Religion

Zen Buddhism was brought to Japan from China and Korea in the Middle Ages.

We read about Buddhism in One World: Many Religions: The Ways We Worship by Mary Pope Osborne (the author of the Magic Tree House series).

Siddhartha and the Enlightenment

We learned how a young prince named Siddhartha was born in India five hundred years before Jesus was born. One day, disturbed by some of the sights he saw outside his luxurious palace, Siddhartha set off in search of wisdom.

During meditation, Siddhartha had a sudden divine understanding that explained how to end all suffering. Buddhists call this powerful insight the Enlightenment.

We read about the eight rules that the Buddha – as Siddhartha became known after the Enlightenment – set down to allow anyone to free themselves from their worldly desires and achieve enlightenment.

Zen Buddhism

As Buddhism spread from its origins in India, it split into different groups. Zen Buddhism, a type of Mahayana Buddhism, is one of the most common types of Buddhism in Japan.

We learned how Zen Buddhists seek to cultivate a still, meditative state of mind to help them achieve enlightenment.

Shinto

Before Buddhism, the indigenous religion of ancient Japan was Shinto.

“Shinto teaches that divine forces live in all things that inspire awe and wonder, such as a waterfall, a whirlpool, a mysterious cave, a beautiful stone, an exquisite insect, the wind and rain, thunder and lightening, and even a fascinating person.”

Mary Pope Osborne: One World, Many Religions

Shinto is congruent with Buddhism, and has survived alongside it. Many Japanese Buddhists worship at Shinto shrines as well as Buddhist temples.

What does Buddhism have to do with Gardening?

Apparently not much! Buddhist temples often house traditional dry gardens that have come to be known as Zen Gardens. Like many people, I thought that relaxing “Zen Gardens” were cultivated by Japanese Buddhists to help them achieve a meditative state of mind.

But as part of this study we discovered that the association between Zen Buddhism and these gardens is actually a twentieth-century Western invention. Oh well – that didn’t stop us enjoying creating our own miniature Zen Gardens!

miniature japanese zen garden

japan projects for kids — Click the picture to see more of our Japan projects

Visit Adventures in Mommydom for more history and geography ideas.

5 Days of Maths Playtime

April 22, 2013Living Maths, Special NeedsFibonacci, grade 2, grade 3, Ken Ken, Pattern BlocksLucinda

I wrote last week about how the excellent book Let’s Play Math inspired me to establish a living maths routine in our homeschool.

So – here’s what our first week of maths playtime looked like.

Day 1 – Discovering the Fibonacci Sequence

We read Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, a gorgeous picture book about the twelfth century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci.

We learned how Fibonacci brought Hindu-Arabic numerals to Europe, which had until then been using Roman numerals. Here we paused to talk about place value and how much harder it must have been for kids to do written arithmetic without a zero!

Next we puzzled over Fibonacci’s famous rabbit problem. (In short, if a pair of rabbits has two babies every month, how many rabbits do you have at the end of the year?)

J(8) got overwhelmed and ran off to the trampoline at this point. But I was delighted that C(9) – who also has “if I can’t do it perfectly straight away, I’m outta here” tendencies – stayed with the puzzle long enough to spot the pattern which gives us the Fibonacci Series. (J(8) will be ready for this level of engagement and reasoning in his own time!)

Day 2 – Fibonacci Numbers in Nature

We’d read in Blockhead how the Fibonacci Series is found throughout nature, so on our walks for the rest of the week we looked for examples.

Most daisies, for example, have thirty-four petals (a Fibonacci number).

(Top tip: don’t split the petals, thinking they’re two. The first time I counted fifty-nine. Next daisy, I carefully kept each petal intact and I got thirty-four exactly.)

Daisies have 13 (easier to count) sepals (another Fibonacci number).

fibonacci daisy petals — 13 daisy sepals, and Fibonacci spirals in the middle, too

fibonacci flowers for kids — Lesser Celandine have eight – Fibonacci number! – petals

Fibonacci numbers are found in so many places besides plants – they crop up everywhere, from fine art, to galaxies, to pineapples. What a lot we still have to explore!

Day 3 – KenKen Puzzles: Arithmetic and Logic Practice

KenKen – Japanese for “cleverness” – is an arithmetic logic puzzle invented by a Japanese maths teacher. It’s a similar to Sudoku but the digits in each mini-grid combine together to make a given number, using prescribed operation signs. Hard to explain but once you’ve done one or two you get it!

We downloaded the free KenKen iPad/iPhone app, which allows you to start with very easy puzzles using just addition and the numbers 1-3. I can see this providing hours of maths fact practice!

Day 4 – Pattern Blocks: Exploring Symmetry and Tessellations

Let’s Play Math suggests investing in manipulatives that are, among other things, strew-able. Pattern blocks have definitely passed that test this week.

$pattern blocks living math fun$

Pattern blocks give kids the chance to explore pattern building, geometric shapes, tessellation, symmetry and all that other mathematical stuff in an open-ended way. I’m looking forward to looking at these concepts in greater depth over the course of our maths playtimes.

pattern blocks living maths fun

Day 5 – Story Problems

This was the simplest day in terms of set-up, and perhaps the most fun, which came as a welcome surprise to me. All we needed was a portable whiteboard and our imaginations (and a bit of patience waiting for J(8) to finish each of his long complicated stories!).

We took turns, and I think the children learned at least as much from setting me problems (and watching me work through them out loud and on the whiteboard) as they did solving them.

Here are some of the problems we came up with:

Story problem I started with

“If our puppy Harvey can skateboard at 5 metres per second, and the playground of our home ed centre is 20 metres long, how long would it take Harvey to skate from one end to the other?”

Story Problem by C(9)

(Who has recently been caring for her first flowering pot plant.) “If you water a plant every day, it grows one new flower every three hours. But you only water it every other day, so it grows half the number of flowers. How many flowers does it grow in a fortnight?”

Story Problem by J(8)

[Brace yourself.] “A man digs a hole 5 metres deep in 24 hours. If he sleeps 12 hours a night and has two 11 minute tea-breaks a day, how deep is the hole after 10 years?”

[I gave you the condensed version. The digging man (an escaping convict?!) ended up doing so many other things, we lost track. Once we’d negotiated relevant facts, I gamely worked out how far into the Earth’s core the man had burrowed.]

living maths fun — Space hopper maths – perfect for a child with Sensory Processing issues! (Though not so good for photos)

Verdict on Week One

We enjoyed each of our maths playtime sessions SO MUCH.

In addition to our living maths, J(8) also asked me to read Life of Fred: Goldfish to him every day. We worked buddy style through the questions at the end of each chapter.

There was also a lot of spontaneous maths play – and not just by the children!

$living math fun$

So where are we going with this?

My goals for this term are for C(9) and J(8) to play with maths concepts, have fun with numbers and discover a bit of maths history.

My role will be to strew interesting materials, make suggestions, read aloud and – most importantly – observe. I love quietly playing detective, noticing what each child is drawn to, what comes naturally, and what might benefit from more ~~practice~~ playtime.

By the end of term in July I’ll have a lot more information about how the maths playtime approach is going. Then we’ll talk over our experiences and take it from there.

I’ll post more about our maths playtimes soon.

Want to find out more?

Fabulous Fibonacci

My Let’s Play Math Pinterest Board

Japan – History & Geography

March 8, 2013Geography, Historygrade 2, grade 3, history, JapanLucinda

Japanese Ink Wash Painting - Evening Landscape (anon) c.1540 — Japanese Ink Wash Painting – Evening Landscape (anon) c.1540

This post is about some “spin-off fun” we’ve been having as we’ve been learning about medieval Japan.

We’re using The Story of the World vol 2 as our “guidebook” for the Middle Ages, but this year we’re not using an accompanying activity guide or curriculum.

Instead, we’re enjoying coming up with our own ideas for spin-off activities. When I say “we” come up with ideas, of course I initiate most of them – but I’m guided by the children’s level of engagement and interest when it comes to how fully we explore each idea, and I’m always open to being led down new paths of their choosing. Sometimes we go off on tangents that take us far away from history, and that’s ok.

Japanese Writing

Japanese writing is made up of three alphabets, one of which is a collection of Chinese characters. We had recently looked at Chinese characters when we learned about Chinese New Year, so I thought it would be interesting to compare Japanese writing with Chinese. The article I found also compared Korean, so we looked at that too.

I found two examples each of Chinese, Japanese and Korean writing (using Google Images). We examined one set of examples and talked about similarities and differences. Then we used this article to help us distinguish them further. (In a nutshell, Korean has lots of ovals and circles, Chinese characters are the most complex, and Japanese contains some Chinese characters plus other characters, many of which are curvy.)

comparison of japanese chinese and korean for kids

Finally, the children looked at “blind” copies of each type of writing (I had cut off anything that identified what they were). They found it fairly easy (and enjoyable) to identify where each type of writing came from.

japanese name translator — Writing our names in Japanese

We then looked up our names in Japanese. This name translator translates into various writing styles, including traditional Japanese and Manga. We wrote out our names in both styles using paintbrushes dipped in black ink, and C also wanted to write hers out using her calligraphy pen.

Ink Wash Painting

While we had the black ink and paintbrushes out, I showed the children some examples of Japanese ink wash painting and they decided to have a go. We didn’t have Japanese rice paper so we used diluted black ink on wet watercolour paper. (I have to ‘fess up – I did buy some A4 edible rice paper before I realised this is not the stuff the Japanese paint on! Oh well, I’m sure we will find a fun way to use it!)

I based my painting on Pine Trees by Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1610). The children’s designs were, of course, were much more original!

japanese ink wash painting for kids — Our ink wash paintings

Origami Kimonos

We were amused to learn that the exotic-sounding word “kimono” actually translates as “thing to wear”! It is composed of two Chinese symbols. “Ki” comes from “kuru” and means “to wear”, and “mono” means thing.

japan lapbook - origami kimono — From C(9)’s Lapbook

C(9) thought this origami kimono girl would look good in her lap book. The directions are simple, and no special paper is required – you just print out the page and then cut out, fold and assemble the pretty patterned kimono pieces. C(9) did comment that it was a bit of a cheat as real origami wouldn’t call for glue!

Japanese Kites

Kites were first brought to Japan from China by Buddhist missionaries, for use in sacred ceremonies. The Japanese developed their own distinctive style of kites, and began to use them for practical purposes, such as lifting building materials and sending messages. They were also used to raise soldiers into the air to act as spies or snipers!

Find out more about the origin of kites here and Japanese kite history here.

Japanese kites lapbook minibook — C(9)’s minibook on Japanese kites

C(9) loved researching Japanese kites and enjoyed making a mini-book about them.

Geography

We learned that Japan is an archipelago – a large group of islands – and we compared the islands’ size with the island we live on, Britain. (See this image for a comparison of Japan’s size with the USA). When we saw that the distance from the north to the south of Japan is the same as the distance from Scotland to the south of Spain, we understood why Japan has such a varied climate.

salt dough map of japan — Salt dough map of Japan

Japan is located on the “Ring of Fire” – the zone of volcanic activity surrounding the Pacific Ocean. We contrasted Japan’s position on the boundary of several tectonic plates with Britain’s location inside the Eurasian Plate, and reflected on what this means for our respective societies. This has also launched a spin-off project on volcanoes and earthquakes!

We’re away next week, but when we get back I’ll be sharing more Japan spin-off fun, involving Samurai and Zen gardening.

To see what other homeschoolers have been doing this week, visit It’s A Wrap at Hammock Tracks and Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners.

For more geography and history ideas, visit Adventures in Mommydom.

Fun With Magnets

February 22, 2013Sciencegrade 2, grade 3, magnetsLucinda

Magnet project fun homeschool science

This week we spent one whole morning (plus a bit of the afternoon) exploring magnets.

We started out by reading a chapter of The Magic School Bus: Amazing Magnetism.

I was delighted to find that the story is structured around a competition, the prize for which is a pizza party – this was a book that was going to appeal to at least two of J(7)’s passions! We read chapters in between doing our own experiments, which kept J nicely engaged.

Making a Magnet

We stroked a magnet along a needle in the same direction about twelve times to create a temporary magnet.

A magnet is made up of many tiny mini-magnets, or “domains”, which all line up and point the same way. Any metal that sticks to a magnet also has domains. These are jumbled up – but a magnet can make them line up, and the metal temporarily becomes a magnet.

When we dropped our needle magnet on the table a few times, the domains became jumbled again and the needle was no longer magnetic. Heat also jumbles the domains.

Magnetic Fields

One of the books we used, Magnet Science, comes with a sealed transparent box of iron filings. We observed the patterns the iron filings made when we applied different shaped magnets. The patterns showed us each magnet’s invisible magnetic field lines.

Magnet project fun homeschool science - glass .JPG — Paperclip challenge

Paperclip Challenge

I gave each child a glass of water with a paperclip at the bottom and challenged them to remove the paperclip without putting their hand in the water. Straight away they dipped the magnet into the water, so I had to add “… and without getting the magnet wet”, at which point they figured it out!

“Floating” Magnet

We used the fact that magnets with the same poles repel each other to create a cool illusion. We forced two repelling magnets together with a couple of pencils in between, and taped the magnets together. On removing the pencils, magnetic force keeps the top magnet hovering in mid-air!

Measuring Magnetic Force

We placed a paperclip at the zero end of a ruler and a magnet at the other end. Then we slowly moved the magnet towards the clip and recorded the distance in centimetres between the two at the point when the clip jumped onto the magnet. We tried this with different magnets to compare their strengths.

Measuring magnets homeschool science project collage — Measuring magnetic force

Magnetic Force and Gravity

This time we taped the zero end of the ruler perpendicular to the table and repeated the measuring process. We noted that this time the magnet had to be closer to make the clip jump, because its force is competing with another force – gravity.

Magnet project fun homeschool science - magnet compass .JPG — Magnet compass

Making a Compass

We taped a bar magnet to the base of a small plastic pot and floated the pot in a large bowl of water. After leaving the water and magnet to settle for a minute, we used a dry wipe marker to mark (on the large bowl) where the north and south poles of the magnet pointed. When we turned the magnet pot around, it returned to the same spot, its poles aligned with the Earth’s magnetic north and south.

(Happily, this confirmed our recent discovery, when we were learning about the beginning of Islam, that Mecca is in the direction of our pear tree!)

Magnet slide homeschool science project collage — Magnet marble races

Marble Races

We taped magnets to the underside of a piece of cardboard, propped it up to make a ramp, and raced metal and glass marbles down it. We used our strongest magnets and an old iPad box, but it was difficult to see whether the magnetic marble or the glass marble won the race – I think we would have seen better results with a longer ramp.

Magnet project fun homeschool science — Magnet art

Magnetic Art

We put a piece of paper on top of a magnet and made our own executive toy – paperclip sculpture. 🙂

Magnetic Rock

We looked at pictures of magnetite, a naturally magnetic rock first found at a place called Magnesia in Ancient Greece.

Resources

Books

The Magic School Bus: Amazing Magnetism gave us a story to structure our experiments around. The best experiments came from The Usborne Book of Science Activities Volume One. We also used Magnet Science (Hands-on Science), which comes with iron filings and a set of magnets.

Websites

This Squidoo lens has stacks of magnet ideas and links to resources.

Steve Spangler explains what magnets are and talks about their history. More experiments here too.

What Next?

The children’s interest in magnetite and in the causes of the Earth’s magnetic forces (not to mention Minecraft) got me thinking that this could be a good time to find out more about rocks. Watch this space!

Magnetism also relates to electricity, which C explored in a recent project. (We loved The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip, which taught me a few things about electromagnetism.) We’ll come back to this topic next time we look at magnetism.

Magnet art - homeschool magnet science project — More magnet art

Do you know of any fun magnet experiments?

To see what other homeschoolers have been up to this week, check out Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners and It’s a Wrap at Hammock Tracks.

For more science posts, visit Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

What we’re Doing for Grade 2 and 3 Maths

October 27, 2012Living Mathsgrade 2, grade 3, life of fredLucinda

arithmemouse_grade 2 and 3 homeschool math curriculum — Multiplication Practice with Arithmemouse

I last wrote about how we found our perfect math curriculum back in March, so I thought it might be time for an update…

Jasper (7, Yr3/Gr2)

Life of Fred

Maths is still Jasper’s favourite subject, thanks to Life of Fred. This term we finished Life of Fred (Edgewood) and began Life of Fred (Farming). I love the way the Fred series mixes up basic fundamentals (such as subtraction with borrowing) with more sophisticated concepts (like union of sets, median averages and simple algebraic equations) in a way that introduces young children to advanced mathematical vocabulary in a very natural way. And, of course, we all love “Fred’s” delightfully quirky story and offbeat humour.

Games

Because we’re not doing a traditional curriculum, I make sure Jasper gets plenty of extra opportunities to learn his maths facts. Luckily he loves games, which are a great way of getting the job done. Recently we’ve played Yahtzee and War . (My favourite maths website, Let’s Play Math has lots of ideas for maths games. I’ve just noticed Contig, which looks great – we’ll be playing Contig Jr next week!) We also play games like Tug Team Addition at Math Playground, and Jasper practises multiplication using Arithmemouse and Timez Attack.

One benefit of working with a child one-to-one is that you get instant feedback on how easy or challenging he finds each concept. So in Life of Fred (Edgewood) I noticed Jasper was a bit confused about the differences between rhombuses, trapeziums and parallelograms, so I set him some exercises on Study Ladder. He loves working online, especially on specific exercises (rather than working his way through an online curriculum in a linear way – for example, Maths Whizz didn’t work so well for us for any length of time) so this is win/win.

Cordie (8, Yr4/Gr3)

$math mammoth division 1 - grade 2 and 3 homeschool math curriculum$ Cordie recently decided to take a break from Life of Fred (she was on “Farming”) to explore some other resources. She did a few exercises from a Schofield & Sims KS2 workbook we had on the shelves and asked me to set her some “surprise” Study Ladder exercises. One day she asked me to make her a page of clocks so she could brush up on telling the time, and another day she wanted a page of multi-digit subtraction sums. She played around on Khan Academy for a while, watching videos on decimal place values and then setting herself some problems to solve. And she dipped into Math Mammoth’s Division 1 (filling in the answers on the iPad using the Notability app).

Following her explorations, Cordie says she’s ready to go back to more of a maths routine with Life of Fred. Before that, though, we’re doing some times tables practice using Maria Miller’s structured drill system from Math Mammoth Multiplication 1.

I’ve looked ahead at all the Life of Fred elementary level books (up to “Jellybeans”) and they seem to cover everything on the English KS2 curriculum. As with Jasper, if Cordie needs or wants extra practice on a particular topic as we go along, there are plenty of other resources we can dip into.

Writing this post has also reminded me how much we all like Primary Grade Challenge Math which teaches mathematical thinking and problem-solving in a fun way. We haven’t used Challenge Math in a while but I’d like to get back to using it regularly, perhaps once a week.

Isn’t it great how many fabulous homeschool maths resources are out there? There really is something to suit everyone, at every age and in every mood!