Tuesday, May 3, 2022

How They Croaked


How They Croaked: The Awful Ends Of The Awfully Famous
by Georgia Bragg


In the same irreverant (think, 10 year olds will *love* this!) vein as Poop Happened! by Sarah Albee, and Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill by Heather Montgomery, comes Georgia Bragg with How They Croaked and How They Choked.


Since I'm working with a 10 year old right now who absolutely adores books like this, and I always like to make teacher notes for myself as I go along, here are some thoughts about How They Croaked. If you know of another book in this category, please share it in the comments!


King Tut

    love "Things To Do with Old Mummies," especially mummy paper!!!!


    Tutankhamen's Gift
    by Robert Sabuda


    The Mummy Makers of Egypt
    by Tamara Bower (Yuya and Thuya)
    A-MAZ-ING! if you are interested in every detail of the mummification process, get this book (and Tutankhamen was Yuya's great-grandson)

    here are the rest of the books in my
    Ancient Egypt Booklist


Julius Caesar

    math problem:
    if there were 60 senators and 23 stabbed Caesar, how many didn't?

    look up < assassin > on etymonline (we found out it's from Arabic)


    The Story of Clocks and Calendars
    by Betsy Maestro

    Maths of Practical Life: Time
    look at the bottom of the post for the finger knitted string lesson which clarifies for kids why a lunar calendar will always be wrong (Georgia Bragg keeps it brief and just says "snow in summer")


Cleopatra


    You Can Write Hieroglyphs
    by James Rumford
    contains the cartouche for Cleopatra


    Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt for Kids: Her Life and World, with 21 Activities
    by Simonetta Carr
    this is a great book if you have time; we only focused on a few parts

      "A Cinematic Appearance," pp.63-66
      "The Inimitables," pp.67-70
      "An Unusual Celebration," pp.82-85"
      "Dying Hopes," pp.96-97
      "The End of an Era," pp.99-100
      "A Last Resistance," pp.100-101

    FREE Cleopatra lesson from SHEG
    Cleopatra Student Materials (PDF)

      Cleopatra Timeline
      Doc A - Cleopatra by Michelangelo (1534 CE)
      Doc B - Shakespeare Play, Antony and Cleopatra (1623 CE)
      Doc C - Plutarch, Life of Antony (approx 50 CE - 120 CE)
      Doc D - Cassius Dio, Roman History (approx 164 CE - 230 CE)
      Doc E - scholarly journal Acta Theologica (2005 CE)


Christopher Columbus


Henry VIII


Elizabeth I


Pocahontas

    before reading the chapter, review the plot of the Disney version

    if you wanted to spend more time on her story, examining the more and less authentic ways it has been portrayed over time, there's also


    Pocahontas
    by Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire


    The World of Captain John Smith
    by Genevieve Foster


Galileo Galilei


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


Marie Antoinette

    revisit Letters to Horseface

    read excerpts from letters that pertain to Marie Antoinette

      p.40 Florence (April 4, 1770)

      p.61 Naples (May 30, 1770)

    compare Georgia Bragg's succinct conclusion about the Dauphin ("Her son escaped the guillotine but died in prison two years later of tuberculosis at age ten") with Constance Rourke's fascinating musings in Audubon

    read beginning of chapter 1, "A Mystery -- But No Matter," through the top of page ten ("He must have known then that his birth and parentage were not altogether clear. The date of his adoption, March 7, 1794, remains as the first positive date in his history.")

    sadly, in the year 2000, DNA evidence answered the question of the fate of Louis-Charles


George Washington


Napoleon Bonaparte


Ludwig van Beethoven


Edgar Allan Poe


Charles Dickens

    of course, you have to watch a version of A Christmas Carol!

    Dickens's tomb at westminster-abbey.org


James A. Garfield


Charles Darwin


Marie Curie


Albert Einstein


Table of Contents

    Koehler disease - Tut

    stabbed - Caesar

    poisoned - Cleopatra

    Reiter’s syndrome - Columbus

    leg infection - Henry VIII

    pneumonia - Elizabeth I

    tuberculosis - Pocahontas

    lead poisoning - Galileo

    strep throat - Mozart

    beheaded - Marie Antoinette

    mouth infection - G. Washington

    cancerous stomach ulcer - Napoleon

    maps of Elba and Ste. Helena

    lead poisoning - Beethoven

    “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

    rabies - Edgar Allan Poe

    stroke - Dickens

    bullet wound infection - J. Garfield

    heart attack - Darwin

    heavy exposure to radiation - Marie Curie

    aortic aneurysm - Einstein


This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Posted by at 2 comments:

Sunday, May 1, 2022

Science Club - Tacoma Narrows Bridge

This weekend was our eighth session of Science Club! Topic:


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


I wrote a blog post previously with my planning notes when doing this block on Zoom. Now I get to do it IRL with a group of students!

For each disaster I'll share my up-to-date notes and some photos. On April 30 we learned about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Tacoma WA.


- recall last week's disaster (The Hindenburg)


- read "The Tacoma Narrows Bridge" information from The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters, pp. 99-103


- do experiment #16 "Damping Tactics"

    for each team (set up one):

    a playground swing

    two full gallon jugs of water

    rope

    stopwatch


Since I don't have a playground swing, I got permission from my neighbor to try this experiment using her hammock. So we packed our clipboard and pen (for making our data table), two full gallon jugs of water, two lengths of handmade rope (Zac made this at the Maple Syrup Festival and was very proud that it was being used for something so important), the book with the experiment protocol in it, and a stopwatch. We walked in pairs very carefully up the street a few hundred feet. It wasn't a long field trip but it felt special!


When we got to Miss Aleza's yard, we did the experiment as described in the protocol. It didn't actually work out. We are not sure if it was because a hammock is really not the same as a playground swing. You move gently for a long time in a hammock after you've been pushed. Was it the fact that it was a hammock that made the difference? Or was it that the wind was so strong that day that it kept blowing the hammock and making it move? It was interesting all the same. I recommended to the children who have swings at home that they try this experiment and let us know what happens.


Even an experiment that "doesn't work out" is an important learning experience. You still are practicing following an experiment protocol and keeping a data table. You are also getting some really authentic practice in critical thinking. What are some of the reasons why the experiment might have failed? What would you change about how you set it up, and why??

It's all about having a growth mindset!!! (If you missed it, check out my blog post on Growth Mindset Resources - Pop, Buzz, Zap!).


The conversation leading up to the damper experiment was super interesting as well. Before we walked down the street to Miss Aleza's, I asked the children to predict what would happen (would adding the water hanging down cause the swing to come to a stop more quickly or more slowly). One child said he thought it would speed the swing up (causing it to take more time before it came to a complete stop) because the swinging gallons would act like pumping your feet. I thought that was a really interesting idea!

One child began to say that it would speed the swing up because the extra weight would make it swing faster... but I stopped him mid-sentence. Remember the experiments with the pendulums (The Leaning Tower of Pisa - Mar 26)??? No matter how many washers we loaded onto those S-hooks, the period of the pendulum did not change.

Pendulum experiments are interesting because I've done them over many years with many different ages of children and I've NEVER YET seen transfer, ie. they cannot apply what they have learned about pendulums during the experiment (mass is not a factor) outside the scope of the experiment to a novel situation. Children still will make hypotheses in other experiments that you can see are based on the unchanged idea that heavy things fall faster.

I was actually really glad that this came up, however, because I hadn't made the connection between the swing experiment and a pendulum until we had that chat. A child swinging on a swing without pumping his/her legs is acting exactly like a pendulum. And so, really, a better connection might be to imagine what would happen if you put dampers on your pendulum!?!

What would happen if you attached two short lengths of string on either side of the S-hook with its washers, and tied nuts to those strings, so that they were swinging freely while the pendulum was going back and forth? Would the pendululum speed up or slow down? I do love S-hooks for pendulums because you can so easily load them up with more washers... and this would be really useful because you could slip the nuts onto the S-hook first, along with the washers, and then tie them to their strings so that they can swing. So the mass is unchanged and you are able to see the difference that the two strings and the extra swinging back and forth makes.

I would LOVE to try this. Dampers on a pendulum! Who would have thought?


Just add a few nuts to the pendulum kit!


- experiment with making a model of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge

This was my own idea. I always like us to have more than just one activity for a disaster. I just happen to have these really cool XL folding dining tables from ALPS Mountaineering that I bought last March when we were setting up the Outdoor Classroom. By the way, I love these tables and I highly recommend them!!!! The clay color is actually bronze with beautiful flecks in it that sparkle in the sunlight, and it's on sale right now for $89.10!


Because of the way the ALPS Mountaineering tabletop pieces are made in sections (thin slats held together by bungee cords threaded through them) and can roll up or open out flat when you disassemble/assemble the tables, I got to thinking. Could we use these flexible tabletop pieces to create flexible models of Galloping Gertie (the nickname of the bridge)?

Yes, folks, it's never a good sign when the workers building the bridge complain of seasickness. But it got worse when the bridge opened for traffic. We loved the section of the book on page 101 where Sean Connolly writes, "Once the bridge opened and its reputation for moving grew, thrill-seekers began to arrive. They were attracted by the fairground excitement of seeing oncoming cars disappear and then reappear as the deck moved up and down in the wind." YIKES!

    for each team (set up two):

    a collapsible tabletop, shown above

    a wooden car

    8 wooden peg dolls to act as onlookers


Their task was to try to set up a model where a peg doll onlooker standing and looking at the bridge would see the wooden car on it appear and disappear as the deck of the bridge rose and fell. (By the way, no one was hurt in this disaster. On Nov 7, 1940, someone from the Bridge Authority found it moving more than 3 feet up and down every two seconds. He halted all traffic. Within half an hour the bridge snapped in two and collapsed.)


I was glad I thought of this because they had a blast!


- pass out Science Club notebooks, have each child draw and write notes about his/her favorite experiment or about the disaster itself


While they were drawing in their notebooks, I grabbed Bridges and Tunnels: Investigate Feats of Engineering with 25 Projects by Donna Latham and looked up the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the index. It was in there and so we read page 68. I also read them Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing by April Jones Prince (this is about the Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883).


This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Posted by at No comments:

Science Club - The Hindenburg

Last weekend was our seventh session of Science Club! Topic:


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


I wrote a blog post previously with my planning notes when doing this block on Zoom. Now I get to do it IRL with a group of students!

For each disaster I'll share my up-to-date notes and some photos. On April 23 we learned about the German airship Hindenburg.


- recall last week's disaster (The Boston Molasses Flood)


- pass out Science Club notebooks, have each child draw and write notes about his/her favorite experiment or about the disaster itself (they had so much fun playing with the Oobleck that I let them do it until the end of class)


- look up < molasses > on etymonline


- blow up balloons for this week's experiments ie. one balloon per child + one balloon per group (2) + one "secret ingredient" balloon per group (2)

Have large cardboard boxes ready to be balloon corrals. It really helps! For the "secret ingredient" balloons, use a watering can to pour as much water into a balloon as you can before blowing it up. It will be several tablespoons.


- read "The Hindenburg Crashes" information from The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters, pp. 87-91


- do experiment #14 "Don't Give Me Static"

    for each child:

    a balloon

    an empty soda can

    piece of wool cloth (optional)


You will also need a long straight hallway or other open stretch of smooth floor. We used the concrete garage floor which had been swept clean.

The last time I did this experiment it was in the winter, which is actually the very best time to do experiments involving static electricity. Even with having wool dryer balls on hand to help with the charging (the children also used their hair), it was too humid out and we weren't able to get the balloons to hold the charge. As with other experiments that haven't worked out, I sent home experiment supplies so that children could try them again at home. I wonder if this experiment would work indoors in air conditioning?


- do experiment #15 "Down in Flames"

    for each team (set up two):

    a balloon

    a "secret ingredient" balloon

    a candle (the sort that sits in a glass cup)

    an adult with matches


This experiment is dramatic and fun. The balloon breaking the first time will blow out the candle (and they had multiple theories as to why), so you will need to be ready to relight the candles for them. I didn't allow the children to move around while the candles were lit, so I kept the balloons in the corrals and brought them over to each team as they needed them. We have a clock with a second hand up on the Art Room wall but if your students have watches they coudl also use those to time the balloon the balloon the second time to see how long it lasts.

One question they had was, would it make a difference if you put HOT water in the balloon? Would the fact that the water is already hot mean that it can't absorb as much of the heat from the candle... so would the balloon pop???

I thought that was a great question! It would be fun to do the experiment again and try it out.

this is what the balloons look like when they pop due to the candle flame!
so strange

they carefully try to hold the "secret ingredient" balloon at the
exact same height

I have drilled into them that you only change ONE variable at a time!!

the balloons don't feel hot but we do see some discoloration on the bottom


- pass out Science Club notebooks, have each child draw and write notes about his/her favorite experiment or about the disaster itself


I didn't get this out but you could definitely talk more about the Periodic Table of the Elements. You could set up the entire periodic table if time allowed, or just look at the cards for Hydrogen and Helium. This card deck is incredibly handy, and so versatile! Not to mention beautiful!!


The Photographic Card Deck of the Elements with Big Beautiful Photographs of All 118 Elements in the Periodic Table
by Theodore Gray


I do find it really sad that all of those people died in part because Germany had no other choice except to use hydrogen. The U.S. had more helium than any other country in the world and was straight up hoarding it. Congress even passed the Helium Control Act of 1927 banning the export of helium!


This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)