Beyond FIAR co-op: Neil Armstrong 4

Well, this is our last co-op of the year.  Its also the end of our Beyond FIAR co-op.  We started 4 years ago with FIAR volume 4 and then did a volume of Beyond each year following.  This past year was volume 3 and our last book was  Neil Armstrong.  What a blessed and amazing group this has been and I'm so very thankful for all the sweet memories I have from our time together!

On this last meeting, we covered Sir Isaac Newton and the Laws of Gravity, Rockets, the principles of light and more.  

This was a peek of things to come for those who are really observant.  ;-)

We covered more chapters than usual in this meeting as the ending chapters were shorter or rather had fewer lessons.  As a fun review of the chapters, the book was passed from student to student to share what they liked or learned from each chapter.  (Each student would take a chapter and then pass it to the next person to move forward to the following chapter if that makes sense.)

What a great verse to go with our lesson today and incidentally was also the verse used at our last co-op last year.  :-)

Learning more about Sir Isaac Newton was very interesting and also how his faith impacted his life.  The children learned about the 3 laws of motion.  Then their knowledge was put to the test in a quiz!

Learning more about the sun/moon and their effects on the earth.

Just seeing some of the things laying on the table raised my curiosity about the lessons that lay ahead!

And mamas in the kitchen working on lunch.  Always lots of behind the scenes work to pull off a fun day like this!

Time now for the history of rockets.  The children learned about various people how either made discoveries or inventions that contributed to the knowledge we have today about rockets.  

Then it was time for a visual demonstration of how rockets are made today.  Its not so easy to see in the picture due to the pattern on the rug, but there is a rocket outlined with string and all of its parts inside the string.

Here are some pictures of some of the individual parts like the payload, guidance system, controls and more.  I think if you click on the picture it will become larger.  What a fun way to better understand the roles of the various parts of the rocket.

An experiment to see which falls faster - a heavier ball or lighter ball of paper when dropped at the same time.  This demonstrated Newton's law of gravity.  Do you know the answer?

The both hit at the same time?  Want to understand it better?  You can read more here.

Last we watched the take off of the rocket in which Neil Armstrong rode to the moon!  I love that we can see and share this with our children so many years later!

We did a lot of moving from place to place for lessons which I think helps with concentration.  The next lesson was on light and we gathered around a large round table.  And look what was in the middle!  Moon treats!  Lots of freeze-dried fruits as well as cheese and "rocket" crackers.

This is a poster.  The students had the answers and facts about light which went with the pictures which they discussed and put on the poster.

Did you know that each color has different wavelengths?  Can you see the picture below?

And that some animals can see far more colors than we can?  I think it was 14 wavelengths of color that the Mantis shrimp could see.  (And how did they figure this out?!)

There was a lesson on light and the colors that we see.

We also talked about  pigments and how the blend to make various colors.

This chart demonstrated the difference between light and pigments.

The last item was a demonstration of a "pop rocket" using baking soda and vinegar to pop the cork out of a bottle.  Really went high and I was not able to capture this in a picture very well.  They also used balloons as a means to propel 2 cars in a race.  We found that the friction of the driveway made them go much slower than on a smooth floor inside the house.

We ended our day with a feast of foods from various countries.  Neil visited so many different countries and we had foods from many of them.  Isn't this an amazing spread!

And as a treat to take home - ice cream and moon pies.  They loved that!

Can I share that I'm so not ready for this to end?  I don't want to "graduate" two more students from Five in a Row!  I love using this with them!  I am thankful for 2 more students with which to use these fun books!

I'm also not ready to end this fun co-op.  Thankfully, neither are these gals!  We are going to continue our co-op but using our  own studies.  We plan to spend a semester on a Shakespeare play and then cover 2 books the following semester.  We are still planning but I will share more as we move into next year.

This has been an amazing co-op.  Fabulous lessons.  Wonderful friends.  Memories for a lifetime.

With a thankful heart,
Leslie