Tag Archives: science

Middle Ages, the Plague, and Microbes.

07/15/2015 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

We started out our study of the Middle Ages with an overview of what was going on all over the world during the early part of the Middle Ages.

There were actually different stages to the Middle Ages and each one was pretty different.

Not all of them were Dark either.

Please remember my boys are adventure loving and they like the exciting history best before you look at the timelines they created.

They latched on to even the slightest mention of a battle…

I did get them to leave Easter Island battle free though!

Boys…

romemiddleages

Yes, the Roman Empire was still around during the Middle Ages.

I pretty much got every book the library had on Knights and the Middle Ages and just let my boys go at them.

You Choose history books were again a favorite of my boys.

They will read them again and again.

I like to mix in a LOT of Historical Fiction with our studies.

We watched Disney’s Robin Hood to go with our study.

I was pretty excited about it!

They also did a couple of the lessons with Draw and Write your way through History.

I felt like I failed in the science department at first.

I was just getting books on the plague and talking about different discoveries that were going on.

Then at the end of our study we collected puddle water and studied it under the microscope.

They were amazed and proceeded to eat up all the books the library had on Microbes!

We also watched the Magic School Bus Episodes on Microbes.

Magic School Bus “In A Pickle” and “Inside Ralphie.”

I have to remind myself sometimes that my slow and steady approach to getting the boys interested in something does work!

It just looks lazy for a bit but always pays off!

For more ideas on the Middle Ages, check out my Pinterest board.

Homeschooling

Pompeii and Volcanoes

02/23/2015 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

Here are the books we used to study the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

*This post contains Amazon Associate links

“Magic Tree House #13: Vacation Under the Volcano“ by Mary Pope Osborne

“I Survived #10: I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79“ by Lauren Tarshis

“You Wouldn’t Want to Live in Pompeii! A Volcanic Eruption You’d Rather Avoid” by John Malam

“Escape from Pompeii” by Christina Balit

We studied Volcanoes along with learning about the Mount Vesuvius eruption.

Here are the books we used.

“The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth (Magic School Bus)” by Joanna Cole

“The Magic School Bus Science Chapter Book #15: Voyage to the Volcano“ by Judith Stamper

“The Explosive World of Volcanoes with Max Axiom, Super Scientist (Graphic Science)” by Christopher L. Harbo

“Big Book of Earth & Sky” by Bodie Hodge

“Volcano Rising” by Susan Swan

“Volcanoes (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)” by Franklin M. Branley

We also used a Magic School Bus Kit, The Magic School Bus -Blasting Off With Erupting Volcanoes.

The boys got a lot out of the labelling the kit had them do!

I was really surprised by that. I thought they would get more out of the actual experiments.

The were really interested in figuring out what types the different volcanoes we read about were.

Sometimes I just never know what will interest them!

They liked this experiment showing how fault lines work.

Drawing the fault lines on his “earth”.

Hopefully our earth does not have to be squished for an eruption to take place…

Total destruction.

I was a little disappointed that most of the experiments had to do with baking soda reactions to different acids.

I guess it is the most kid friendly eruption but I felt like it did not have a lot to do with how an actual eruption takes place.

We decided to try out one I had found online a while ago, here.

Please buy the Corning Pyrex made for laboratory use for this experiment!

We used regular Microwave safe Pyrex and I think it was a horrible idea.

I read about it later and saw that it is not safe for stove tops!

Do not use it!

Yikes!

We will be buying this “Corning Pyrex 1000-600 Glass 600mL Graduated Low Form Griffin Beaker, 50mL Graduation Interval, with Double Scale“ before we try this again!

The wax works it’s way up through the sand when it is heated.

Very cool.

We also watched Nova: Deadliest Volcanoes and Pompeii – The Last Day.

Deadliest Volcanoes was great! It even talked about Vesuvius and that fact it is actually a part of a super volcano!

That is crazy to see!

Pompeii: The Last Day was a little too intense for my 7&8yr old.

They ended up leaving because it was just too much for them.

I enjoyed it though and I think teenagers would find it interesting but it might be too sad for young kids.

It tried to give a story to the cast’s of people and animals that they found from the eruption.

Both of these were available on Netflix when we did this study.

Homeschooling

Heron or Hero of Alexandria

02/09/2015 Danielle Huddleston 2 Comments

Finding books on Heron(or Hero) of Alexandria was next to impossible.

I am not sure why because he was an amazing inventor!

This man made a steam powered machine 2ooo years ago!

We started our study of him with a Modern Marvels Episode about him.

It is Season 11 Episode 78 called “Ancient Discoveries: Heron of Alexandria”

It was very interesting!

Next we watched this video on youtube on an Easy Hero’s Engine, here.

We decided to build a steam engine ourselves after watching it.

The first step was to buy some pop!

My boys liked this step.

You use a pin to carefully puncture the can.

You need two holes, one on each side of the can.

Our cans did not drain all of the way but it did not seem to affect the experiment.

You add water after draining the pop out.

If you watch the video he will give you more information on how to prepare the can.

You need the holes to be angled.

All we had to do was put pin back in after we were done draining it and then push it to one side.

You DO NOT pop the top of the can.

The tab is going to help you spin your can.

You loop a string under the tab.

This first try was a fail.

The heat from our little hobo stove was not constant enough to heat the water in the can.

We tried it over our stove top but the spinner (from fishing tackle) we were using did not allow it to spin.

Thankfully my husband came home and told me I could just make the string longer.

We added a long piece of fishing line and it worked!

The steam comes out of the two angled holes and causes the can to spin!

Our very own Aeolipile!

Next up we made a Heron’s Fountain from this tutorial.

Our supplies.

The building process was a little difficult for my 7&8yr old and needed a bit of tweaking.

We had to use several different drill bits to drill the holes before we found the right size.

You want it to be tight so you do not have leaks.

You also want to spring for the sturdier water bottles.

It is hard to drill holes into the thin flimsy ones like we got.

I put a board under the caps to drill holes into them.

Our first attempt was a fail (I have come to accept that this happens often and try to plan for the fact our science experiments might not work).

We checked everything and reread the tutorial several times but we were just not getting it.

I finally read this article on Heron’s Fountain on wikipedia and understood!

You need to start with the middle bottle full of water and the bottom one empty.

When you then pour water into the top, the water fills the bottom bottle, the air from the bottom bottle is pushed up into the middle bottle, which then pushes it out of the tube on top, creating a fountain!

When the bottom bottle is full then your fountain will stop.

This is the easiest way we could figure out how to refill the middle bottle.

Unscrew the bottom bottle and hold the longest tube closed.

Put water in the top while holding the top tube under water.

This causes the water to fill the middle bottle.

Then you are ready to start again!

If you are wondering why our water is blue in some of these, we added a few drop of food coloring once to watch where the water was going.

I highly recommend this!

It was really cool to watch the food coloring travel through the tubes!

If you have older kids then you could make this Gin Pole as well!

He was a fascinating and brilliant man!

I am so glad that we learned about him!