Calorimeter

One of the experiments in the kids' Energy unit in Moving Beyond the Page was building a calorimeter and calculating the calories in several different bitze size pieces of food. The kids really enjoyed this. Joseph decided that you could have a campfire with the flames that a cashew puts out. ;)
Can you see the flames through the openings in the bottom of the spaghettio can? If you look closely on the frame of the balance, you can also see the smoke.
Oh, Cashews were the highest calorie food we did and, contrary to what the kids hypothesized, chocolate chips and marshmallows were the lowest calorie.

Curlformers

We got these today at Sally Beauty Supply. I will post the results tomorrow.

More energy

We are continuing with our Energy unit in Moving Beyond the Page today and the kids made flywheel generators (they thought this was pretty cool!)




We also burned some coal to see firsthand what happens when coal burns. And, well, a picture speaks a thousand words. LOL

Color Mixing and Light

The past week or so the kids have been working on a unit on Energy in Moving Beyond the Page. Today, we covered light and color. How mixing colors is different than mixing light.
So, we had the fun task of mixing red, blue and yellow water and making brown (unlike light, which would be white when mixed). Because I know someone will ask, I got the color mixing trays from Steve Spangler, which is my answer for anything that is science related. ;) I have had them since the first year we started homeschooling (four years ago!), but we haven't used them in a long time. So long, in fact, that the girls didn't remember them. They are a lot of fun and feel so.....scientific.



After we proved our hypothesis that all three colors together would make brown, they experimented with making orange, green and purple.
Then Joseph decided that he would try to recreate every color variation that he could fit in the tray.

Milestones in Science

I was at Learning Express the other day buying a birthday gift and while I was there, I just HAD to check out the 50% off section. You just never know what you will find there.

They had Milestones in Science marked down and how could I pass that up?

So far, today, we have made a Camera Obscura, a model of the steam engine and we are working on Galileo's telescope. Joseph is having a blast with it.

Wouldn't want to leave anyone out. ;)

wobbleBoard1, originally uploaded by TeriMomof4.

What homeschoolers do at 10 in the morning

WobbleBoard2, originally uploaded by TeriMomof4.

We took a break in between writing about sea turtles for A View from Saturday and doing our experiment on light for science and tried out the new wobble boards.