Snapshot Summary, April 30-May 4, 2012 week 28, Dressed on Sunday Edition

Snapshot Summary, April 30-May 4 

Science: Genetics

We practiced Punnett Squares with leftover Easter Eggs and M & M's.

We learned about plate tectonics using Oreo cookies.

History: The Trail of Tears and President Andrew Jackson

 We learned about president Andrew Jackson...

and the Trail of Tears.

50 States Geography

We added the Beehive state, Utah, to our geography album.

We ate "Utah Scones" to celebrate.

Mathematics

 Quentin measured things of his choosing, such as Alex's school supplies box, with Unifix cubes. He decided for himself whether he would round to the closest under or over the measurement. All of these choices he makes for himself in math activities makes him think about math concepts and also makes him more invested in the activity.

After measuring the item, he then broken the line of cubes into strips of ten and whatever leftover. Practical practice of place value. 

The recent discussions going around on Love2Learn2Day and Almost Unschoolers made me once again review my thoughts on mathematics. It seems to me that we rush our kids through early math concepts so they can get through all they need to have before graduation. I know many homeschoolers judge how well you are doing as a teacher by how far along in math your children are. I guess I have given all of that up, choosing to take a long, pondering course with math, trying to instill a firm grounding in the basic concepts and building a joy for the beauty of math along the way. 

Speaking of joy and math together, James and Quentin had some fun this week with Oreo math.

We had taken some Oreos out of the package previously, so the first task I gave him was to look at the Oreos left in the package and quickly estimate how many there were. We do a lot of informal estimating as the situations present themselves.

Then we held an Oreo stacking contest. How many can you stack before the stack falls over?

We took everybody's results and put them on a graph.

We calculated the mean, median, mode and range.

Next we made a balance scale with hanger and plastic bags. I had Quentin choose an object in the room and estimate the number of Oreos he thought equaled the mass of the object chosen. 

Quentin also completed some simple division by grouping 12 cookies into various amounts (this activity at Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational except we used real Oreos.)

Celebrations

We also celebrated May Day with May Day baskets...

which the boys left on our neighbor's doors.

The boys really like virgin frozen margaritas!

 We celebrated Cinco de Mayo today (yes, I know one day early, but we have many projects to accomplish on the weekends these days, so we are celebrating Cino de Quatro, as the boys have coined it.)

 I made these little pinatas that served as decorations and favors for the boys.

In addition to a taco bar, we had Chili Relleno casserole and easy homemade guacamole.

We also made edible God's Eyes from Twizzlers (I saw them first here.)

Start with some dowels that are super glued together, and a bag of Twizzlers Pull-and-Peels.

Then, take your Twizzlers and pull a length off. First weave it in an “x” shape to fill in the middle of the sticks. Next, wrap your yarn in a circle around one stick, turning it 90 degrees and bringing the yarn at a diagonal to the next stick. Then you wrap it around the next stick and keep repeating. When you get to the end of a string of Twizzlers, pinch the candy together in the back and the candy will stick to itself. Add the next string using the same technique. 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Dressed on Sunday