Rainbows and Sunsets

Today is light experiment day.  We followed "Hands-On Science" for ideas.  Trinity made rainbows with a beam of white light on a cd.  She enjoyed putting the light at different angles to make different colors show up more clearly. 

She then made sunset colors in a bowl.  After adding a bit of milk to water in a bowl we discussed how the fat in the milk scatters the blue and green differently than the other colors so the result is orange.

We talked about the moon having no light except for the light reflected from the sun.   We then went into a dark room and shone a light onto a tennis ball that Trinity suspended by a string.  Trinity turned around as she held it so she could see how the light on the ball changed so she could see moon shapes.

Next she made a slide projector with a cut out paper and a magnifying glass.  We discussed how lenses refract light and what objects had lenses in them.  Trinity moved her 'lense' closer and further away from her paper to see how the image formed and blurred.

We also read and discussed "Experiments with Light" by Brian Murphy.  While the kids didn't do the activities in this book, there was a lot of information in it.  They learned what light is made of, all about shadows, how to make a sundial, bending light with water, more about lenses, optical illusions and why color is so important to our world.  Trinity and Kyler both marveled at this creation.

Matter Day

Yesterday was 'Matter Day' for us.  We found a good book on matter experiments at the library ("Change It" by Adrienne Mason) and just kept doing experiments until the kitchen looked like a bomb blew up in it.

First we did 'Solids'.  I made a couple of different colors of playdough and talked about what makes it a solid.  Today we talked about 'materials' and compared matter made from the same materials.  We compared weight and size and talked about density.

Next Kyler and Trinity learned how to mix certain solids and liquids to make ice cream.  We put on some music so they danced while shaking their ice cream. Fun stuff.

After they yummy ice cream Kyler made some gas by mixing some vinegar and baking soda.  The balloon fell off the first time, making a huge mess but loads of fun.  It made them both apprehensive the second time around.  Trinity hammed it up a bit.

 The liquid was much less exciting but still fun.  Kyler poured 1 cup of colored water in each vessel when Trinity wasn't looking.  When she looked she was supposed to determine which had the most liquid.   We discussed how liquid takes the shape of the container it is put in and that there is no space around the liquid.  We read more about different liquids this morning in "Matter" by Mir Tamin Ansary. 

Drawings

Kyler tells himself stories and draws pictures to go with them.  He wanted me to post these four.  I'm hoping he will dictate his stories to me eventually....but I'm happy with the pictures until then.

Fort Langley

 

Fort Langley Field Trip

By Trinity Brinkman

My brother, my Mom, my Dad and I came into the gates of Fort Langley looking for our tour guide. We saw a woman dressed in old-fashioned clothing banging a pot with a spoon and yelling, “Fort Langley tour starting now!” We walked over to her with some people and she explained that we would go into a big white storage house first. We went into it. On one side of the room there was gunpowder, blankets, packages, and chairs. On the other side of the room was a map and furs.  There were fox furs, beaver furs, wolf furs, and many others.

The Hudson’s Bay Company traded the gunpowder, blankets and other things for the furs.

 

 

Next we went to three types of houses that belonged to French, Scottish, Hawaiian workers, and there family. There was a stove in the middle of the room, a children’s bed was in a corner and a doll’s bed was on a little wooden table beside it. They all had families of five living in a similar room. 

After that we went to the main building where the boss lived. He had a family of three and the only European wife in the whole fort.  The rest of the workers’ wives were First Nations women. This building was where British Columbia became a separate colony in 1858.

Just after that we heard guns go off and we ran outside. The demonstration was done but he did it again for us. The guns went off again with a loud bang but we covered our ears. Then he showed us his tent he told us that it was his hobby collecting antiques and having them made for him.  He also let Kyler and I spring a trap.   

  

     Next we panned for gold in dirty water I found seven little painted rocks. To pan I’d put my dish in the water and I’d get a little dirt on it and swish it around.  Since the pretend gold pieces were actually rocks they’d sit on top of the sand and dirt in the trough.

 

          After that we went over to a play. A woman in a purple dress said, “who would like to be Samuel Robertson? ”  He was Fort Langley’s ship builder.  I put up my hand and as you can see in the picture I was a boy for an hour or so. I learned that Sam risked his life for gold and never found it.  Then he learned that he did not have to risk his life for it he could just sell coffee.

  

  After that we visited his grave. 

Maybe you would like to visit it some day.  

 

 

Water Conservation Education

On Wednesday we attended a presentation on water conservation.  It was held by the City of Chilliwack in the town hall.  The presentation included information on the water cycle, the earth's water, Chilliwack's aquifer, pumping and testing stations, water conservation and ways that the children can contribute to keep Chilliwack's water the best in Canada.  We had fun and learned a ton.  In our town it is "drinking water week".  The city has a website, that we have visited, with even more information than was in the lecture.

www.drinkingwaterweek.org

Mistahimaskwa - Big Bear

Trinity read a few biographies from "The Penguin Book of Canadian Biography for Young Readers" and chose Big Bear to write about.  She found his courage and compassion for his people to be compelling.


Trinity has improved a great deal in extracting facts and rewriting in her own words.  

Math term 3

Trinity is almost done Grade 4 math.  She is struggling a bit with long division and multiplying two large numbers.  She does get the correct answers but it takes her quite a while to do each question.  I am sure she just needs practice for this to come easily, as does most math.  Trinity continues to enjoy her Teaching Textbooks.  She has a fantastic attitude and still asks to do her math as a reward for finishing up other school work.

Trinity has now completed Math 4!  She is a great little math student and we look forward to Teaching Textbooks 5.

Kyler has completed all of the new concepts in grade 2 math.  He has done very well with all of these concepts.  We are now working on memorizing his addition, subtraction and multiplication facts every morning.  He has a good attitude up to the point in which his little sponge is full.

paintings

Kyler painted his background and then his art teacher drew the bird for him.  Kyler painted the bird and then had help to outline it.  He learned the technique of shading called a color wash, using a diluted black paint. 

Trinity painted her background, drew her sunflower and then added drywall compound to adhere some beans to the center.  After that was dry she painted it and the petals of the sunflower.  Over top of those petals she added more plaster to make them three dimensional.  She finished it up by painting leaves.  An excellent job done by both I believe. 

These were the final art projects done for the Wildlife Art Class. Both kids continue to draw and paint on an almost daily basis.  This week Kyler and I drew dragons from "Dragon Drawing Book" by Ralph Masiello.

Tadpoles and Snails

Kyler and Trinity had fun at the Blue Heron Nature Reserve looking for frog eggs.  We had not done any research before we went so we had to guess at what frog eggs looked like.  When we got home Trinity googled the life cycle of a frog and found that we did, indeed, have frog eggs.  The kids watched daily and were pleased to see Speedy emerge from his egg.  They noticed a lot of other small water bugs that were hardly visible.  The had not imagined that the yucky water could be so alive. 

We went back after a week to replenish our swampy water and collected 4 snails and some new water bugs.  They have been a constant source of wonder and amusement for both kids and parents alike.  This week we plan to return Speedy and his snail friends to the pond where they can live out the remainder of their lives, unobserved...by us anyway.

 

Nature Journal Entries

Trinity