International Day--Day 2

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.

On Day 2 we talked about boats; we colored a picture of a steamship; boiled water and watched the steam collect under the lid of the pan (we have glass lids--perfect for this learning experience); opened the lid to see the steam escape; and talked about how steam powered the engines of the ship.  We also did copywork using this site to make a page with Psalm 17:8 on it (Keep me as the apple of the eye . . .).  We reread the story.

The highlight of the day was making and playing with paddle boats in the bathtub.  Though they were not steam powered, they were ever-so-fun!  I did not find a pattern online that I particularly liked, but the concept was easy enough to help me realize that I could use the two styrofoam vegetable trays I had saved from my last shopping trip and a couple of rubber bands to make the boats.  I simply cut a rectangle out of the back, cut the cut-out piece in half to make a paddle, slipped a rubber band across the opening in the tray and wound the paddle up.

They worked perfectly.  The girls caught on immediately to the concept of winding one way to make the boat go the other, and then had fun making the boat go backwards and forwards.

Later I asked, "How do steam engines work?"  A5 answered, "The water boils and makes steam, and the steam makes the engine work and the boat goes!"

Perfect.



Antarctica
 Copywork  Moses 2:1

Compare celcius to fahrenheit, and then km to miles
Read blizzard description at Mawson in 1960
Research wind speeds for various parts of earth
Compare to car, train, aircraft 
Build anemometer
Wind chill demonstration/ make a blizzard
Read: Troubling a Star
Read: Emperors of the Ice 
Book Basket 

Find and record current temperatures at home and at McMurdo station

We're continuing to use Classroom Antarctica--virtually all of our activities came from the site.  We had a really good day--the best part being the ice fight we had in the front yard with our faux-snow after our demonstration of wind chill was over.

I'm loving the book basket time because for 20 straight minutes all I hear is, "Mom, Guess what?"  and then a child relates some new information she's learned.  M10 has been hearing off and on again about James Cook; none of us can remember exactly where or what we read about him, so she began pulling out books and specifically searching for him--that's self-driven research!

That's exactly what I want my children to do!

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