Martin Luther King Jr Day and Other Interesting Activities

This week honors the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.  As such, we have read a biography of the Civil Rights leader.  Genevieve also chose a book about women in the Civil Rights Movement, which we just began to read.

We started our week with a visit to the pet store and art store.  The pet store has long been a favorite stop for Genevieve as she can see all the animals there.  We use it as an opportunity to practice our animal signs and talk about animal's needs and habitats.  It's also interesting to note the differences between various animals.

We had an amazing opportunity after storytime this week.  Some local firefighters were training, so we got to hear about some of the things they do and watch them attach a hose and use the water cannon.  It was a wonderful chance to talk about community helpers and see a fire engine in action.

We read The Jellybeans and the Big Art Adventure, Bridget's Beret, and The Magical Garden of Claude Monet.  These were some fun books about different artists.  The Jellybeans learn that there are many different kinds of artists and that you can use your own interests to make art.  Bridget learns that she doesn't need her beret to make great art.  The end of the book includes some great example paintings by famous artists that inspired Bridget.  The Magical Garden of Claude Monet follows the imagined story of the visit between Claude Monet and Julie Manet.  The gardens are real, and the illustrations are meant to reflect Monet's style.  We spent the afternoon painting, inspired by these great stories.  We may have to try to find some of the other books by Laurence Anholt when studying other artists.

She played Hi Ho Cherry-o and the Hungry Caterpillar Game with Grandma.  She had great fun baking with Grandma and dad too.  Since she made strawberry muffins with Mom, she has been asking to make blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, and blueberry oatmeal cookies with dad.  So they had a fun baking day.

Finally, we played Red Light, Green Light and talked about the inventor of the traffic light and a gas mask used by firefighters, Garrett Morgan.  Garrett Augustus Morgan was born in 1877 in Paris, Kentucky to two former slaves.  He was the 7th of 11 children.  He left school early to find work, but when he found a job in Cincinnati he made enough money to hire a tutor.  He moved to Cleveland at 18 to continue work.  In Cleveland, he started in the sewing machine repair shop.  He was so inventive that he made all 32 machines his employees used.

With all his success, he bought a house, got married, had 3 boys, and even bought a car.  He took time to run a newspaper called the Cleveland Call that reported African American news from around the country.  He also invented some smaller items – hat and belt fasteners, a friction drive clutch, a zig-zag attachment for manually operated sewing machines and more.  He died in 1963, and was honored 1 month after his death at the Emancipation Centennial celebration.
   
Some of his inventions were inspired by his desire to save lives.  One invention was motivated by the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.  He created a gas mask hood.  It was put to the test in 1916 when a group of men tunneling under Lake Erie were caught in a gas explosion.  Garrett put on the mask and saved several men.  Orders for the mask poured in from police and fire fighters, and the mask inspired the gas masks used in World War I to protect our soldiers.  He was awarded Medals for Bravery and made an honorary member of the International Association of Fire Engineers.

After witnessing an accident between a horse-drawn carriage and an automobile, he realized we needed a new kind of traffic signal to deal with all the traffic from cars, carriages, bicycles, and pedestrians.  The current stop light was operated by a person who sat for hours, switching between stop and go.  His invention had a “move with caution” signal to give warning to traffic and also had a 4-way stop position to allow pedestrians to cross safely.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/gama/gamlife

http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/ushistory/garrettmorgan

Getting Ready for Winter (and the Holidays)

This week we are beginning to decorate for Christmas and learning about what animals and plants do to get ready for winter.

We read The Sparkle Box, which is a great reminder or introduction to kids about giving to others during the holidays.  The back of the book has a sparkle box you can make, so we made ours and have started filling it with good deeds.  The Night of Las Posadas is a Tomie dePaola Christmas story, talking about the tradition of Los Posadas or the reenactment of Mary and Joseph's search for a place to stay the night.  In his story, the people chosen to be Mary and Joseph become snowed in but luckily replacements show up.  Merry Christmas Strega Nona is another in Tomie dePaola's Strega Nona series.  Big Anthony is tired of all the work Strega Nona is tasking him with to get ready for the big Christmas feast she prepares for the town.  But when Big Anthony gets distracted and forgets the shopping, she worries everything is ruined.  Instead, Big Anthony surprises her.  Dream Snow is an Eric Carle classic with counting to 5, farm animals and a farmer that resembles Santa Claus.  Bear Stays Up for Christmas is another book in the bear series.  It has a catchy rhythm, can be a reminder about hibernation, and demonstrates the wonder of giving.  Runaway Dreidel is a cute Hanukkah story set to T'was the Night Before Christmas.  It includes some typical traditions and reminds readers of the letters on the dreidel.  Llama Llama Holiday Drama is a reminder of how difficult it can be to be patient and wait for the holidays when there are so many reminders.  It also reinforces that the important thing is to spend time with family and friends.  The Clown of God is a story by Tomie dePaola that may bring a tear to your eye as a juggler performs his beautiful act as a Christmas present to the statue of Mary and a young Jesus.

We are still working on making Christmas presents and getting ready to send them out this week.  We decorated reusable bags with glitter glue in Christmas shapes like trees, presents, snowmen and more.  We also decorated plastic ornaments in different ways.  We filled them with pom pom or tissue paper and painted some with tempera paints and glitter glue.

The Busy Little Squirrel was a fun book.  All the animals wanted to spend time with squirrel, but he was too busy gathering food for the winter.  Baby Animals in the Snow is a short introduction to some animals that live in cold places like penguins, polar bears, snow leopards and Arctic foxes.  When Will it be Spring is the story of Alfie bear who is too excited about springtime to hibernate through the winter.  Chaucer's First Winter follows Chaucer the bear as he ignores the fact bears are supposed to hibernate and instead discovers some of the fun things to do in the snow.  Bear Snores On is the first of the bear books in Karma Wilson's series.  It follows a predictable word pattern which is great for early readers and examines several animals who stop in bear's cave to warm up while he sleeps.  We also read a National Geographic book about penguins to explore another cold weather animal.

We've been to the zoo and a petting zoo this week and have noted differences in animal behavior as well as thicker winter coats.  For instance, the lion and tiger were sleeping but the snow leopard was really active, which we don't often see.  We also have been talking a lot about the changes we see in plants, and how trees have list their leaves so they can sleep for the winter.  We created a hibernation cave, setting up a comfy place to sleep.  We also demonstrated migration, talking about the butterfly episode of Wild Kratts.  Under Frozen Pond is another great Wild Kratts episode for this topic.

On a side note, Tobias has really been demonstrating his sense of rhythm this week, dancing or bouncing to all sorts of tunes.  Genevieve keeps reminding me that I told her the myth from Ovid's Metamorphosis about Narcissus and Echo as we walk through the tunnel under the train tracks near our house.  She likes to say echo as we walk through the tunnel so I shared the myth and now she likes to remind me "turned to flower.". She's also really been enjoying the holiday specials on Amazon Prime.  Snowy Day has been changed from Keats' original story of a snow day into Peter getting ready for Christmas and meeting friends along the way who share their holiday traditions.  She prefers If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie, based on the Laura Numerous books with mouse, moose, dog, cat and pig all working together to save the holiday play.

Summer Solstice

This week we are celebrating the sun.  We started with some outside time, playing in the park Monday morning before it got too hot.  We read The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System and Arrow to the Sun.  We talked about how the sun is the closest star to Earth and how we depend on its light and heat.  We used the Magic School Bus book to examine what life might be like on other planets closer to or further from the sun.  We also listened to They Might Be Giants sing about the sun.  There are two songs in particular we listened to - Why Does the Sun Shine and Why Does the Sun Really Shine .

These songs talk about the states of matter, so we began our week with a simple experiment.  We used some ice cube trays to see if we could freeze liquid water.  We watched an ice cube melt.  We also used a kettle to heat some water to create steam.  We mentioned how the molecules in matter move differently depending on the state of matter.  I like letting kids run around to demonstrate this one.  Have them stand close together and wiggle to represent a solid.  Spread out a little more and walk around to represent a liquid.  Then use lots of running space to represent a gas.  This is nice because it lets them get out a little energy when dealing with a topic that can be difficult to grasp.

Since it's Monday, we also did our Animals of the Alphabet book.  This week, we looked at animals starting with J, K, and L.  We wiggled our arms like a jellyfish and added some jaguars to the book too.  We hopped like a kangaroo and added koalas, kiwi birds, and Komodo dragons.  Finally we roared like lions and pinched our claws like a lobster for L.  We also added llamas, since she loves the Llama Llama books and ladybugs because grandma loves them.


Tuesday we invited friends over for a messy art day.  We used the shaving cream paint with liquid water colors.  We used ice cubes and shakers with tempera paint.  (This makes a great visual demonstration of how glaciers moved seeds from one part of the land to another and changed landscapes.)  We added some liquid water color to some water and dish soap and used straws to blow colorful bubbles.  We had some tempera paints and stamps.  And for those that didn't want to get as messy we had some chalk board paper and some chalk.  The girls had fun getting messy for over an hour, then took a break for snacks and other toys while moms straightened up and collected projects.  One of the advantages of our house is that we can do things like this on our tile floor without having to worry like one would with carpet.

Since we had dance class on Wednesday, we came home and talked about different cultures that celebrate the sun and summer solstice with dance.  We danced and drummed.  We re-read Arrow to the Sun and also told the story of Daedalus and Icarus.  We  looked at Stonehenge, but decided not to build today.  Genevieve has also been becoming a YouTube star, hogging the camera on grandma's podcast.

We had fun outside experiments with the sun on Thursday.  UV beads can help remind you to put on sunscreen.  She has a UV bead bracelet, so we can watch the colors change.  We also did a second sun print.  This time we used buttons, so we got some really nice images.  We traced some shadows and noted how they moved throughout the day.  We talked about sun safety, sun screen and how

Since the buttons were out, she wanted to show grandma everything she had learned when we worked with buttons before.  She helped grandma sort them and compared them.  She also is really proud of her burgeoning buttoning skills.

She was playing with an Earth eraser and a light so we decided to model rotation and revolution and how they are responsible for day and night and the seasons.  We read excerpts from discover science Solar System and Sun Moon and Stars.  Then we used clay to make our own clay suns inspired by Mexican clay suns.

Saturday she said she was sleepy so I offered to read her a Pre-calculus textbook and suddenly we were ready to go to soccer.  We spent the afternoon coloring, building and playing with beads.

It's a Cloud, It's a Plane!

Monday, we had an exciting surprise outside our door.  We were headed to the grocery when we ran across a lizard.  We followed the lizard for a bit, commenting on how it moved and what it looked like.  It camouflaged itself in the mulch, which was fun too.

We tried to look for clouds too while we were outside, but there weren't a lot of clouds to see.  This week we are concentrating on the things we see in the sky, as we have two different family members flying in this week.  Even though we saw no clouds, we came home and painted cloud pictures.  We talked about the three main different types of clouds: cumulus, which are very fluffy; cirrus, which are wispy and the highest of the clouds; and stratus, which are thick like blankets and sit very low in the sky.  Fog is a type of stratus cloud.  We often comment on the clouds we see and what they look like, so we used clouds from memory.  For cumulus and cirrus clouds, we used cotton balls.  When you stretch the cotton balls out, they make great cirrus clouds.  All the clouds can also easily be painted with a foam paint.  Although you can buy foam paint, we like to make our own by mixing shaving cream (we prefer regular Barbasol) and some glue.

We also worked on our animals of the alphabet book.  This week was D-F.  For D, we included dogs, deer, dragonflies, dolphins, and ducks.  For E, we included elk, eagles, and most especially elephants.  For F, we included frogs, fish, foxes and flamingos.  Then we stood like a dog, walked and trumpeted like an elephant, and balanced on one leg like a flamingo.  She incorporated these movements in our game of "Elbow."  Elbow is her name for Follow the Leader, in which she is the leader.  We start with our elbows up, hence the name.

Then we played some catch, with different types of balls to see which stay in the air the best.

Tuesday was elections here in California so we all walked to the polls.  Genevieve took turns on her tricycle too.  While we walked, she looked for items to add to her nature collection. She added some rocks, flowers and small green oranges off the ground.  We decided to do an experiment to see if any of these oranges could grow without the tree.  We also stopped at the train station in town when we passed by to try to see some trees.  Finally we went to story time at the library.  We arrived late, but heard a story about a little girl learning to swim before it ended.

At home, we talked more about elections, using the Daniel Tiger episode as reference.   And since grandma arrives tomorrow, we read How to Babysit a Grandma and Llama Llama Gram and Grandpa.  She loves the Llama Llama books, and although both of these are about going to grandma's house, they talk about fun things to do with grandma.

Finally, we did some experiments with paper airplanes.  We crumpled a ball of paper and made some standard paper airplanes and a helicopter.  For those that haven't made a helicopter before, if you are using this pattern the solid lines are cut and the dashes are folded.  C and D are folded into the center and held together with a paperclip.  The paperclip will help provide weight to keep that part down.  A and B are folded in opposite directions to create the propeller.  It was fun to see which designs flew best.

Wednesday we had a music/dance party in the morning and read Pete the Cat's Train Trip (another favorite character of hers) and Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie.  We also drew a picture for grandma before we went to pick her up from the airport.  After we got back and she played some with grandma, we took a break to look at Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.  Then we painted pictures with swirls and thick brush strokes like Van Gogh.

Thursday we were getting ready for dad to come back.  We read Nelly Gnu and Her Daddy Too and While You Are Away.  We worked in the garden then painted some pictures in dad's favorite colors - green.  After we finished we used lids to create patterns using both color and size.  We also talked about complimentary colors and the color wheel.

Friday, for the last week of gymnastics for this session, we played with the parachute which was a fun exercise in teamwork and turn-taking.  We played some music and played in the park.  We read books about body parts and sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes at storytime.  Despite the exhausting week, we still took the time to do a short activity in the afternoon.  While we were doing some yard work, we created a solar print since the sun is another object up in the sky.  We placed a few interesting shaped objects on the paper and let it sit for a few minutes.  After rinsing we had the finished project, which is pretty neat.  It works best if you use a variety of sized items though.  Genevieve mostly had skinny items on her print, which is harder to see in the end.

Memorial Day Week

Sunday, we went to church.  Genevieve made it through most of the service without problem, although she still doesn't like the nursery so she stayed in the small play room to the side of the sanctuary that the church set up for parents like me.  We rolled brother over and blew bubbles.  Genevieve sat still long enough to hear me read excerpts from Frost and Emerson read during the service.  Unlike other Sundays, we also made it through the whole service without going back and forth to the bathroom.  Last week, we made five trips.  Ah, the joys of potty training.

Monday, we did our chores like watering the garden in the morning.  Then we went for a short walk around the neighborhood.  We did this so that we could hunt for flowers and take pictures along the way.  We used these photos to create our own flowers for Memorial Day.  We painted coffee filters with liquid water colors.  Depending how you paint, this can also be a fun experiment in chromatography but we will talk about that more later.  After they dry, you fold the filters in half and roll them up.  Wrap a green pipe cleaner to hold them in place.  We used our art time to talk about Memorial Day.  We looked at our pictures of flowers and talked about how many people use red poppies to gift to veterans and use in remembrance of those lost.  We talked about how many countries celebrate a Memorial Day, but some celebrate on a different day of the year or use a different name.  We also talked about the first Memorial Day, which occurred in May right after the Civil War.  Recently freed African Americans used this day to remember the soldiers who had died for their freedom.

Later, we started our big project for the summer.  Genevieve is making her own book, an alphabet book.  We are starting by exploring animals of the alphabet.  We went to the zoo on Saturday, which was a great start.  Today we talked about the zoo and then started gluing letters and animals in the book for the letters A, B and C.  We will talk about more letters in coming weeks.  For A, we talked about armadillos, ants, anteaters, and alligators.  We had seen some anteaters at the zoo.  For B, we talked about bats, bears, badgers, bees, butterflies, birds, and bison.  We noticed that some of the animals also were colors that start with b - black bears, brown bats, and a blue footed booby.  For C, we talked about cats, cheetahs, camels, caterpillars, coral, chickens, cows and chipmunks.  We finished by doing some animal movements.  We wiggled our hips like an alligator, lumbered across the floor like a black bear and stretched our backs like a cat.

On Tuesday, we went to the local library for story time.  We heard stories about trees.  After story time is always puzzles and coloring.  We chose a really appropriate puzzle today, as the clock puzzle by Melissa and Doug has different shapes for each number.  This was appropriate as after lunch we talked about shapes.  We read Mouse Shapes and A Triangle for Adaora.  Then we pulled down the train cars I used using Thomas Pictures and tissue boxes.  We sorted some pre-cut shapes into the train cars.

Wednesday we read Go Shapes Go and 10 Times 10.  We looked at pictures by Wassily Kandinsky. With these sources of inspiration, we used the precut shapes we had sorted yesterday and shape foam stickers to create our own shape art.

Wednesday evening we had an exciting experiment.  When we were out doing our evening chores, we found an owl pellet.  Owl pellets are amazing.  The first amazing thing about an owl pellet is thinking about the owl's digestive system.  Owls swallow their food whole, then the things they cannot digest, is formed into the owl pellet, which they throw up.  So, yes, some people may find it gross but it's exciting to see what you can find inside.  Using tools like tweezers and sticks, you can slowly open up the hair and feathers that hold the pellet together.  The bones inside are interesting because you can use them to learn about the animals in your area and compare them to your own skeleton.  We found tiny hip bones and jaws in our owl pellet.  If you aren't lucky enough to have an owl near you and want to dissect an owl pellet, you can find kits that will also help you identify the bones.
 Thursday we took a break from shapes.  We went to soccer in the morning and made it though the whole session which is impressive considering the heat.  We took plenty of water breaks though.  We are getting better at only using our feet for soccer.  After soccer, we needed to plant some more seeds for our garden.  We read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and The Little Flower Seed, which is a Little Clifford Book.  We acted out being seeds - we curled up on the floor as seeds; the sun and rain feel on us so then our roots emerged as we stood; we spread our arms out to be the leaves and then blew in the wind so our seeds could blow away and we could start over.  After that we planted the seeds and will now watch them grow.

Friday we went to gymnastics.  Genevieve is getting really good at pulling her feet up to the bar and walk the balance beam.  She's also been practicing her forward rolls and loves playing tag with friends on the trampoline track.  After gymnastics, we played a little in the park although it was rather warm for that.  We went to baby bounce story time for her brother.  We also signed up for the summer reading program for pre-readers.  When brother went down for his afternoon nap, Genevieve and I read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  This book is nice because it introduces subtraction.  However, we used the buttons theme from this book to practice buttoning our clothing.  We also pulled out our button collection.  We sorted by size, shape, color, and the number of holes in the button.

We ended our week with a special baby signs class.  This was designed for older siblings and their new babies.  We reviewed signs for mom, dad, sister, brother, love, play, baby and gentle.  We talked about ways for older siblings to play with the baby and ways for parents to help with the transition.  Then we walked down to the train station to hang out for a bit and watch the trains go by.

Learning through Play: The Talking Eggs

The Talking Eggs is a book by Robert D. San Souci and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.  It is a Creole take on the Cinderella story and offers many jumping points for fun, tie-in activities both literary and otherwise.  You can use this story to begin an exploration of Creole culture or compare this to other Cinderella stories from around the world.  Use language skills to recognize similes in the story and create some of your own.  Learn about estimation, hypotheses, and the science of sound while playing with eggs or create some beautiful artwork.

Most of these activities can be done at any age, with adult guidance.

The Projects

Materials needed for the project include a copy of The Talking Eggs, copies of other types of Cinderella stories, hard-boiled eggs or emptied egg shells, markers or paints/egg dyes, hard-boiled egg, regular egg, bowl of vinegar, bowl of water, and plastic eggs filled with things like coins, rice, beans, buttons, cotton balls, paper, etc.

Begin by reading the story.  Talk about how it compares with the Cinderella story most familiar to the kids, which is probably the Disney version.  What is similar in these stories?  What is different?  Most Cinderella stories include an evil stepmother and stepsisters, a dead mother, a dead father or a father who is poor at his job, a protagonist forced to do most of the work around the house to care for the family and a mutual attraction with a person of high status.  Not all of these need to be met to be classified as a Cinderella story.  Even Harry Potter has elements of this idea, with dead parents and a boy forced to live in a sad, tiny room with very little of his own while his cousin is spoiled.  Explore some other Cinderella stories from around the world and look for common elements.  Explore cultural differences.  What do you think the lesson is in these stories?  Some good places to start are:

http://www.lowvilleacademy.org/webpages/MBlow/cinderella.cfm?subpage=868111

http://www.ala.org/offices/resources/multicultural

http://mic.com/articles/90385/what-the-story-of-cinderella-looks-like-in-9-countries-around-the-world

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal by Paul Fleischman

Note to parents: Read through the stories you find before you share them with your children.  In some stories Cinderella runs away because her father is inappropriate with her and in other stories the “prince” physically or emotionally abuses “Cinderella” when she is dressed in rags and acting as a serving girl.  The stories from the sites above do not include these interpretations, but other searches may bring those stories up.

The Talking Eggs uses some excellent examples of similes and metaphors.  Use the information below to talk about what these are and hunt for some in the book.

 

The Talking Eggs is a Creole version of a Cinderella story.  Learn a little bit about the Creole culture.  Can you see any examples of this in the story?

Although most eggs don’t talk, some can make them make noise.  Fill some plastic eggs with various things.  Some of them should make noise like beans and buttons, some should be quieter like cotton balls and paper.  See if your children can identify what’s inside the eggs and if there is a lot of the item or a little.  If they are interested, you can demonstrate how the sound travels through the air by dropping items into a bowl of water.  Sound travels in waves, just like those you created in the bowl.

What else can we learn from eggs?  Well, how can you tell the difference between a hard-boiled egg and an uncooked egg?  Look at one of each to see what you can learn.  Feel them.  Can you guess which is which?  Try spinning them, then touch them to make them stop.  The hard-boiled egg should stop easily, but the uncooked egg will want to keep moving as the liquid sloshes inside.  Other fun egg experiments include trying to break the egg with two fingers, starting from the top to bottom and then trying from the sides.  How difficult is it to break the egg without hitting it?  How difficult is it squeezing in different locations?  Or try soaking the eggs in vinegar and watch as the acidic vinegar eats away at the calcium carbonate in the shell.  If you leave the eggs for about two days, until the shell is entirely gone, the egg will bounce a bit, but remember not to bounce it too hard as it still is an egg.

Lastly, many people paint eggs for Easter, but that is not the only reason to have beautiful eggs like the ones in the story.  You can use cleaned out egg shells if you want to keep your eggs for longer or hard-boiled eggs for short term.  To clean out an egg shell, use a needle to make a hole in each end of the egg.  Use the needle to try to break up some of the yolk and whites in the egg. Carefully blow through the hole at the other end.  Go back and forth between breaking up the egg’s insides and blowing until you think most of the liquid is gone.  Carefully run some water through the egg and gently shake this out.  Then allow the egg to dry.  Try not to get any of the raw egg in your mouth for safety.  Once the eggs are dry, you can use the same dyes you would for Easter eggs, can color them with markers or paint them.  Or you can use natural dyes like flowers, onion skins, coffee grounds, etc.

Some Information to Share

 Similes and metaphors

Similes and metaphors are both similar ways to provide imagery to your sentences.  They paint a different picture than simply saying that the basket is red.  The sentence “The basket is red as an apple” gives the reader a vivid image.  This example sentence is a simile, which is a comparison using LIKE or AS.  Metaphors also compare two things, but does so more directly by skipping the words LIKE or AS.  “The desk is a soldier standing tall” is an example.

 Creole culture

Creole is the term for descendants of the French, Spanish, or Portuguese settlers living in Louisiana, the West Indies and Latin America.  The color of one’s skin didn’t matter.  French customs tended to prevail, especially as the English settlers began to move into the area.  The French Opera House and dances like cotillions were popular, as the Creoles loved music.  The French language played a large part, although it often blended with English as others moved in.  Many Creoles considered themselves Roman Catholic.  One of the biggest distinguishing features of Creole homes is Creole cooking.  A Creole meal is a celebration, and features a combination of European, Native American, and African influences.  Sweet potatoes, okra, and file often play a role in their dishes.  They enjoy teas, lemonade, coffees and desserts like tea cakes, galets, and pralines.  The most famous Creole dishes however are typically thought to be gumbos, dirty rice, and jambalayas.

Scientific Method

The scientific method is a problem solving technique, a way to answer questions, a method to study the world, and a test of whether a statement is true.  Although the steps may change in order from person to person and from situation to situation, the steps usually stay the same.  You should begin by asking questions, making observations, and doing research.  Observing the world around you will help you come up with questions like “Why do cats and dogs have fur?” or “Which ball will hit the ground first?”  You can do research to see what other people have to say and study other situations, like studying other animals that have hair or other items dropping.  Secondly, use your observations and research to create a hypothesis, an idea you are able to test.  It should answer your original question, but might not be the right answer.  That’s why you are going to put it to the test.  The test is the next step, called an experiment.  You’re not done making observations though.  Make observations and record what happens in your experiment.  This work should help you remember what happens and allow future scientists to compare your work and theirs.  Use the observations to come to a conclusion.  Was your hypothesis correct?  Why or why not?  What new questions do these conclusions lead to?  Finally, share your work so that others can explore what you’ve learned.

 Sound Waves

Have you ever thrown a stone into water and watched as the waves spread out?  Or played with a Slinky, watching as the coils grow closer and further apart?  This is like sound.  For example, imagine someone knocking on a door.  If we could look really close, we could see the molecules in the door vibrate.  They knock into their neighbors which begin to vibrate.  The vibration of the door causes the air molecules to vibrate.  Eventually those vibrations will reach your ear and your brain can convert the vibrations into sound.  All these different types of matter affect the speed of the sound wave, or vibration.  Since solid molecules are closer together, the sound moves faster.  Also since sound requires matter, there isn’t sound in space because of the lack of molecules to vibrate.

 Eggs

Most of the time when we think of eggs, we think of chicken eggs but many animals lay eggs from dinosaurs to birds, from reptiles to fish and even the duck-billed platypus.  Most eggs have some sort of covering that allows air and water to pass through but helps protect the growing animal.  Chicken eggs have a shell made of calcium carbonate, which is the same thing coral skeletons and antacids are made from.  The egg white is mostly albumen, and if there were a baby chicken inside, this would be the food it could eat while it’s growing.  The albumen has all sorts of vitamins and minerals in it that are good for you or the baby chick.  The yolk is where the baby chicken would grow from.  There is also usually an air pocket at the large end.  White and brown are not the only color of egg, although they are the ones we are most familiar with.  Hens are known to lay eggs in pink, green and blue too.  The egg can tell you how fresh it is.  Old eggs float in boiling water while fresh eggs hang at the bottom.  Or you can look at the egg white to tell how fresh it is.  If the egg white is clear, the egg is very fresh while cloudy egg whites mean the egg is starting to age.  If your egg white is pink or iridescent, don’t eat that egg.  It has gone bad.

 Faberge eggs

Faberge eggs are elaborate Easter eggs created by the Russian goldsmith Faberge.  The most well-known and valuable tend to be the ones created for the Russian Imperial family.  These eggs were made almost yearly between 1885 and 1916.  There were a few years when Russia was at war that it was difficult to create the eggs.  The tradition began when Tsar Alexander III decided he wanted to give his wife an extra special Easter present.  His wife had enjoyed an egg owned by her aunt, so the Tsar turned to Faberge to create a special egg for the Empress.  The first egg is known as the Hen Egg, and opened to reveal a golden yolk which in turn opened to reveal a small gold hen.  The hen also opened and inside was a diamond replica of the Imperial Crown.  She was so impressed, Alexander III decided to commission Faberge to create a new egg each year.  He left Faberge to design the details, but required that there be a surprise in each egg.  The eggs were very intricate and often took more than a year to create.  Faberge often looked to important events in Russian history and the family life for inspiration.  The most expensive is the Winter Egg of 1913 and has diamond snowflakes.  After Alexander III died, his son took up the tradition, continuing to have an egg created for his mom and his wife.  The Russian Revolution brought an end to the tradition.  Of the fifty Imperial Faberge eggs, 42 have survived.  Recently, another egg appeared at a flea market and was purchased by a scrap dealer who did not recognize it, but thought the gold and gems might be worth something.  He eventually turned to the internet and discovered the purchase to be worth $33 million.

Bibiliography

The Talking Eggs by Robert D. San Souci

Fairy Tales by Jeanne King

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal by Paul Fleischman

http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/PC_met.htm

http://www.growingwithgrammar.com/files/www5smplelessfinal.pdf

http://ocw.usu.edu/English/intermediate-writing/english-2010/-2010/metaphors-and-similes-skinless_view.html

http://www.grammarly.com/blog/2015/whats-the-difference-between-a-simile-and-a-metaphor/

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Creoles.aspx

http://www.nps.gov/cari/learn/historyculture/creole-history-and-culture.htm

http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/creolefacts/creolefacts_NEW.html

http://www.biology4kids.com/files/studies_scimethod.html

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/projects/thescientificmethod.html

http://iss.schoolwires.com/cms/lib4/NC01000579/Centricity/Domain/1453/Steps%20of%20Scientific%20Method.pdf

http://www.ducksters.com/science/sound101.php

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/sound.html

http://www.sciencekidsathome.com/science_topics/what_is_sound.html

http://keysborougheggfarm.com.au/fun-stuff/fun-facts/

http://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-chickens/

http://www.livescience.com/10043-dozen-extraordinary-egg-facts.html

http://www.faberge.com/news/49_imperial-eggs.aspx

http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/faberge_nav/main_fabfrm.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/where-you-can-see-fabled-imperial-russia-faberge-eggs-180954863/?no-ist

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/20/world/faberge-third-imperial-egg/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/10706025/The-20m-Faberge-egg-that-was-almost-sold-for-scrap.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/11434818/Faberge-eggs-all-you-need-to-know.html

Learning through Play: Galaxy Art

Learning through Play: Galaxy Art

Discover some of the beauty and mystery of the universe, exploring photographs taken from telescopes and exploring the science behind these pictures.  Learn about the electromagnetic spectrum.  Compare the shapes of galaxies or the shapes seen in constellations.

The Projects

These projects are great for a variety of ages.  Children of all ages should enjoy the first and love the images.  The second project is also good for many ages, but the science information can be a little difficult for young ones to understand.  The final project may require adult supervision but the final project is nice for many ages.

You will need bowls, shaving cream, glue, spoons or craft sticks, various colors of liquid watercolor, eye droppers, paintbrushes or coffee stirrers and black paper.  You will also need clear plastic page protectors, permanent markers, lithographs or photographs of the galaxies and nebulas.  Additionally, you will need a Pringles can or small paper cups, a hammer and ice pick or nail or an unfolded paper clip, construction paper, scissors, glue, markers, and décor.

Before beginning the projects, check out some images of galaxies and nebula.  You can get some free by visiting or writing to your local ERC (Educational Resource Center) run by NASA.  These often include some information about what you are looking at.  Additionally, some web images to explore:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia/index.html

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/

To prepare for the first project, mix shaving cream and a small amount of glue in a bowl.  The glue will help the shaving cream keep some of the foamy texture as it dries.  The amounts of glue to shaving cream will vary depending on brands used.  Using the pictures of galaxies and nebula as inspiration, use a craft stick to spread the shaving cream onto the black paper into the basic shape you desire.  Use the eyedropper to add drops of color to the shaving cream and use coffee stirrers or craft sticks to spread the colors.  Explore how the colors combine.  Paint brushes can be used in this activity, but fair warning, when paint brushes are used with glue it can make the brushes very stiff.

When white light is broken up, it produces a spectrum of colors that we call the rainbow.  The electromagnetic spectrum is an even bigger version of this concept, with visible light as only one small part of this spectrum.  Sometimes NASA uses this full electromagnetic spectrum to create an image.  They assign different colors to different wavelengths of light.  Place one of the pictures of a galaxy or nebula under the clear plastic page protector and mark where the corners are.  Look for reds, greens, or blues in the image.  Start with red, and wherever you see red create a series of small red dots with the permanent marker in this area.  When you have finished with red, place a new clear page over the picture and mark the corners on this one as well.  This time create a series of blue dots over the blues in the image.  Finally, place the last clear page over the image, mark the corners, and create a series of green dots over the green in the image.  Place all three pages over each other and examine the image you have created.  Feel free to add where you feel the image needs it to make it look more like the original picture.  How does the final image change as each color is added or removed?

This is similar to the method NASA scientists use to create many images.  Real-color images are seen as we would see them, but many other images are combinations of satellite pictures representing different chemicals in the galaxy of the unseen wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Sometimes light is broken down into short infrared shown as blue, intermediate infrared shown as green, and long infrared shown as red.  In the Cat’s Eye Nebula, light from hydrogen atoms might be shown as red, oxygen atoms as blue and nitrogen atoms as green.  In the Eagle Nebula, light from hydrogen atoms is shown as green, sulfur ions as red, and doubly-ionized oxygen as blue.

The last project looks to the constellations.  Constellations are like playing connect-the-dots in the sky.  Many ancient civilizations looked to the sky and created stories around the images they saw.  Some famous simple examples are Cygnus, the dippers, Cassiopeia, or Cepheus.  If you are working with younger children, use paper cups and a paper clips.  Older children may be able to handle a Pringles can and nails.  After exploring some of the constellations, use the paperclip or nails to punch holes into the bottom of the cup or can in the design of your choice.  You may try to copy existing constellations or create your own.  Decorate the outside of your tube as you wish, but if you copied an existing constellation you may want to make sure to label it to help you remember.  When the tube has dried, look through the open end and notice how the light shines through where the stars would be.

Some Information to Share

A long time ago, astronomers would classify galaxies and clusters of stars as nebula, because they couldn’t tell the difference.  Scientists today have better ways of viewing space, and thanks to astronomers like Edwin Hubble, have better ways of classifying galaxies and nebula.  A galaxy is bound together by gravity and might contain planets, dust and millions of stars.  We live in the Milky Way galaxy.  Edwin Hubble started sorting galaxies into spiral, barred spiral, elliptical, and irregular shapes.  The Milky Way Galaxy is a spiral galaxy, and our solar system is about two-thirds to the way out in one of the arms of the spiral.  The Milky Way is in a group of galaxies known as the local cluster.

A nebula looks like a cloud in space and is full of dust, hydrogen, helium, and other gases.  The hydrogen inside can make a nebula look red while dust makes it glow blue.  Nebulae are created when stars like the Sun run low on hydrogen fuel.  They puff into a planetary nebula, like the Cat’s Eye Nebula, which many early astronomers thought was a planet.  Other nebulae are created from the death of giant stars, exploding in a supernova.  The core of the star either creates a neutron star or a black hole, but the extra material thrown off creates a supernova remnant like the Crab Nebula.  The supernova creating the Crab Nebula was noted by astronomers in the year 1054.  Under the right conditions, a nebula may become a star nursery.  When the dust, gas, and other material clump together, they may form larger masses, which attract more matter and over time grow large enough to form stars.  The Orion Nebula, near Orion’s Belt, is a great example of this.  The Crab Nebula has the Crab Pulsar inside, which is a young star that sends out radio waves.  The Eagle Nebula, shown in the famous image by NASA of the Pillars of Creation, is also a great nursery.

The electromagnetic spectrum is the grouping of types of radiation organized based on their wavelengths.  Some of these are capable of traveling through the Earth’s atmosphere while others are not.  From largest to smallest, there are radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma rays.  We know how to break down visible light into different wavelengths using a prism to create a rainbow.  Red light has the longest wavelength while violet has the shortest.  When NASA creates representative color photographs, they use satellites to record some of this spectrum that we can’t see.  They then can assign colors to these wavelengths and create a composite image.

Many ancient civilizations like the Sumerians and Greeks created stories about the pictures they saw in the sky.  Sometimes, the stories explained why the picture was in the sky and sometimes they just helped people remember the constellation.  Since there were many different groups of people making pictures in the sky, scientists today decided to pick 88 official constellations so that everyone uses the same pictures.  These astronomers can then use the position of these official constellations to help record other objects they find in the sky.  Ancient people used the constellations in a different way. They could use the stars to study the seasons, like the ancient Egyptians using Sirius to note when the Nile River would flood.  They could also use the North Star to find north, helping guide their way.

Bibliography

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/nebulae.htm

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art43575.asp

https://sites.google.com/site/coolspacefacts/facts-about-nebulas http://www.kidscosmos.org/cosmos/cosmos_galaxies.php

http://gizmodo.com/5785905/this-is-how-nasa-photoshops-hubbles-images http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/01_intro.html

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/emspectrum.html

stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/const.html, comfychair.org/~cmbell/myth/myth.html

www.physics.csbsju.edu/astro/asp/constellation.faq.html

www.utahskies.org/constellations/

Learning through Play: Sand Art

Learning through Play: Sand Art

Sand art is a great activity for toddlers, preschoolers, and even older children.  It can be messy though, so be prepared with a tarp or create your artwork outside.  The pinching and controlled work will improve younger children’s fine motor skills and patience.  They will explore the texture of sand and the way it moves.  You can discuss art, culture or science with older children as they create this artwork.

The Projects

You will need colored sand, or sand, trays, and liquid water color.  You will also need paper and glue or sticky boards, sand paper, and crayons.  Pencils, spoons or funnels may also be used.

If you would like to create your own colored sand rather than buying dyed sand, it is possible. Spread some sand out on a tray and add a little liquid watercolor.  Liquid water color will work better here than food color, which tends to clump more.  Use your hands to spread the color throughout the whole pile.  You can add more color if you feel the sand needs it, but don’t allow the sand to become too wet.  Allow the sand to dry, stirring it occasionally with your hands.  Be sure the sand is fully dry before moving it into a storage container, otherwise the sand can grow mold and will clump.

Once your sand is dry, there are many different activities to do with it.  One of the most popular is to fill bottles with the sand.  Choose a fun bottle to display and the colors you would like to layer inside.  It’s recommended to use a funnel to help channel the sand into the bottle.  Use a spoon or pinch sand into the funnel.  Change colors as needed to create your layers.  Fill the bottle as full as possible, as loose sand will shift over time.  If the bottle is full, the pressure of the sand will keep the layers in place.  Add a lid.  Although this is beautiful art, you can also look at it as a representation of the Earth’s layers for an added lesson.

Another type of sand art that is created worldwide is the mandala or rangoli, which are both impermanent forms of art that take great patience and care.  Mandalas are created by monks as a form of prayer and meditation.  Housewives create rangoli as a blessing for the house.  The Navajo Medicine Men also created sand paintings, which was also impermanent.  Working with sand offers a great medium for temporary art work, which can make the artist ponder their work.  Ask yourself how you feel about your hard work being destroyed.  You can create a temporary piece of work, or create a more permanent piece of art if you prefer.  You can plan your design ahead by drawing it on a piece of paper.  You can look up some of the designs used in rangoli, mandalas, or Navajo sand Art to get some ideas.

http://www.mandalaproject.org/What/Index.html

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/rangoli.htm

http://navajopeople.org/navajo-sand-painting.htm

For temporary work, you can draw an outline with sidewalk chalk outside and sprinkle sand as needed.  For a more permanent piece, you can use paper and glue or sticky boards.  Remember not to pile the sand too high, as the sand needs to touch the glue or sticky board to stick.  The sand that doesn’t stick can be reused as rainbow sand.  Just collect all the extra sand of the various colors together.

You don’t need colored sand to create sand art.  Many cultures built things using sandstone and would create works of art on these walls.  The artists would need to consider the way the texture of the sand would affect the final product.  You can experiment with crayons and sand paper to simulate this.  Remember to use crayons, not markers, as the tips could become ruined.

Some Information to Share

There are multiple layers hiding under the Earth’s surface, as your sand bottle can represent.    The Earth’s layers are: the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core.  Above the crust is the layer of dirt and silt on the surface.  Underneath the surface dirt and the debris left with time is the crust, which varies in thickness and is made mostly of alumino-silicates.  Under the crust is the mantle, both the upper and lower mantle.  Together the whole mantle is about 2900 kilometers thick.  Convection leads to the circulation of heat through the mantle which is theorized to be responsible for the movement of the tectonic plates.  The center of the Earth is the core.  The outer core is 2300 kilometers thick and is composed mostly of a nickel-iron alloy, with as much as 10% of the core composed of elements lighter than iron alloy.  The outer core is a liquid, but a less viscous liquid than the mantle.  The inner core is solid because of the pressure from the weight of all the other layers.  The inner core is 1200 kilometers thick and almost entirely iron.  The entire core is through to contribute to the Earth’s magnetic field.

People around the world create sand paintings.  Some of the most common are called mandalas, which are mostly associated with Tibetan monks, but were also made by Native Americans.  The early Christian nun Hildegard von Bingen is well known for her mandalas as well.  Mandalas are created from colored sand as a reminder of the impermanence of life.  Work on the mandala may require many hours or days, but after the mandala is finished, it is swept into a jar and emptied into a nearby body of water as a blessing.  Another form of sand paintings are the rangolis or kolams created by Indian women.  They are mostly made with colored flour, but colored sand, flower petals or colored rice powder might also be used.  Rangoli and kolams are made in the doorway for two reasons.  Firstly, since the Hindu principle of dharma states that one should serve animals and humans alike, the colored flour or rice powder might be used to feed insects.  Secondly, the artwork welcomes Laksmi, the Goddess of Prosperity into the home.  Symmetry is key in this artform as it represents balance.  They also often incorporate geometrical shapes, animals, fruit, and flowers.  The lotus is a favorite to include.

Some of the most famous art created on sand or stone surfaces is that of the ancient Egyptian artists.  Stone surfaces were prepared for painting with whitewash or a layer of course mud and plaster.  Limestone was often painted directly.  This often left the paintings with some texture.  The artistic style was influenced by even more ancient African cultures and near-Asian cultures.  The styles were settled upon in the Old Kingdom, and as artists had little desire to create their own styles, they tended to copy the accepted art forms.  Typical colors for artwork included red, blue, black, gold, and green.  When painting gods, either an animal form or a human with an animal head could be shown.  For example, Anubis could be shown as a jackal or as a human with a jackal head.  Images of people also followed rules.  Faces were painted in profile except the eye would be shown as if from the front.  The top half of the body faces the viewer so both shoulders can be seen.  Arms and legs are often shown in motion.  Feet are shown with the big toe closest to the viewer.

Bibliography:

http://www.universetoday.com/61200/earths-layers/, 

http://www.kidsgeo.com/geology-for-kids/0020-crust-mantel-core.php, http://library.thinkquest.org/28327/html/universe/solar_system/planets/earth/interior/layers_of_earth.html,  http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/earth/Inside.shtml, http://www.namgyal.org/mandalas/background.cfm, 

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index.asp?i=14, 

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/E/egyptian.html,

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/egypt/art/egyptart.htm