Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Worth Everything

Our theme for this school year (2025-26) was "Worth Everything." We talked about the worth of souls and how each individual is unique and beloved by Heavenly Father. I printed out new "Bon Mot" books for the kids (a record of their cute sayings and funny stories…I've been keeping these since they were little and many of them already have a handwritten version, but I printed them out in nicer books and added a few pictures) and talked about how each one of them adds different priceless qualities to our family. And I used the symbol of pearls to remind them of the Bible story of the man and his "pearl of great price."
The girls got single-pearl necklaces and the boys got little pearl tie pins to remind them of our theme.
We had an "afternoon tea" sort of menu, as we did last year. Chicken salad and egg salad sandwiches, quiche, scones with clotted cream and lemon curd, lemon tarts, "lemonies" (like brownies), and flourless chocolate cake bites.

Volcanoes and types of lava

Surely every child loves to learn about volcanoes! The rice crispie volcano models are always a hit.
Stratovolcano inside
Viscosity of lava—the amount of gases each type will dissolve determines that lava's characteristics.

Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Floods, Tsunamis

Convection currents in a tub
Turbulence as the currents mix
Cold and hot water separating into layers
We got out the tornado bottles, of course.
"Underwater volcano" erupting

Natural Disasters Unit plan; Plate tectonics; Earthquakes

 
Our second "Summer School" unit was Natural Disasters, another perennial favorite topic among especially little boys (though my little girls have never complained about it either!). (Posts from the Old Days)
First was earthquakes, with this demonstration of plate tectonics on a molten cocoa earth (you just heat water with a layer of cocoa powder on top and then watch the convection currents break it up and move it around).
More plate tectonics and types of faults
Wow, some great buckling here
Testing different building heights and compositions for stability
Towers and liquefaction
Building earthquake-resistant structures (or trying to!!)
Clementine made gnomes, of course
Starting small :)
A little more daring
Ziggy was excited to try this earthquaking this tall tower I made (he anticipated what was coming)
Another gnome?? Does she do nothing but make gnomes? (Gnope.)
Some more avant-garde designs

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Rockets


Of course we made film canister rockets as part of learning about fireworks! They're so fun. Some resources:

Also of course, we repeated our ever-popular "building demolition" demonstration where we use strings (not explosives!) to tear down a block creation. It makes me nostalgic to remember how much the big boys loved doing this when they were little. (And this group reminds me so much them, including little Daisy!):
Demolition and other uses of explosives resources are here:

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