Science Fair Excitement!

We are participating in our first homeschool science fair this coming Saturday.  The girls are very excited and for the first time in a while, they have been begging to do school work.  Their projects have lit that desire to learn and discover!

Our oldest is doing a project on homemade dog foods to see what foods are healthy for dogs to eat and which of the recipes she has chosen will be preferred by our dog.  First she had to do research by looking at books from the library and websites online.  We found a lot of recipes, but I was surprised how little there was on the actual nutrition for dogs.  Mostly it was "avoid these foods and use meats, veggies, some fruits and little fats."  She chose two recipes to try and created a recipe of her own.  Saturday we spent the afternoon cooking the chicken (her meat of choice for all the recipes we are trying) and today we spent several hours (yes, hours of school on a Sunday -at my daughter's request!) putting the recipes together and then doing the first of three experiments to see which our dog preferred! 

Our younger daughter is doing her project on the consistency of different play dough recipes.  We've made one recipe so far and have five others to create in the next day or two.  Then she will compare the recipe ingredients and their dough consistencies to create her report and display.  Some of her recipes are not toddler friendly, while others are.  She even chose two gluten-free recipes for her brother to play with!

I love that they are so excited and interested in these projects.  I only wish I had more time to give each of them.  We've had to work in bits and pieces over the past few weeks.  It has been a great experience so far.  Our oldest asked me what place I thought the judges might give her for her project.  I told her I thought she had an excellent project, but I wasn't focused on the judges.  I was more proud of her for the hard work she was putting in and the learning she was getting from the whole experience.  She thought about that and then commented on her previous science fair at her charter school where she didn't really pay attention to the teacher and picked a project that allowed her the most play time at home rather than striving to create a quality project.  It was good to hear her tell in her own words what she was gaining from this experience compared to her past experience.  I'm proud of both of our girls and looking forward to seeing how things turn out for them. 

This is our final week to complete our projects so my lesson planner is basically gigantic words across the whole week of "SCIENCE FAIR", LOL!  They are doing math: measuring for their recipes, using real time, and will be making graphs for their displays.  They are doing language arts: preparing to speak to adults and peers about their projects, writing notes on all of their experiments, and a several items for their displays.  They are obviously working on science with the scientific method in their experiments as well as the chemistry and physics in their project topics.

Day to Day Stuff

The past few weeks have been complicated by illnesses.  Our little man brought home a nasty cold that took him nearly two weeks to recover from.  He kindly shared it with the entire family, leading to several sick days where we didn't do school and our middle child gained an ear infection from.  I can tell we are finally getting to the end of it, but there are still times that it just wipes me out.  Yesterday I felt pretty good.  Today I took a three hour nap and barely functioned before that nap.  I'm hopeful that we'll be able to keep our school schedule this week -we've got a dentist appointment and two homeschool outings planned!

Our homeschool group does "Presentation Days" once per month and this month's theme is "Poetry".  Both girls have memorized something to recite.  Our oldest is reciting the 'Toddler's Creed' poem by Dr. Burton White, and our youngest girl is reciting John 3:16.  If our little guy cooperates, I hope to video tape their presentations, and at least, I hope I am able to keep him busy so he is not an interruption to them.  He did well last month sitting in my lap and playing with his pom-pom balls and wipey box.

With the potential of moving this year, I have in my spare time...the little I get...been packing items we aren't ready to let go of, dropping of bags and bags of stuff to the thrift stores, and de-cluttering the house to make it more "show ready".

Whether or not we actually move, this process has been really good for me and has provided a good perspective for working on our home.  I re-purposed my prized desk as a tv stand because our little guy was biting the paint off of our hand-me-down desk we were previously using and I didn't know what kind of paint he was eating.  My desk actually looks nicer and fits better in our living room anyway.  I miss having the surface to throw clutter on, but I'm enjoying the forced organization it is making me do to adjust.