Like Father Like Son

Since Bob is home recovering from knee surgery, he has been taking on some of the school responsibilities. I caught Noah and Bob one morning at the kitchen counter. I did not think this math wat that hard...

It is Friday, again!

Science Friday - and we had a full house! What a fun time making saturated liquids and watch crystals form, but even more fun to play with moon sand - a non Newtonian substance that is hard when hit, but slides through the hands like water when held.  We started off by exploring what happens to Ivory soap that is put in the microwave, a great success every time we do it. The microwave is pretty clean now.
It was a good balance of instant gratification - Laundry Soap crystals - and patience building as the children eagerly awaited the fully saturated solutions, tied their strings and added food coloring to what really just look liked muddied water. A few days later, Lukas and Noah discovered the beginning of crystal formations and are now excitedly waiting the day the sugar crystals are deemed ready to eat.

Mama is grateful for good weather and helpful friends to pull this messy Science Friday off without a hitch. 

For Sale

Our good, faithful, useful, gas friendly car is too small for us. It has served us well for many years, through adventures and daily life routine it has never failed us. It is now for sale, ready for a new owner.

Quiet, please!

This is what I woke up to one morning.... Is there anything sweeter than this?

Science Friday

Fridays are fun school days here at the SILL Academy. After Noah's violin lesson, we head home to do Science. Since our good friends are in town, the enrollment in Science Friday at SILL Academy has doubled - without any marketing efforts at all; a business wonder worthy of pondering someplace else on the web.
This Friday, the topics were mass, volume, and density. We had fun weighing, measuring and eating various materials as we concluded that mass and volume are not synonymous.  The first impression that a ton of cotton balls weighs less than a ton of steel was quickly debunked. An entire cup of popcorn barely register on the kitchen scale, whereas a cup of marbles have significant mass.
Having mastered these concepts, it was time for some density testing. Various liquids were poured into containers and the results were interesting not to mentioned fun to peer through! However interesting the liquids, no amount of enticement could get anyone to drink it, which was good as it contained soaps!

A lot of work...

After a long day of school on Wednesday, we headed to the beach with our friends for some exploring. The sun that had shone all day suddenly disappeared behind fog and the temperature dropped more than a few degrees, but it did not stop the exploration.
The boys had in mind to 'help' the rain water run off drain into the ocean, all that was in the way was just a small sand bank - about 20 feet wide and a scant 6 feet tall... no big deal.  First they all had to cross the river run off to the other side, and since the easy way is no challenge, they set out to build a bridge across. It was more like a balance beam than a bridge, but most of us got over without any major trouble, only Mamma slid, rolled and got dunked and therefore choose the easy but a bit longer route to the site in mind, with the skirt dripping and the shoes sloshing...

This is the sand bank they were attempting to cut

The immensity of the project did not seem to face the crew who quickly set off to dig with bare hands. Only the setting of the sun, and a cold wet Mamma stood in the way of completing the task. However, they had fun in the process, and that is all that counts. 

Science Friday - chemistry part 2

Friday means science, which means messy... Fortunately, the weather around here is usually good enough that we can be outside while experimenting, mixing, stirring, and extracting. This Friday, it was cold and it rained, so we had to move inside. The foursome had fun exploring properties of liquids, chemical reactions when combining various liquids and the power of vinegar on eggshells.