Friday, January 31, 2014

Trudging On

what it looks like now
It's cold here. Going out in this weather takes a lot of effort on my part. The boys are showing signs of cabin fever, too many fights and no motivation. Schooling just feels... blah. We did make it to book club on Tuesday, so that got us out of the house. We also had a short visit with friends on Wednesday.  But I think all we really need is a day with lots of sun to set things right. Hurry up spring!


In the meantime, we have been having more fun with our chemistry studies. This week we did a few experiments with lime water. The boys also learned a little about balancing equations. While looking for examples of exothermic and endothermic reactions, I found some really great ideas to try. I plan to do the elephant toothpaste experiment next week. Although, I'm not sure I can get the 30% hydrogen peroxide soon enough. If I can't, we'll try the kid version found on Steve Spangler's site. Speaking of Steve Spangler, this guy is my new favorite science guy! He has been a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres show many times. I've been watching them on YouTube all day. My favorite is probably this episode where he toilet-papers the studio. I love how excited he gets when he is sharing science with people. I get like that when I'm telling people about our experiments. It's good to know I'm not the only one. We'll be trying a few of his tricks this week. I'll try to get a few videos so I can share them soon.

Next week I'll be at the PDE Special Education Conference in Hershey. I don't know if I'll get a chance to put a post together while I'm away. My husband is taking two days off from work so he can take over as teacher for me. Hopefully his students will behave. If not, at least I'll have some interesting stories to share in my next post.

                                                     Think spring!



1 comment:

Annie said...

We are also trudging. We normally don't homeschool during the summer, but the move has put us significantly behind. So, what is keeping me going is the fact I may be able to salvage some summer from serious studying if we persevere now. My guess is it will be all that much harder to work when the weather is nice.