Yep, He is full of it!

Last week, in our science studies about the lungs we conducted a little experiment to determine the amount of air the lungs could hold. We started out with a two liter bottle filled with water. We turned the bottle over in a sink full of water and then removed the lid keeping the bottle full. Then we inserted a tube in the bottle, took a DEEP breath and blew.
The air in your lungs replaces the water in the bottle. When each participant had blown all they could blow with only one breath I replaced the lid while the bottle was still under water keeping what was left in the bottle.

Keslee was almost able to empty the entire two liter!

Kalysa took her turn and amazed us all when she emptied well over 1/2 of the bottle. Her lung capacity was just a little less than Keslee's.

Remember this is the same girl that started out on this earth at only 2 pounds 4 ounces and spent the first 5 weeks of her life on a ventilator. That is a scenario that often means asthma or other lung problems for a life time but we have none of that here. Praise the Lord!!

When Kenyon took his turn and blew every bit of water out of the two liter bottle like it was nothing and still had air to spare, we moved to an empty gallon milk jug for his test. After one try with the gallon jug, what we had known all along was confirmed...

MY SON IS FULL OF HOT AIR!! ☺hehehe!! ☺ He almost emptied out the entire gallon! I am sure he would have if we would have kept trying (like he wanted to) but we had to move on. Knowing my son, this is something he will be working on in his spare time until he DOES empty the gallon jug and who knows what size bottle he will want to tackle after that.

Ya know-lung capacity is a big one in the bragging rights of young boys.

Let there be light!

We finally got school started on Friday. We were all ready and very excited to finally get started. Everyone except Kenyon. He spent a large part of the first day griping and complaining about having to do school. I am convinced that I had him in public school way too long and I am so sad that I didn't learn of homeschooling earlier. He still has lingering feelings that school is bad and boring and he hates it. By Monday things were different and we all had a good time laughing and discussing all the new things we will be learning this year. Tuesday was even better and the time seemed to fly by as I really tried to get the kids creative juices flowing. Kenyon and Jacinta have never really done any creative writing and that is something we will be doing a lot of this year. It was a struggle to get them to actually think on there own and they all had a good laugh at me as I threw out crazy ideas and goofy sentences to get things started. They finally caught on to how fun writing really is and both ended up with a page long story. I can't wait until the end of the year to see what kind of stories they will be able to write by then! One of my goals is to get Kenyon and Jacinta to really learn to think on there own this year. My little girls were only in a public school for a short time and their love of learning and creativity has not been squashed so hopefully they will not face the same types of struggles.
After all the fun we had being creative and making up stories, we moved on to science. Kenyon and Jacinta are using My Father's World and will be studying history from the creation to the Greeks. Our science lessons begin where the Lord began-light. As we learned the different properties of light and how our eyes see things, Kenyon was still in his creative, goofy, giggly mood and stated that he could do the same thing that God did. He happened to be sitting right next to the light switch and he flipped it to off. I told him that he should never claim to be able to do what God does because God started with nothing and he needed to turn the light switch back on. As he flipped the light switch to on, he said "LET THERE BE LIGHT". Right then we heard a POP and the light bulb went out. It was soooo hilarious! The look on Kenyon's face was priceless as he looked up at the dark bulb and realized that Lord was here and just let him know that NO, HE CAN NOT DO THE SAME THING GOD DID! Kenyon immediately repented and apologized to the Lord for claiming he could do what HE did and we all thanked the Lord for using a kitchen light bulb to remind us who we are and who HE is. It was definitely a lesson that will not be soon forgotten and one I would never have been able to teach them myself. Who ever said the Lord doesn't have a since of humor? He sure had us all cracking up for hours!

Science came a knockin

We have not officially started school yet but we are all ready. Even though I knew we would not be able to really get into school full on until after Kalysa's surgery, I have been fretting about our lack of school thus far. I have had several moments when the familiar feelings of failure have tried to creep in and I just know I am not giving my kids what they need. The Lord is so good, He reminds me of all the learning that has taken place regardless of our lack of "school time" and He eases my mind. As I think back, I realize(again) that homeschool is not school but a lifestyle. We have done lots of learning. There is all of the keeper of home training that I have been going through which in turn is being passed on to my children. The new cooking experiments we have all been involved in. The old set of encyclopedias we found at a garage sale and spent a whole afternoon to look through. The notes I have left the girls to "feed the dogs" or some other small chore that has really enforced their reading skills. The girls have gotten out some of their workbooks and done several pages on their own and in turn started teaching their baby dolls how to read and do math as they play school. Kenyon and Jacinta did a few language assignments as soon as we got our new book in the mail. The rest of Kenyon and Jacinta's curriculum arrived last week and they (and I) have gone through the books with great anticipation of the things we will be learning this year. Everyone has completed at least 1/2 of their handwriting books. I bought them at the convention in May and they worked on them through the summer on their own. The box of SRA reading comprehension cards is always out and Kenyon has gone through several more when he is looking for something to do. I have used both of our new science curriculum for children's church lessons. These are a few of the things the Lord has brought to me to show me that we are learning all the time. Whether we sit down at the table for a few hours or not, we have been learning. Since school is no longer an 8-3 experience, anytime a learning opportunity arrives we jump in-so you can imagine how excited we all were when we had science knock at the front door. I have mentioned before about my husband's love of doing surveys and many of the free items we have received to try and fill out questionnaires about. Today UPS arrived delivering a box with a label that read CAUTION: DRY ICE MAY STILL BE PRESENT IN THIS PACKAGE......KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. So of course, I immediately called all the kids to the kitchen to come see!! We quickly placed the frozen pie that was meant to be the item delivered in the freezer and forgot all about it and began our learning. We dumped the dry ice into a pan, watched it smoke, got out the encyclopedia and learned how it is made, how cold it can be, what damage it could do to us if we touch it our ingest it, and the fact that it never melts but goes straight from a solid to a gas. We dumped water on it and watched this gas just pour out and felt the coldness of the smoke. We watched the water bubble violently as if it were boiling even though it was so cold that frost was forming all over the outside of the pan and on the cutting board on the counter. We welcomed this arrival of science and enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to learn all we could. The kids asked question after question and jumped up and down giggling and squealing with glee at all they were learning and seeing. They experimented by pouring salt and hot sauce on the ice to see if it did anything else. They poured some of the bubbling water onto the grass to see if it was cold enough to freeze the grass. They played and laughed and soaked up everything they could until the last piece of ice had transformed into a cool cloud of smoke before their very eyes. They learned-without sitting down at a desk and taking notes and doing worksheets and having equations written out on a black board-and they are excited about it and can't wait to tell daddy all about it when he gets home and they will remember this without having to do a test on it.
This is why I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!!!

Have You Tried This One!?!? It is SOO COOL!

Have you tried this one?! Take a regular bar of Ivory soap and microwave it for 2 minutes. You can search "microwave ivory soap" to get the explanation of exactly what is happening to the soap and why. There is no chemical reaction that takes place so the soap can still be used unless you are like me and my kids and just keep playing with the layers because they feel really cool and after you play with it for a while it turns completely into a powder. When I first found out about this experiment, we just happened to have ivory soap in the bathroom but we had to have some left for baths so we only used 1/2 a bar. You just gotta try this one just because it is so cool to watch.

NOW THOSE ARE SOME REALLY STRONG EGGS!!

Kenyon and Jacinta had another experiment today. We have learned that the arch shape is the strongest shape in architecture. We have also learned that you can not break an egg in your hand by squeezing it because the force of your hand is spread out over the entire egg. Keslee has started going through the days of creation and Kalysa has been learning about how God made everything wonderful. He thought of everything in regards to everything he created. There is no way it could have all happened just by chance. So today's experiment really tied into everyone's studies. We had 4 empty egg shells standing on their open ends and stacked books on them to see how much wieght they would support. The kids were all amazed that they did not break after the first book and were really surprised when we got 7 big books to set atop the 4 egg shells. They stayed for a minute and then the back corner gave in. I believe they could have held more if it weren't for human error. Only one egg crushed and the other 3 did not even crack. When I drained the eggs and broke one end off, I could not get them all 4 exactly even. I believe that is why the one did not make it longer. Either way, we put the books on the scale and discovered the egg shells held 24.5 pounds. Pretty Amazing!!

Surveys and Science

For some reason, Monty LOVES to do surveys online. He can spend hours answering surveys from everything to t.v. shows to laundry soap to what and when you drink anything all day long for a week. I just don't get it. I don't have the patience. I have to be in a REALLY good mood when I get the "This is not a sales call mam and will only take 2 minutes of your time..." call or I am hanging up. But my husband loves to do them(actually he doesn't care for the phone surveys as much but he will still do them.) He has several companies that he regularly takes surveys for. Our email is loaded daily with new surveys for him to fill out. I have learned not to complain because they have actually paid off many times. We have gotten samples to test and fill out surveys on. We have gotten 2 big bottles of Tide laundry soap, instant mashed potatoes, crackers, chicken broth, bottles of flavored water, shampoo, and more. Some surveys pay cash and we often receive checks in the mail for $3, $5, $7 or $10. He has done a few surveys that require the company to send him a palm pilot to record info on daily and when they receive it back he get $60-$100. The companies that he uses on a regular basis give him points that he can redeem for merchandise. We used all of his points last year for kids movies or books for Christmas presents for the kids and are doing so again this year. So that brings us to science. When going through the books available, we found The Everything Kids Science Experiments Book. It came in the mail this week and the kids were SOOO excited. There are experiments that pertain to biology, chemistry, physics, the earth and the human body. The have lots of little fun science facts and jokes throughout and even some puzzles and games. Each experiment has a question, material list, procedure, and then an explanation of what is happening. I have just browsed through it, but it seems like most of the experiments are things we will be able to do with things we have around the house. Kenyon was eager to jump right in and just opened the book and started reading...

Question: How can you peel a raw egg?

LET'S DO IT!

So we have an egg sitting in a cup of vinegar and are watching the acid eat away at the shell until we have a "see through" egg held together only by the membrane that holds the egg inside the shell. Our egg is very soft right now (we started it yesterday) so another day will probably do it. The kids are having a blast watching the slow chemical reaction and check on the egg periodically during the day.

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING MY KIDS!?!?!

update:our egg was almost see-through. the book said we may have to gently rub the remaining white off for it to be completly transparent. Well, I did that and had about 1/2 a clear egg and then I got a little too eager and rubber too hard and it busted! The kids still got to see it and hold the shelless, soft membrane that was left.