Switzerite

Tuesday, November 10, 2026

Behold a Tree!!

A lifelong dream came true for me yesterday when I stopped the workmen taking down the neighbor's huge old oak tree, and asked them if they could swing the tree trunk sections (already hanging from the crane) over into our yard for the kids to climb on. They were happy to. And we are so excited!!!

Behold... 1600 lbs of tree!

Monday, November 9, 2026

Science Club Prep: Dee Bridge / Tay Bridge

The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters:
33 Thrilling Experiments Based on History's Greatest Blunders
by Sean Connolly

Tay Bridge
1879 CE

2021 notes:
The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters

2022 notes & photos:
The Tay Bridge

For this disaster we first took an overall look at the infrastructure challenges that accompanied the invention of the steam locomotive. We spent one session on the Dee Bridge collapse and the other on the Tay Bridge collapse.

Session One Preparation:
from Bridges and Tunnels: Investigate Feats of Engineering

p.14 - rubber band, scissors, empty soda can

p.15 - drinking straw (without flexible top), piece of uncooked spaghetti

p.16 - wet washcloth, scissors, sheet of paper

Beautiful Balancing Butterfly

https://nomadpress.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ActTemp_BridgesAndTunnels_Butterfly.pdf

pencil

scissors

old file folder

markers or colored pencils

cellophane tape

2 pennies

May the Force Be With You!

scissors

shallow plastic tub

duct tape

Sharpie

table salt

small plastic beads

popped popcorn

12 x 18 sheet of paper, folded to create four columns

Meet You in the Middle?

two same-sized stickers

two rulers

straight pin

kitchen chair

Session Two Preparation:
from The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters

experiment 8: Wind Load

Grimm's Large Stepped Pyramid

hair dryer

ruler

Glue Dots

2 jumbo craft sticks

experiment 9: Snap, Crackle...

gardening gloves

Book Display

Bridges and Tunnels: Investigate Feats of Engineering

Great Railroad Paintings
edited by Robert Goldsborough

Locomotive
by Brian Floca (Caldecott Winner)

Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge
by Rachel Dougherty

Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing
by April Jones Prince

Timeline

Dee Bridge - completed 1846, disaster 1847

Hoosac Tunnel - completed 1873

Tay Bridge - completed 1878, disaster 1879

Brooklyn Bridge - completed 1883

Eiffel Tower - completed 1889

Ferris Wheel - completed 1893

Session One Activities:

read pages 24-27 (physics of bridges)

read pages 28-30 (three types of bridges)

do "Beautiful Balancing Butterfly" activity on p.33 (center of gravity)

do "May the Force Be With You!" activity on p.34 (compression)

read pages 63-64, 66-67 (cast iron bridges, Dee Bridge)

read pages 94-97 (railroad tunnels, Hoosac Tunnel)

do "Meet You in the Middle?" activity on p.106

Session Two Activities:

look at bridge and tunnel illustrations in Locomotive

read "The Tay Bridge Disaster" information
from The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters, pp. 49-53

do experiment #8 "Wind Load"

do experiment #9 "Snap, Crackle..."

recall the three types of bridges (beam, arch, suspension)

read Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge

Extensions:

Friday, November 6, 2026

A Walk at Campus Lake

Yesterday was the culminating field trip in our Autumn Botany block. We will resume this science topic in the Spring. We've done a lot with Botany so far!

Here are all of the October links:

Botany: Art & Handwork Ideas

Notes on Practical Botany

Practical Botany in October

Matching Memory Games - Botany Edition

What's in My Botany Books

Oops, One More... Tree Bingo

For our field trip, we walked along the path at Campus Lake and the children practiced their tree identification. Our special guest also helped us identify trees we didn't recognize. Even if trees have already shed their leaves, you can tell a lot by their bark. Persimmon trees have a blocky "checkerboard" design on their bark. Ironwood trees have a grey bark with a sinewy texture that looks like muscle fiber. Sycamore tree bark looks grey at the bottom but it fades to bright white bark at the top, so you have to look all the way up!

We saw many plants we had studied, such as bald cypress, Osage orange, and cattails. It was perfect fall weather and the kids had a wonderful time!

ironwood

persimmon

bald cypress "knees"

sycamore

cattails

we also stopped and said hello to the ducks

Monday, November 2, 2026

SWI < lect >

In October we did an SWI investigation for the bound base < lect >.

My oldest student is using the fabulous cards from Emily O'Connor over at Truer Words as her spelling lists (there are four sets of these wonderful cards; you can find them here). Some of these are morphological relatives; others are etymological relatives.

I also did a deep dive into the upcoming General Election. I first had my students gather in pairs and use a graphic organizer to list things they already knew about the upcoming election and questions they still had.

Then I spent some time answering their questions!

We discussed the three branches of government at both the national and state level, as well as the basic concept of representative democracy.

We looked at the U.S. Senate being fair in one way (each state has the same number of senators - 2) and the U.S. House of Representatives being fair in another way (each state's number of representatives is based on population, and changes every 10 years in response to the Census).

In the 2022 midterm elections, per the 2020 United States census, Illinois lost a congressional seat.

Election Night

Every State is allocated a number of votes equal to the number of Senators and Representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation -- two votes for its Senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its Congressional districts.

We also looked at preview ballots for Jackson, Williamson, and Perry counties, provided by the County Clerks. We sent these home, and I encouraged the children to ask their parents about their Voting Plan.

I showed my class the Illinois State Board of Elections District Locator website at arcgis, where you can type in your street address and get a list of your current elected officials:

Vice President of the United States

United States Senator

United States Congressperson

Governor

Lieutenant Governor

Attorney General

Secretary of State

State Comptroller

State Treasurer

State Senator

State Representative

Judicial District

At their request, and to help answer a lot of their questions about the nuts & bolts of the actual voting process, we had Bill Sasso come in as a special guest. Bill has served as an election judge many times, and was able to walk us through the entire process. He showed us a sample of the voter registration form, and explained how election judges confirm identity on the day of voting, and what they do if someone has voted early or already voted in another polling location. He explained spoiled ballots, contested ballots, and more! He explained how the ballots are physically transported to the courthouse after the polling place closes, and how there are multiple layers of security to ensure that the voting is free and fair and cannot be hacked.

I also found out that our local election judge training is open to anyone in the community who would like to attend. I think that this can help a lot of people who are concerned about election security!

the students got to act out each step in the process

here Zac is being the machine that sucks in the paper ballot!

using the perforated margins from our dot matrix paper stash as the "receipt" that the machine prints out

the paper ballots AND the printed receipt from the machine AND the computer chip from the machine are all transported securely to the courthouse after the polls close

the children love acting out the jobs of the five election judges, and practice "voting" several times

Be like the cool kids!

VOTE!!!!

Sunday, November 1, 2026

SWI < mort >

In September we looked at the bound base < mort >.

A bound base is a base that does not exist on its own as a complete word in English. It must have a prefix, suffix, or another base attached to appear!

In our case, the word < mortally > came up in our reading of Tatsinda.

"The owl doesn't (or didn't) like the sun,
but the giant, I am certain, fears it mortally."

The children did not know what mortally meant, but figured it out by looking at the word immortal. Then we brainstormed other words built on this base.

We came up with

immortal

mortal

mortality

mortuary

mortician

Morticia

Although, technically, you cannot do SWI with names, Morticia Addams from The Addams Family was a very clear connection!

Words we were unsure about: mortified, mortgage, mortar, and mortise.

Using etymoline, I found out that the root of < mort > is the Latin mortalis "subject to death, mortal, of a mortal, human."

Remember that a morphological relative is based on the same morpheme (word part) so it shares BOTH a modern day spelling AND meaning.

An etymological relative will go back to the same ancient root and have a similar meaning, but we see that the spelling became changed over time.

A word that shares a similar spelling pattern but is completely unrelated in meaning is not a relative. That's a coincidence!

To see if mortified, mortgage, mortar, and mortise are related to the rest of our list, we have to see their historical origins.

< mortar > is itself a base and it goes back to Latin mortarium "mortar, mixture of lime and sand."

The entry for < mortise > is an interesting read. It is of uncertain origin, possibly coming into French from the Arabic murtazz "fastened."

Both < mortgage > and < mortified > are related to < mort > but in ways that may surprise you. Personally, I always thought mortified carried a sense of "so embarrassed you feel like you're going to die," but originally it was used to specifically describe a wound that turned gangrenous (death of one part of the body while the rest is still alive) leading to amputation or death.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This short spontaneous SWI investigation tied in very neatly with our September & October Philosophy study of Death. Although initially surprised that we were "allowed" to talk about Death in the classroom, the children quickly warmed up to being able to share their ideas and ask their questions. We enjoyed Tuck Everlasting as a lunchtime read aloud, which lead to some interesting questions — Would you drink that water? Will she? — and we had the immortal toad as a Halloween Handwork option.

We also discussed the recent NYT article, The Strange Phenomenon of Terminal Lucidity.

We listened to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and shared why we thought this piece of music is often chosen for funerals and memorial services. Then we considered the fact that this music is only considered "sad" for those who grew up in the Western European musical tradition. We wondered, what does funerary music sound like in other parts of the world?

We invited Larry Millard to come into the classrom as a special guest. Larry is a musicologist; he shared musical recordings from his travels, specifically funeral services in Ghana. It was so interesting to hear about funerals there, and to hear the music! We learned a lot. In learning about funerals in other parts of the world, we tried to figure out: what is truly universal?

Several children in our group also visited the General John A. Logan Museum to see the Funerary Practices of the Past exhibit.

We are also pleased to welcome Erin Darnell into our classroom as a special guest. As our final activity in our Philosophy study of Death, Erin will speak about her work as a professional death doula.

This has been a very rich and beautiful exploration of a challenging topic!