First Day of School

Our 2013-2014 school year began September 2. After 1+ weeks, I'm happy to report things are going well. School time has been busy and intense (3 boys at 3 levels and a newborn). I hope to take some photos during school as we settle in.

Cooper

Caleb

Noah

Field Trip: The Globe and more...

We stayed in London at our friends' flat for a few days and worked some learning into our adventures.

First on the agenda, tour The Globe.

Each of the boys completed a set of questions related to the exhibit. 

Waiting for our tour guide to tell us lots of interesting things. 

We spent most of a day at the Science Museum. While there, we enjoyed a presentation about structures.

The "hands-on" room tied in nicely to our physics lessons in science. 

We did a run through the Natural History Museum. It was insanely crowded. 

Princes in the Tower

After reading about the princes who were imprisoned in the Tower of London, the boys made a pop-up card. The boys were introduced to the story of the princes during our tour of the Tower last June and learned much more during our history lessons.

Space lapbook - spelling

After a more than 2 month hiatus from posting, I've decided to attempt to get some photos up on the blog.
Caleb often did activities from his space lapbook while the older boys completed their work.

Sweet boy!

Here, he's using his letters to spell the names of planets.

African Drumming

Our Thursday group had 3 consecutive weeks of African drumming workshops. The boys LOVED this! Oxford's a great place to homeschool!

The younger group has a go.

Boomwhackers were used as well as djembes.

 Here's a little sampling of the fun...

Science: Physics - Forces and Wheels

We also learned how rollers and wheels make work easier.

Noah lined up pencils and then used a rubber-band to pull the heavy book across the "rollers." Less force is required with the rollers than without.

Our 3x5 card didn't move down the inclined plane, so we added axles (straws) and wheels (mints).

Gravity pulled our car down the inclined plane.

Large wheels can move over objects more easily.

The salt on the gameboard caused more friction and the car didn't travel as far.

Science: Physics - Force, Gravity, Friction, Work

We completed a science unit, "Investigating Forces and Work." There were a lot of hands-on experiences and experiments.

Mass and Force: It took less force to push the empty box than the box full of heavy items.

Gravity: Galileo discovered that all objects are pulled to Earth at the same speed. We dropped an empty water bottle and a full water bottle at the same time, from the same height, and they hit the floor at the same time. Mass was not a factor. We dropped many, many other items as well. In the case of the paper ball and sheet of paper, we were introduced to result of friction...

Friction slows moving objects. The toy car moved much faster down the smooth gameboard than the towel-covered gameboard.