Week in Review

Here is a little review of a few things we have done recently:

History/Geography:

We have been loving using the Expedition Earth curriculum!  We studied about China and had a great time building the Great Wall of China.  We had an educational fair at our homeschool c0-op and decided to share the Great Wall of China for Hailey’s activity.

Hailey was so proud of her hard work!

Hailey’s poster display along with the Great Wall of China.

Science:

We continued learning about landforms in science.

Hailey made a little vocabulary booklet using one of the activities from Around the Kampfire.

Volcano page

Hill page

Mountain page

There are lots more pages and this has been a great way for Hailey to learn the  definitions of each landform.  Plus, she enjoyed drawing the pictures!

Other:

Hailey is working on her first sewing project.

Hailey recently had a gymnastics show.

She loves gymnastics!

Hailey also takes swimming lessons and she has become a very good swimmer.

Playing basketball during free time at one of her gym classes.

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Review of Supercharged Science

I have been very surprised this school year to find that one of Hailey’s favorite subjects is science. When we started our school year we were only doing science a couple of times per week. The days we did not do science, Hailey was asking me when we could do science again. I found that I needed to plan extra science activities so that we had some science to do every day of the week.  Science has never been my strong point, so I had to do a lot of work and research to find or create unit studies and experiments to use.  My search for the right science curriculum has continued through the year, so when we were recently given the chance to review Supercharged Science I was really excited to check it out.  We were able to use the e-Science Premium Membership so that we could find out what it is all about.

Supercharged Science is an online homeschool science program.  There are lessons, readings, experiments, quizzes and so much more.  Most of the teaching is done by Aurora, the creator of the curriculum, who is real live scientist.  She has worked for NASA and has even designed rockets.  All that to say that she knows her science.

At Supercharged Science there are over 800 science activities, experiments, and projects.  If you sign up for the e-Science program you will instantly be able to access over 100 activities and experiments.  Each month you will gain access to more lessons which will include more activities and experiments.  This will cost $37 per month if you want the K-8th grade section and $57 per month if you want to expand to the 9th-12th grade section.  If you would like, you can currently sign up for a trial run of e-Science Program for only $1.

So, what did we think of Supercharged Science?

The first thing I did was check out what is available by grade level.  There is a screen like the one above where everything is organized by grade.

If you prefer to look at things organized by topic, you can do that as well, and you will see a screen that looks like this one.

I looked at the grade level and picked 2nd grade.  Then we could pick from Chemistry, Life Science or Earth Science as the topic to learn about.  Hailey picked chemistry, which scared me a bit 😉  Here is a sample of some of the experiments we did:

We tried the Laundry Soap Crystals experiment.  First we watched a video about it and then we did our own.

Here is our experiment all set and ready to grow some crystals.

We did grow some crystals…. but our pipe cleaner was too close to the bottom of the jar and became permanently stuck to it.  There was no way we were going to get our crystal out!  It was still fun to watch it grow though.

We also tried the microwaving soap experiment.

I found a bar of Ivory soap, that had been around for a few years and we microwaved it.

Our soap did not expand like the one in the video that Aurora showed.  We have done this before and it has worked, so I left a comment on the experiment post and asked if it could be because we had used old soap.  Less than 2 hours after I posted my question she answered and explained that it was probably because we used an old bar of soap which has less water vapor in the air pockets, which means it doesn’t expand in the microwave.

One of the other experiments we tried was the Rubber Eggs.

We put a hard boiled egg in vinegar and left it for a few days.

When we took it out of the vinegar- it bounced.

Hailey tried to cut through the egg, which felt very rubbery, and even though the shell was soft it was hard to cut through.

She finally got the shell off and it was soft and rubbery for a little while, but was it dried it got hard and cracked.

After the experiments there are also downloads available for worksheets.  Hailey is not a big fan of worksheets, so we just had some discussion questions rather than filling out a paper.  But, for those who like to have some written work- that is available as well.

There is so much you can do with the Supercharged Science curriculum!  This post is just a small little snippet of what is available.

Here is what it boils down to for me:

Pros:
Hailey loved the experiments.
The experiment videos were short, they did not have long drawn out explanations, and they kept Hailey’s attention.
We had the materials to do most of the experiments that we wanted to try.  (There are some where you will have to purchase items.)

Cons:
The website was a little confusing at first for me.   It took me a while to figure out where everything is.
I received a lot of extra emails from the company (but you can easily opt out of those).
The program is a bit pricey.

Want to see more of Supercharged Science?

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Week in Review

Here is a little review of some of what we have been learning about:

History/Geography:

Hailey tried out a fun class where the kids learn about a different country each week.  She learned all about Ireland when she tried the class.

She started out trying several different foods from Ireland.

Hunter really enjoyed a chocolate chip scone.

They also got to try playing a harp.  We learned that the harp is the national symbol of Ireland.

Hailey tried the big harp too, but Hunter was afraid to go near it.

We’ve also been having  great time using the Expedition Earth curriculum!

Science:

We have been learning about landforms in science.  We started out by reviewing the continents and oceans.

We are also using Science 4Us, which Hailey really enjoys.  She has done several lessons about our current topic and she loves using it.

I am also using a landform unit from Around the Kampfire.  We used this printable from that unit to come up with a definition of a landform.

Hailey did a test with a variety of materials to see what kind of effect wind and water would have on different kinds of land (dirt, pebbles, rocks and sand).  She drew a picture of what the material looked like before any wind or water came in contact with it.

She tested each material to see what would happen, then drew pictures of the results.   The water definitely beat the pebbles.

We took a day to go to a nearby science museum.  We had a great time!!

A floating ball!

Hailey worked to build a dam to stop the water.

Hunter loved playing in the water table.

Hailey testing out some magnets.

Fun block building

Hailey said she was a spider

Hailey and Pa (my dad) tested to see who was more relaxed.

They also made buildings and then set off an earthquake to see if the buildings could stand the earthquakes.

Hailey and Hunter helping turtles

Bible:

 Hailey has been practicing memorizing the New Testament books of the Bible.  I wrote them out on cards.  Then she would say the books of the Bible,  turn over some cards and then said them again, until all the cards were turned over and she could say them without looking.

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Field Trip Fun

Recently we went on a field trip with some other homeschoolers to see a presentation at a science museum. Hailey and I had lots of fun (while Hunter had fun with grandma 🙂 ).

We learned what a comet is made of and saw a little demonstration of how they work.

We learned how far apart the planets in our solar system are.  To try to give the kids an idea of how far apart the planets are, each child represented a different planet and stood in a line a certain distance apart.  The kids thought it was great that some of them had to go all the way outside.

Hailey with Mars.

Posing with a space shuttle.

Hailey holding a meteorite and I can’t remember what the other rock was called 🙁  The meteorite was magnetic, smooth and much heavier than the other rock.  The other rock looked like it had tiny little holes in it.  If anyone knows the name of the other rock, please let me know 🙂

She also made a glow worm

We ended our field trip with the kids checking out some telescopes.

It was lots of fun and we both learned a lot!!

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