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

Beyond FIAR Co-op: Neil Armstrong 3 - Science Fair!

This was a co-op that had been in the planning for several months.  When reading ahead for the lessons in the book, I saw that there was a science fair.  This is not something that I had ever tackled before and I wondered if the others would be interested - and they were.  As part of our co-op lesson several months ago (either end of Jan or early Feb), I did my teaching on the scientific method and doing a science fair project.  We used the scientific method as a means of the steps of conducting an experiment.  The students did a fabulous job with their projects.  It was so much fun to see the different topics that they chose too!

We had one on eggs and comparing the space of the air cell in new versus old eggs.  The students shared their hypothesis and then how they conducted their experiment and their findings.  

Some of them spent several months working on collecting data.  This one was looking at the types of birds that came to the feeder and measuring to see if time of day made a difference.

Isaiah did an experiment comparing a McDonalds happy meal (hamburger and fries) to a homemade burger and fries to see if there would be a difference in the way that they deteriorated.  He measured the results for two months to see what he could find.

The happy meal did not mold and the fries looked the same as the day that we bought them.  The homemade burger did grow mold after several days.  The fries also browned.  All of the items hardened and dried out.

It was an interesting and kind of gross experiment.  Can I mention that I'm glad to have it off of my kitchen counter!  LOL

An experiment looking at how temperature of water and thickness of a liquid affected the diffusion of food coloring.

The demonstration with mixed colors was fun to see!

An experiment on rockets including both the history of rockets and sharing the results of their at home experiments with us.

This project tested people to see if they could remember a list of words more easily if it was on a screen or a piece of paper.  The results were pretty conclusive too - not one person remembered the words better after having seen them on a screen!

Daniel wanted to do a volcano.  He conducted many (23+) experiments varying the amounts of baking soda and vinegar to see which added the most explosive power.  He also made and built a volcano.

He found that adding more of both ingredients really worked the best.  And doing repeat experiments often worked better than the original

He was so excited to show off his experiment.  This is one of the early ones, but he also added red food coloring to make his lava more realistic.

This is an experiment using mentos and soda.  A fun visual for everyone!

He found that diet sodas did not have the same explosive power as  regular sodas.

The last experiment tested the effects o wind on a paper airplane using a small fan.  A sudden burst of air from below caused the plane to go significantly less far in its flight path.

All of the students did such a great job.  Each made a display board and gave a short presentation.  They all explained their work well and it was fun hearing about what they had been doing!

This was such a great morning!  I think we have more of these in our future.  It was a lot of work - but I think well worth it in the end.

One thing we also did was to have each student write positive comments on a card to be given to each of the other students.  I liked this feedback!  We also had them give "awards" to each other for things like most creative, best display, best presentation, etc.

I highly encourage you to try this out if you haven't yet.  It was a fabulous experience!

Blessings
Leslie

Beyond FIAR co-op: Neil Armstrong #2

For our second meeting while covering the book Neil Armstrong, we covered chapters 4-6.  The topics chosen from these chapters were knots and map skills.  We have found that it has worked well for our group to have two moms teaching each co-op and each mom takes a topic to develop.  Sometimes it works to just tackle one larger one as well.  

So our morning started with knots.  Everyone got a rope, though it looks like someone wasn't sure of that in this photo.  LOL

 They took time to practice making several different kinds of knots.

 For some this was familiar and for others it was new.

 This is a stopper knot.  Its the one that I learned (and remembered) from that morning.  I really like the way that it looks - all neat and tidy.  :-)

 I love hands-on learning and so does this group.

 Lots of interest in this activity - and that was without knowing what lay ahead of them too!

 They focused on 3 different knots and this was one of them.  I think it is the square knot.  (They did learn more than this though.)

 Love seeing little Eliana trying to tie a knot too!

 Now it was time to put their new found knowledge to the test!

 They divided into 3 teams for a relay race.

 The name of a knot was called out and each person on the team - one at a time raced down to tie on the knot.

 Any knots that weren't correct were taken off so that it could be tried again.

 And if you weren't sure, you could get some help from a teammate.

 What a fun way to practice knots!

 These are some of the books that were used.

 Next we moved onto map making.

 After some discussion, every had a turn at making their own map.

 Its always neat to see the differences in each person's projects!

 Some were  embellished.

 Some added lots of color.

 All were creative and unique.

 Some were from favorite stories.

 We celebrated a birthday during our snack time.  What a fun way to spend a special day - with lots of friends.

Another fun morning of learning.  Homeschooling with Beyond Five in a Row is so much fun!

Blessings
Leslie