Thursday, September 20, 2007

Wanna See What We Did Today?

It's Field Trip Thursday!

Click here to see what we were up to.

Monday, September 17, 2007

This Evening's Activities

Numbers

  • Annika wrote out the numbers 1-10 pieces of paper towel.
  • Boys made a "bean bag" out of flour and 2 small plastic bags.
  • Lined up the numbers and saw how far we could jump.
  • Boys went to bed.
  • Scattered the numbers and threw the bean bag at each one, playing "Number Golf" to see how many throws it took to reach each number. This game could be expanded upon to include fractions and things like small letters, music notes, colors, etc...

Sound
  • Examined a phonograph and record to see how they worked.
  • As the needle was broken, Annika figured out why the sound would not work, and thought of ways to fix it. (Make a new needle or buy one.)
  • Found zooms of phonograph records online. (See at right.)
  • Played different songs on Windows Media Player and watched the visualizations to see what different songs look like. She noticed major differences between songs from Neil Young and more driving songs like T.A.T.U.'s All the Things She Said.
  • Downloaded and installed Audacity, a free open source sound editor. When songs were loaded in it, we could see their WAV patterns, and we experimented with slowing songs down to see what difference that made.

Ended the day by reading a Chapter in Beverly Cleary's Runaway Ralph.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Our First Week

Here's a few photos from our first week of home schooling.


This is a model of an ear the kids built out of ordinary objects to show how sound travels through it. It included an auditory canal (play tunnel) ear drum (balloon stretched over an oatmeal container), hammer, anvil, stirrup (cookie sheets), cochlea (bowl of water), and auditory nerves (telephone wires).






Annika is busy designing a stop sign for the driving course game we played the next day.


The results of an "Adjective Find" we conducted one afternoon.


The driving course game.