Foil Floaters Experiments

"Mom, do we have aluminum foil?" 

Questions. Thinking aloud. Bending foil. Hypothesizing. 

Several questions and answer later, we were building floaters.

All different sizes and thicknesses, some with two sheets of foil.

Imagine the variety of floaters! Each as different as the mind which created them.

Questions kept coming.

"How many marbles will my floater hold?"

"What if the base of your floater was wider?"

"What if I used three layers of foil?"

Possibilities endless.

Clock ticks by 1 hour.

Learning. Thinking. Testing.

A great day for science!

The Power of Experiential Learning- Medieval Life

In co-op we joust (with plastic weapons and pool noodle horses) and role-play classes of Medieval society.

One learner requests a vocabulary and spelling list of the words learned. Gladly!

A week later we attend the Renaissance Fair not far from our home. Great family trip of discovery. Thankful for the timing!

At the fair we talk to people in period dress, shoot bow and arrow, learn new skills.

A fun unit. History lived, history learned.

Inspired by the activities at the fair, determined to "own" a bow and arrow,  PVC pipe and weed wacker cording were found, crafted into a bow. Blunt-end dowel rods served as arrows. I marvel at the ingenuity. Thankful for the Saturday they have to create together. Time is a precious commodity.

Old pizza boxes (repurposed from the pretend store in the garage) painted as targets. More creativity. More learning.

Targets dry, eventually, due to thick coats of paint. Hung on the backyard playset. Safety rules considered.

Ping! Ping!

"I got a 100!"

"I am a pretty good shot!" One learner boasts.

"This is the most fun sport ever!" A little learner announces.

"Seems like we are Medieval!" Another little learner proclaims.

I smile thankful for the moms who, with their efforts and enthusiasm at co-op, started us on this two-week study.

From the other end of the house, I hear a little learner wonder, "Do you think mom will let us get out the tepee?"

Moving right along in history.

Flashlight Fun (and learning)

Flashlights light paths, investigate places unseen, illuminate learning.

Flashlights were one of my favorite "tools" growing up. My dad used it to fix things. My mom used it to find things. Modeling, I experimented, looking here and there, in nooks and crannies, places I couldn't see. Places I wondered about.

And my oh my, the findings I found. Dead bugs, pieces of leaves, screws, dust bunnies.

Then there were the broken flashlights. Bottoms missing. Bulbs unscrewed. Experimenting with how batteries were placed to make it light.

"Does this work?"

Little learners love flashlights. Flashlights illuminate learning.

Shadows to discover. Reflections to make. Things to fix.

Broken flashlights become experiments in fixing things, teaching electrical circuits.

Fixing what is broken.                                                                                  
Accomplishment.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                           "What's in there?" 
What was dark, broken, hidden, is now lit, ready to illumine and discover.

Toilet Paper Tubes and Thinking Skills

A few handfuls of tubes. 

"Mom, can I use the masking tape?"

Thinking. 

Trial and error.

Marble makes it to the cup!

Success.

Innovation. 

A few more days. A few more tubes. 

Make changes.

Try again.

Grows in length. 

"We need a longer door!"

"We need more tubes!"

Ten days of thinking, determination, collaboration.

Accomplishment!

Measuring in Snickers

Have you ever measured in Snickers?

Young children, generally preschoolers, often learn to measure in non-standard (inconsistent) measurements before they measure in standard (consistent) measurements. Non-standard units might be blocks or perhaps toy cars.

Why not Snickers?

Seeing a little learner build a tower of blocks, a not-so-little learner remembered an extra Snickers bar in the cabinet.

"We could measure the tower of blocks with the Snickers!"

Brilliant!

Now EVERYONE was engaged!

Yes, we could.

Within seconds we discovered the little learner's tower was two Snickers tall.

Soon we were measuring the lengths of books and tables, and then the height of the kitchen counter.

"The book is three Snickers long. The table is 15 Snickers long."

"Five books would be as long as the table."

Math was fun!

Drawing visual representations helped conceptualize the measurement.

Before too long, a not-so-little learner asked the question I knew would surface eventually.

"How long is the Snickers?"

Get the ruler.

End-to-end, not including the wrapper, the Snickers measured in at just a one-sixteenth short of four inches.

Wonderful. Now for a discussion on "approximate length", followed by the conclusion drawn by one little learner.

"If the Snickers is four inches long, then the block tower is eight inches tall!"

Absolutely!

We understand. 

I realized our Snickers would be a great motivator for learning our "fours" (multiplication tables). Again, an object of interest (the Snickers bar) was the perfect motivation for learning. Boy, did we learn those facts quickly...not soon to be forgotten either!

1 Snickers bar is 4 inches long                                            1x4=4
2 Snickers bars is 8 inches long                                          2x4=8
3 Snickers bars is 12 inches long (yes, one foot!)                3x4=12
4 Snickers bars is 16 inches long                                        4x4=16

and so on...

Our last Snickers measuring experience involved dividing the bar up evenly. Since we found the Snickers to be four inches long and there were four people with whom to divide the treat, it was easy to figure each person would receive one inch of Snickers (and let me tell you, this part of the measurement was deemed the most accurate of the day since everyone wanted to make sure the bar was divided evenly). But what if the bar needed to be divided into five parts, or even six? That take division to the remainder level! We didn't have to go there.

Several important lessons were learned:

• Visual pictures or representations help visual learners create a mental picture of a specific unit of measure; in our case the approximate length of four inches. I have found this helpful in my children as well as children I have tutored. Later when estimation becomes a necessary life skill, the visual representation will have created the immediate association. For example, my children "know" the approximate area of one square inch because they know a small square cheese cracker (picture Cheez-It) is approximately one square inch.
• If you don't have a ruler or yard stick (standard unit of measure), be resourceful and use what you have (a string, a foot, an arm's length).
• One concept can be used to learn another.

Now for another curious question raised by a curious learner.

If a Snickers bar is 4 inches long, is a Milky Way the same length?

Guess we need to find out!

Skittles Math

Skittles, 49 cents at the local Walgreens.

Breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. Mom has a surprise!

Bag opens. Mom pulls out five small bags of .....SKITTLES! 

Time for Skittle math. 

First we sorted the colors. The littlest learners loved this!

We counted.

Then we used mom's circle cutter to cut out construction paper circles in corresponding colors.

Then we graphed the colors. 

Oh no! Problem!

13 circles don't fit on the paper.

One learner's solution: 

one circle = 2 Skittles

1/2 circle = 1 Skittle

Problem solved!

Counted and graphed.

We discovered of the five bags of Skittles we opened (each child had their own bag), two bags contained 61 Skittles and three bags contained 62 Skittles. I asked the children to look at the weights on the bags. Same weights. Interesting. 

Could a machine deposit Skittles in each bag according to weight? 

Great question asked by one learner. Others agreed this must be the case. 

One learner added Skittles of two different colors. 

Two-digit addition. Visual representation.

One learner decided to represent each color as a fraction of the whole bag. 

Each learner used their empty package to create a unique cover to their Skittles Math book. 

Sale

Interest

Math

Problem solving

Understanding

LOVE!

Measurement: My Newest Math Resource

My children are excited about Measurement, the second book in my Month of Math series.

I think your children will be, too! 

Why? 

Candy bars measure length. Rice compares quantity. Square cheese crackers teach area. 

Bicycles peddle miles. 

Measurement is real, part of life. Not a concept stuck on a page, obscure. 

The activities in this book were enjoyed in our home with objects and items we encountered every day.

We measured, drew visual representations, discovered, walked perimeters. 

Now, we understand!