We're studying the skeletal system. My older boys BEGGED me to "let" them do worksheets and not have to make a lapbook. Why do they hate glue sticks so much?

Okay, then. They can do worksheets, if that's what they want.

I bought this book at Mardel's:


Human Body: Fun Activities, Experiments, Investigations, And Observations! (Skills for Success Series) (Jan 2003) by Carson Dellosa Publishing

Other Printables:
Free Skeleton Page to label (with scientific names)

Human Body Unit, free PDF (looks like about 2nd grade)

Bone Diagrams, labeled and unlabeled. (Scroll down, they are towards the bottom)

Tons of books. I found a good children's Encyclopedia of the Human Body for less than $10 at Barnes and Noble (plus teacher discount). They LOVE this book, which they got for Christmas.

We got a ton more on bones and teeth at the library. If you look closely, you can see one on the floor behind Baby X on my 7 Quick Takes post!

Bones of the Face and Head, hands on lesson.

Model of Cervical Vertebrae, using kitchen items.

Bone Connection, visual lesson the functions of the skeleton.

Visible Body, which I haven't explored but looks pretty cool!

We already studied some properties of bones when we did our dinosaur lesson plan, including putting eggs and chicken bones in vinegar to show how minerals make it hard, and burying bones in the compost pile to show how they are the last thing to decompose in a body.

Another activity we are going to do is to write on their bodies, labeling the major bones!

Labels: education, Science is Cool

I've been reading a lot of homeschool blogs, and everyone is starting fresh for the new year.

I just realized - I'm doing it all WRONG!

I don't have a niche. We're not unschoolers. We're not school at home-ers. We're not pure Charlotte Mason. We're Montessori-esque, but not purists. We meander along the classical spectrum, but I sometimes teach history out of order. We've never diagrammed a sentence (yet, but I'm planning to start...someday). Our children don't have their own desks but we do have a table and a whiteboard. And crayons and markers and Dover coloring books. And a kitchen lab.


This is what my school table looked like at the end of the day yesterday. Don't you have stuffed cows at your school?

If we saw an trail in the sky, we'd discuss contrails. And look up on the internet about them, speculate where they came from (nearby military base? Airshow?) and probably discuss cloud formation. And let's face it, any trip to a weather related website usually ends in a stop at TornadoVideos.

I let my oldest write his spelling words out in the shed today. He works best alone and outside.

My daughter wrote her spelling words sitting under the table with her horses. Using purple marker. My other son wrote his numbers on the marker board.

And I spent much of the day on the floor. (Note to self: must vacuum).

I'm sad to say he was probably barefoot. I cannot keep shoes on my kids. They are just like their dad! I have even made my boys write sentences - "I will wear socks". Because shoes minus socks are just stinky.


Playing Risk is the latest craze, and suddenly my boys know the continents, the oceans, and the locations of several countries. That's one of their friends - I usually have 8 or 9 boys playing all at once because the neighbor kids love the game, too. They have to double up and share colors. Those same friends have convinced my kids that ketchup on bread is a good snack. Bleh.

My boys would die of boredom if they had to do worksheets all day. So we catch snakes and identify them, then draw them in our nature journal. We mix borax and salt and look at it under the microscope. We grow Venus flytraps.

And I don't have a single form filled out to back it up.


Our new science this semester is about the human body. My Kindergartner will be making a lapbook about the 5 senses. The kids got a very cool anatomy pop-up book from their aunt and have been reading it non-stop. I have some Usborne books about muscles, bones, lungs that we'll read.

We'll hit the library. I want to pick up an Anatomical Man - the ones whose bones come out. The dollar store has them, but I want to get a better quality one and Michael's sends out 50% off coupons each weekend, so I'm hoping I can get a deal. I have a book with blackline masters and worksheets, but that's a supplement (and the worksheets will probably find their way into lapbooks, instead of being used as tests.) Maybe we'll use this for our lapbook, too. Maybe not.


I don't give tests. My kids get A's, if I graded (which I don't), because I don't accept it until it's right. Sometimes they have to change their answers several times. I only have 4 students, and I have a pretty good handle on if they've mastered a concept or not. (Well, maybe I do give tests. I've been known to make them spell a couple of their spelling words before I give them a special privilege, like haunting the creek or visiting Legos.com.)

And yet I make them write math drills and times tables. I make them write out handwriting sheets even though there is the great possibility that my boys hands might just fall off if they have to write another cursive "C". Every day, they write their spelling words 5x each, in addition to filling out comprehension activities.



HS Mamas - where do you fall on the line? What does your day look like?

The other pictures are of my 7 yo daughter making biscuits from her "American Girl Samantha" cookbook.

Labels: children, education, Montessori, Science is Cool, Why We Homeschool

Fr. Jackson is the pastor of my previous church in Denver (the FSSP in Littleton).

In one of his adult catechism classes,
Fr. Jackson alluded to the idea
that the universe is held in existence
by the power of God.

In "Wisdom Today" it says,
"...we have been called into existence by the
infinite power of God,
and we are maintained moment to moment by
that same power,
else we would lapse back into the nothing
from whence we emerged."

In the March 10, 2008, issue of
"Chemical and Engineering News" on page 88
there is an article bearing on this issue.

The rage these days in the world of tiny things
is nanotechnology
(chemistry of nanometer particles). But Richard Feynman
(a noble prize winning physicist, now deceased)
gave a lecture in 1959
entitled "There's plenty of room at the bottom."
The bottom being smaller and smaller. Below
nanotechnolgy in 10 to the -3 power increments, come
picotechnology, femtotechnology, attotechnology,
zeptotechnology, and yoctotechnology.

Now things get interesting. To quote the article
"Feynman, in his paper,
hints with some dark humor of a potential end-game
scenario, in which, say,
unwitting yoctotechnologists cause the vacuum of
space itself to transit
to a lower energy state. If that were to happen (by packing
several cosmic-ray-caliber packets of
energy into one spot, for example),
a spherical front would begin sweeping out at the 
speed of light from the
initiation point, changing all of the constants
of nature as it went along
its journey to the edges of the universe.
All protons, neutrons, and
electrons would pop out of existence like soap bubbles."

"One consolation is that from pole to pole on Earth,
the annihilation would take only four-hundreths of a second.
Terrible, yes, except for one
thing: There would not be enough time for regret,
Feynman pointed out with a sardonic touch."

So it appears that as Fr. Jackson seeks the truth and
Richard Feynman seeks
the truth, each in their own way, they both suggest that even the
vacuum of space is in a higher energy level and that
if a relaxation were to take place, everything would
disappear at the
speed of light including the
vacuum of space. In 18 billion years the known
universe would be gone including
the space that it occupied.

p.s. a nanometer is about one-hundreth of one-millionth
of an inch or 4 times ten to the -8th power.

Feeling smarter than a rocket scientist today? Solve Feynman's Math Puzzler!

If you are in the mood for something a little...less brain bending, check out my sister's new site:
My Puzzle Fix.

She writes a new puzzle everyday, and you can compete with other players for rankings. Yeah, I'm the dumb one in the family.

Labels: Catholic, Linky love, Science is Cool

I don't know what is more surprising - that water does this:


or that no one has ever electrified water in this way before.

Science is Cool!


If Someone didn't design this, than water is one heck of an accident!

It is the only substance that expands when it freezes.
It is liquid in average conditions - other elements that are similar to oxygen form gases when bonded with hydrogen.
It also can be found naturally formed in solid, liquid, and vapor conditions at normal airpressure.

While we are on the subject, how cool is this invention?
I saw it demonstrated on TV. He filled it with mucky aquarium water, tipped it over, and pretty soon pure water came out! Imagine how many lives this will save. Right now it's horribly expensive - but I'm guessing prices will come down with mass production.

Labels: Science is Cool