Switzerite: Plan Book Before & After: Monday

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Plan Book Before & After: Monday

I'm working on a series this week that follows from Sunday's post Do I Try to Fit Too Much in a Day?

I listed my entire plan book for the week on Sunday and now I'm going to go through day by day and post what we actually accomplished.

Monday, February 13

Yes, we did the morning verse, article of the day, quotes for kindness (the Harry Potter prompt), how to write a summary, and the TED talk by Marcel Dicke (Why Not Eat Insects?)

Yes, we set up the Valentine Chemistry experiment with the hydrangeas.
Jar A - 8 oz distilled water + 1 1/2 T white vinegar
Jar B - 8 oz distilled water
Jar C - 8 oz distilled water + 1 T baking soda

Yes, we tore up paper from our recycling bin into tiny bits, as well as a few pieces of red construction paper for coloring, and set it in water to soak overnight. It was fun to get out my papermaking bin and explain molds and deckles. I also found my little pad of elephant poo poo paper! Herbivore poop is full of masticated vegetable matter and is excellent for making recycled paper!

The POOPOO Paper Online Store
"Playfully outrageous with a serious underlying message of sustainability!"
We also chose the seeds for our Handmade Flower Seed Paper Plantable Hearts. We picked thyme. It is a staple in many kitchens, has pretty edible flowers, is a perennial, and can be grown outside or as a container plant. And it works well for so many puns! We picked "You are in my heart all the thyme."

Yes, we started weaving the tapestry of our limestone cave. Becca chose a pewter 100% cotton yarn. We did an inch and a half at the bottom and we are going to do an inch and a half at the top too, and allow people to weave their stalactites down and weave their stalagmites up simultaneously.

Yes, we added more black dye and gitter to the galaxy dough and we used the bin of kinetic sand to do the "why are there craters on the moon" demonstration. I asked my student first if he knew why there were so many craters on the moon and not as many on the earth and he had an interesting theory. He told me that since the gravity on the moon is lower, chunks of rock just lift off and float away. After I explained it we chucked rocks at our bin of sand for a little bit and talked about how earth has an atmosphere which serves to protect it somewhat and the moon has nothing.

Indoor recess educational games were Colorku and Battleship, which both count as blue for Math.

Yes, my Geology student added the Mosul Dam to her MLB and then I had her start a full-size full-color chalkboard drawing of the Carboniferous Period. She had no idea why but she was very excited to get her hands on the teacher's chalk! She created her drawing inspired by the illustration on page 16 of the lovely Giant Golden Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Reptiles. This book is out of print so it's easy to find inexpensive copies, and it is great because it has a timeline along the bottom of all of the pages of the book. The timeline colored band runs continuously throughout the book and lets you keep track of where you are in time as each illustration shows what lived at that time. I always appreciated things as a child which were actually to scale instead of taking shortcuts.

Yes, my Astronomy student and I painted a large styrofoam ball to be the Earth and eight smaller styrofoam balls to be the light side and dark side of the moon (50/50 white/black) and waited for them to dry. This took longer than I thought so next time we will paint them first thing in the morning! He added the solar and lunar eclipse to his MLB. We reviewed how the sun is shining in the same direction all the time but the light can't pass through a sphere and that's why we have night on one side of our planet and day on the other. As he astutely explained, "It's like there's a lamp on this side of the earth but on the other side of the earth there is no lamp." This is just like the sun shining on one part of the moon but the back side of it being in shadow. The sunlight only comes from one direction... and this is key to understanding the moon phases.

Then we went over how the phases of the moon work (I think the VERY BEST DIAGRAM is this one) and once he understood the relationship between the orientation of the moon as it goes around the earth and how much sunlight falls on it and reflects back to us at each location, we opened up eight oreo cookies and swept off the creme appropriately to show the phases of the moon. I think of the phases of the moon as the point of the compass - N, S, E, W and then NE, SE, SW, NW - and so we arranged them, talked about them, and then finally we ate them! I ate the portions of cookies and creme that weren't used in the demonstration and he ate the portions that were used in the demonstration and, as he pointed out to me, we both got the same amount of cookie!

We finished Astronomy with the tides and Easter chapters and Pythagoras and Ptolemy.

Becca ran out of time with her chalkboard drawing and so she finished it in the evening. It turned out beautifully! Then I read her the Coal chapter (chapter 9 of Kovacs).

She made so many great connections to it since the Carboniferious Period was right there in our living room! I could see her turning and looking at it as I read. I also had some pieces of coal wrapped carefully in tissue paper and handed them to unwrap partway through, which she did reverently. Having charcoal handy is also helpful. Her sister Leah gave her a cheery run-down of the three types of rocks (she pretended to be a visiting Geology professor from Harvard) and then they made cookies as their metamorphic rock demonstration. So we had Almond Flour Shortbread Cookies for dessert after dinner!

Time for photos!