Beyond FIAR Co-op: Skylark 3

I've debated about going back and filling in the months that I've missed.  A few things in April, but then it was mostly May.  It was then that my world was rocked and this summer has just not been what I had expected.  I thought I'd get caught up and well, life has taken twists and turns that were unexpected.  By me that is.  God has it all in His hands and none of this is a surprise to Him.  I'm thankful that He is walking with me every step of the way.

So, while some of this is not new, I still wanted to post some of it for people who might be interested in our Beyond FIAR co-op activities.  I have two more posts to finish up that co-op and then will be ready to head into our new year.  (We will be working on Volume 3 of Beyond this year.)

In this co-op, we covered chapters 7-9 and the topics of hard choices, wells and hauling water.  We started a game based on making hard choices.  Each student drew a scenario and read it aloud and then talked about how they would handle the situation.  Excuse the smudge in my pictures.  My little camera assistant doesn't always leave me with a clean lens and I don't always remember to check it.  LOL  

A devotion on wells in Bible times focusing on Abraham sending his servant to find a wife for his son. He met her at a well.

Learning about water tables and how they work.  How various conditions might affect a well and what would cause a well to go dry.

Next was an experiment to see how various types of terrain affect water.  The students were put into teams and each team was given a tube and a bag with various objects.

One team had dirt.

Another had clay.

One with large rocks.

And the last with small stones.

They packed as much as they could into the tubes.

One by one they took turns pouring water into the top of the tube while a cup was at the bottom of the tube.  They were looking to see in which tube the water would flow the fastest.

It was fastest in the big rocks.

Hands on science is the best!

The dirt was the slowest in our experiment.

We thought that perhaps the clay was faster than the dirt because it was wet.

Our last activity was learning about hauling water.  The challenge was boys against girls to see which team could fill their bucket fastest by hauling water to the bucket.  Sounds easy?  Not really.

Each team was given a cup and a piece of cardboard with twine attached to it.  This was to be used for hauling.  They had to stand behind the line to pull the cardboard.

If the cup fell over, they had to restart at the beginning.  It proved harder than it might seem to get the empty cup to the well.  It kept falling over.

They began to get creative.  They found that turning the empty cup over with rocks inside of it stabilized it so that it could be moved.

The race was now on!  The boys were victorious in the hauling water challenge.

Of course we had food.  We always have food.

Just liked some of these photos of them enjoying hanging out.

I made homemade popsicles which were a huge hit.  :-)

Another fun co-op.  I'm thankful to have this learning opportunity with friends.

In real time, I'm working on planning co-ops and field trips for the upcoming year.  Lots to plan and I'm hoping to be done with some of it soon.  

In other exciting news,  I am counting down the days until Christopher comes home.  Eight if anyone is curious.  I can't wait!!!

More soon.

Blessings
Leslie