For O's Mom
Yes, it is a homeschool science class. There are 5 kids in it. It is an interesting set up because the kids take turns researching a topic and then they themselves present it to the class along with an activity. This year Zoe presented on the Human Body, Rocks and Minerals, and the Moon.
This last cycle the parents have taken over for the kids.
Tuesday was my turn and I did a presentation with activities on liquids and more specifically water.
We did an experiment on surface tension where the kids tried to float a straight pin on top of water.
Then we put fluffy paint brushes into clear jars of water and then I explained how water is attracted to itself, which is why the paint brush's bristles stick to each other when we take it out of the water.
We did an experiment on capillary attraction by putting the bottom of a strip of a paper towel in some water and watched the water climb up the rest of the paper towel.
Next we added colored dye to the water to see how liquid molecules disperse and expand to fill up the space they are contained in.
We did another on the changing states of liquid by using a kettle and observing the steam.
And lastly I showed them how clouds work by spraying water on a cookie sheet and then covering some of it with a glass. They saw that the unexposed droplets evaporated into the air but the water trapped in the glass remained droplets.
I got the ideas from a beautiful photo book called A Drop Of Water by Walter Wick.
It was really fun. But I don't know if I could teach science to a group every week. ;)
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5 comments:
I really love the classes your co-op and you come up with. Reading about your success, has encouraged me to plan something for a small group next year, but I have yet to decide on a topic with Ami. Very Cool.
That sounds amazing,I wish we had something like that!! I like the group size too,we have a group but it's quite large and tires O and I out.
I am hoping to find such a group as P gets older. I did request that book from our library though...my P "loves science"!
Those are some good ideas. Simple enough for me to try too, lol! Actually Kitty has been harping on about that colored dye experiment lately, so we'll do it today.
I'd love to find a science group for her.
This is such an inspiration. It seems we all want the same thing for our kids. Do you meet weekly? I, too, requested the book from the library.
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