Archive for February 4, 2008

Culture, math and geography-our faux trip to London

{ February 4, 2008 @ 6:00 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I gave K an extended project to do right after Christmas break; she was a plan a trip to London. 

She had a budget, a (somewhat outdated) DK Eyewitness Travel Guide-London and free reign.  I won’t go into the budget since the travel book was outdated and it isn’t likely to be accurate anyway.  Suffice it to say she paid for expenses with plenty left for buying souveniers!  It was quite a project; K tried to group her sight seeing so she saw a different part of the city each day (geography), budgeted her money so she could see more (math) and picked and chose which parts of the city she wanted to see most (culture).  As you can see Sherlock was right at the top of her list LOL! Other must sees were the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.  The London Eye was there for my benefit, she will not go on it herself ;)

Here is what she came up with:

                                                  Trip to London

                                                   Budget-___

                                           Length of stay-one week

                      Staying at-Landmark Trust apartment, Notting Hill

Day 1

traveling by underground to Baker Street

Lunch at Reagent’s Park

Sherlock Homes Museum

Dinner at Malbar Restaurant

Day 2

Travel by cab

Westminster Abbey

Houses of Parliement

Lunch at Tate Gallery

Big Ben

Londone Eye

Dinner at the Sea Shell

 Day 3

Travel by cab

London Museum

Lunch at the Museum

Eat dinner at our flat

Day 4

Traveling by cab

Harrods store

Lunch at Harrods

Shakespeare Globe Museum

Dinner at flat

Day 5

travel by cab

The tower of London

Lunch at Tower Cafe

Tower bridge

Dinner at flat

Day 6

travel by cab

St Paul’s Catherdral

John Soane’s Museum

Lunch at Ye Old Chesshire Cheese

Roman Baths

Dinner at Lamb and Flag

Day 7

Eat breakfast in flat

Pack and ready for travel

I don’t know about you, but it sounds like fun to me!!  Maybe someday we’ll actually go :)

Holiday in Review-Hogmanay

{ February 4, 2008 @ 5:04 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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hogmanay4.jpg              hogmanay2.jpg  hogmanay1.jpg              hogmanay3.jpg   

In keeping with our European culture trend we decided to celebrate New Years Eve in the the way of the Scottish. 

It started with the realization that a traditional midnight celebration would simply not be possible this year :(   Not only did W and I have no babysitter, but I would be watching my daycare kid until nearly 10PM.  Add to that the fact that keeping M and B up until midnight seemed like a really bad idea and I decided to make a new tradition.  After a quick look at a time zone map I decided that if it was 12AM in Scotland it would be 7PM here.  Much more manageable!

K is a huge fan of all things Scottish so I knew she would love the idea of celebrating like them.  As predicted she quickly agreed to my idea and after some research we discovered the traditions of Hogmanay. 

We decided we would:

Make a bonfire

Take a torch walk (with flashlights)

make a dinner of bangers and mash

Toast with cider

Sing Auld Lang Sine

Have shortbread

Decorate paper herring

It went very well!  We had a nice dinner of Bangers and Mash and ginger beer then with 1/2 hour left till the New Year (in Scotland) we all went out and started a bonfire. K brought out her i-dog and DK her i-cat and they played Snow Patrol and The Kooks while roasting marshmallows. At faux midnight we had a toast of sparkling cider. Various things were toasted; family, a new year, the old year, shortbread and marshmallows to name a few. We did sing Auld Lang Sine, although not very well LOL!

dscf0234.jpg         dscf0231.jpg

After a bit of frolicking the kids put out the fire with snow chunks which produced copious amounts of smoke (much to their delight), then we came inside to have tea and shortbread. They decorated the cardboard herring while listening to more music.

The biggest hit of the night was the sparkling cider and the girls had a great time pretending it was champagne and falling over repeatedly in the snow.  They make pretty realistic drunks considering neither one has had so much as a sip of alcohol.

We never did end up doing the torch walk because it was SO cold that leaving the fire just wasn’t an option, but other then that it went quite according to plan.  Yay!

Holiday in review-The Feast of Seven Fishes

{ February 4, 2008 @ 4:20 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Our homeschooling this winter has turned into a giant unit on European culture,  and it all started with Christmas.

I had received a wonderful Christmas around the World type unit study from a friend (Hi Sue!) and was kind of bent when the kids weren’t all that interested in it.  Darn them for having their own opinions anyway :^P Typical for my kids, however, they found their own take on my idea.

After watching many, many shows about Christmas celebration dinners on the Food Network, K and B began focusing on traditional Italian celebrations.  It may seem strange since we don’t have an Italian bone in our bodies but K is learning Italian and B really likes Giada DeLaurentis (LOL!).  After mulling over their many options, they settled on having the Feast of Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.

In way that is also typical of our family, we threw it together at the last minute.  K and W went shopping on the 24th for our 7 fishes.  They did pretty well considering our limited resources and the time crunch. 

This was the menu:

Fish Sticks (pollack)

GFCF fish fingers (cod)

shrimp cocktail

pasta with clam sauce

scallops wrapped in bacon (which I know breaks the no meat rule, but it was the only ones they could find)

Tuna salad finger sandwiches

Baked Salmon

Garlic bread stick

veggies w/dip

GFCF pancakes

several cheeses

Before you say it, yes! that is a lot of food! We had tons of leftovers and went to bed very full!  It was most certainly a feast!

I found it interesting that even W (who usually just eats what’s put in front of him :) ) asked “why seven fishes?”.  I had an inkling, being raised Catholic and all, but we all ended up researching it together.  I found the best answer to that question in the link above (click on Feast of Seven Fishes) but basically- there are several theories but nobody really knows. 

At any rate, I think I gained 10lbs but a good time was had by all and we even got us some learnin’ done!  Can’t ask for a better Christmas Eve then that!

Science Class #4-Acids and Bases

{ February 4, 2008 @ 5:28 am } · { Uncategorized }
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The kids really enjoyed this one, it was right up there with forensics!We talked about the PH scale, what acidic and basic means and what common acids/bases are as well as what neutral is and what substances are neutral.

Common acids: Fruit juice, battery acid, vinegar, lemon juice, shampoos

Common bases: bleach, soap, hair conditioner, drain cleaner, baking soda

I also talked about how both strong acids and strong bases can be dangerous and why and how they interact with each other and with weaker acids/bases.

For activities we:

Made indicator solution from red cabbage* and tested the PH of several items-baking soda, citric acid, vinegar, lemon juice, lime juice, crushed antacid tablets, crushed vitamin C tablet, witch hazel and water. Once the kids had tested everything they decided to see what would happen when they mixed some acid indicator with some basic indicator. It went back to neutral in most cases, but if it was a strong acid it would sometimes still register acidic.

Had some fizzy fun by adding several of our proven acids (lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar) to some baking soda and seeing if a stronger acid reacted more strongly. The kids then checked some of our bases to see if anything happened (nope) and the neutrals as well (ditto).

Made bath bombs to take home and have more fizzy fun!

There weren’t many links this week but here they are:

http://sv.berkeley.edu/showcase/flash/juicebar.html

http://www.quia.com/jg/347025.html

http://www.york.ac.uk/res/sots/activities/acidtest.htm

Chemistry for Every Kid by Jan VanCleeve

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* I used the simple directions on the University of York website above (basically just adding boiling water to chopped red cabbage). I have since seen much more complicated directions for making an indicator solution. I can’t say if they work better then the one I made, but mine did work (turned red/pink for acids and blue/green for bases) and it was SUPER easy.

Science Class #3-Earth Science

{ February 4, 2008 @ 5:19 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Today we covered some earth science in my science class.

We talked about the different layers of the earth (crust, mantle, outer and inner cores) and their properties.

We looked at a picture with a wedge cutout to show the layers.

We talked about plate tectonics and plate interactions including subduction, divergence and transform boundaries and I demonstrated using pieces of chocolate leather.

We made an edible earth using:

a hot ball as the core

a large marshmallow as the outer core

candy clay as the mantle

chocolate leather as the crust

It went pretty well, although the chocolate leather was a bit stiff ( I don’t think I used enough corn syrup) so we really got a good idea of how those plates might look LOL ! Here’s a picture of K’s.

dscf0289.jpg 

I recommend coloring the candy clay for the mantle, as it’s hard to tell apart from the marshmallow outer core as is.

I also sent home this list of links and books ( I especially like the savage earth and CNN sties)

http://www.exploratorium.edu/faultline/basics/index.html

http://www.thetech.org/exhibits_events/online/quakes/inside/

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/nature/9903/earth.layers/frameset.exclude.html 

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/inside.html  

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/savageearth/animations/hellscrust/main.html  http://www.geosociety.org/educate/Earth Science for Every Kid by Jan VanCleave

The Magic School Bus Inside The Earth: (Magic School Bus Series), Planet Earth, by Watt, Fiona and others. (usborne)

Science class #2-Forensics

{ February 4, 2008 @ 5:17 am } · { Uncategorized }
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This time we discussed a bit about what fingerprints are, the difference between visible prints and latent prints and how fingerprints are discovered and recovered. We looked at examples of the different pattens in fingerprints.

We talked about chromatography and how it helps solve crime.

We talked about how experts recognize handwriting, even when disguised.

We all took out own fingerprints using an ink pad and index cards and then attempted to find standard patterns in them.

We left latent prints on a white board and found them using a soft brush and eye shadow, baby powder and cocoa powder. We then lifted the prints onto index cards using clear scotch tape.

Using acetone and coffee filters we broke several ink samples down and ID-ed the one I had already analysed.

I had the kids write a sentence in their own writing and then while trying to disguise their writing and then had another child ID the similarities.

I sent home this list of links:http://ridgesandfurrows.homestead.com/index.html

http://www.usdoj.gov/marshals/usmsforkids/fingerprint_history.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatography

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/chem-eng/Biotech-Environ/CHROMO/chromintro.html

http://www.shodor.org/ssep/stu/activities/forensic.html#

Science class #1-Crystals

{ February 4, 2008 @ 5:16 am } · { Uncategorized }
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 In my first science class I discussed what crystals are and how they are formed. We talked about common crystals (salt, gemstones, sugar).We went over a printout of the different shapes of crystals.

We looked at large quartz crystals as well as salt, sea salt, Epsom salt, sugar and alum under a viewing microscope.

I explained what a super saturated solution was and we all made one using Epsom salt and warm water.

Using our solutions we made sheet crystals on a glass pan.

I sent home instructions on how to make a big crystal, crystal needles and rock candy .

I also sent home this list of links:http://www.chemistry.co.nz/crystals_defined.htm

http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/K12/chemistry/chemistry.html

http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/Growing_Crystals.htm

http://webmineral.com/specimens.shtml

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/geology/min_intro.html

http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/investigations/es0506/es0506page04.cfm