A school of fish

Monday, May 24, 2021

Electricity and Magnetism Unit Study (II)

I decided it was time for another Electricity Unit mostly because Teddy had been asking me tons of questions about electricity, and has also been very fascinated with/scared of (those two things often go together) lightning lately. It was funny to realize that the girls haven't learned any of this either, since we last did this unit in 2014. Malachi claims to remember everything, but he was only 6, so I'm not sure I believe him. But he was like Teddy back then—very curious and inquisitive and serious about learning, and a FULL participant in everything we did, so maybe he does remember!

I also feel like I did a more complete job on this unit the previous time through. Abe and Seb both understood a lot about electricity already, and helped me figure out a lot of things! And they were very excited and eager to do all the activities, which is always helpful. I was surprised how much the girls liked working with the snap circuits, etc., too this time—but they weren't AS fanatical about it as the boys were back then. I think this subject was just of particular interest of both of those older boys!

Here is the pinterest board from 2014, with perhaps a few pins added this time: https://www.pinterest.com/marilynnielson/electricity-and-magnetism-homeschool-unit/

A good place to start when talking about electricity is with the structure of the atom, and by explaining how ions work. Here are the children playing the "pass the electron" game (we do something similar to this one: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/circuits-friends/print/)

Here are some explanatory videos we watched:

Ions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnudaqeTyto
Atoms: https://www.generationgenius.com/videolessons/atoms-and-molecules-video-for-kids/

More activities we did last time: https://nielsonschool.blogspot.com/2014/04/electric-current-conductors-and.html

Luckily, we still had most of our electricity and magnetism supplies from last time. They're great to have around for homeschool in general. Here's the list of supplies I made last time, and links to where to get things. Annoyingly, some links are broken, but a google search for that item usually yields lots of choices.

Here are some other videos we used:

Intro to circuits (beware annoying narrators): https://www.generationgenius.com/videolessons/electricity-and-circuits-video-for-kids/?gclid=CjwKCAjwhMmEBhBwEiwAXwFoEW1-Ub4d055l4boFmt-kvSXoab4mptqupBftaK02wHecFK9qWMYfRhoC76IQAvD_BwE

Make sparks http://www.learnplayimagine.com/2013/04/how-to-make-lightning.html

Slow motion lightning strikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO3H285CFRo

The electric eel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0M7_HPSi14

Make a telegraph machine https://www.energizer.com/science-center/how-to-make-a-simple-telegraph-set

Virtual coal power plant tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IKECt4Y3RI
Nuclear power plant tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AdA5d_8Hm0
Hydroelectric: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki8kSB1ThJQ
Substation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q-aVBv7PWM

You can learn a lot just by playing around with making your own circuits. The children had a lot of fun doing that in an open-ended way with all the supplies we had. Snap circuits are, of course, fun too, but they don't have the immediacy of a real circuit with a bulb and battery you add in yourself.

More ideas for circuit exploration: https://nielsonschool.blogspot.com/2014/04/simple-foil-circuits-series-and.html

And some further study of switches and resistors: https://nielsonschool.blogspot.com/2014/04/resistors-and-switches.html. That link includes an explanation of three-way switches, which I had forgotten and had to relearn this time. Here's Daisy giving another explanation of it:

And a few more resources:

• Make a three-way switch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_TpKdYeQaU

• Make paper circuits with pencil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwKQ9Idq9FM
• Make foil circuits https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=qJDgl9eVpy8

Making a homemade light bulb is always fun! It's so dramatic when it burns out.

Instructions here: https://nielsonschool.blogspot.com/2014/04/homemade-light-bulb.html

Or you can refer to these pictoral instructions: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Light-Bulb

We talked about batteries and made a voltaic pile. (You can also dissect a battery—see that same post)

Monday, March 8, 2021

Revolutionary War Unit Activities

Even though we learned this last time, I'd forgotten how to make a five-pointed star with one cut! Betsy Ross would be ashamed of me. So, we learned again! (I even used it in my primary class the next week…it fit with the lesson somehow.) You can find lots of tutorials for how to do this. We used this one.

Junie got quite good at it! Big and tiny star.

Daisy decided to make a whole flag and was surprised at how much work it took to get all the stars arranged right, the stripes to be the right width, etc.

We got to visit my friend's house again and have us show us her spinning wheel, etc.

We wrote messages with invisible ink and then (somewhat clumsily) put them over a candle flame to reveal them.

We got a real sealing wax kit from Amazon and it was fun to use! You melt the little sticks of wax over a flame and then use the stamp to press them over the fold of your letter. They looked really pretty!

Ziggy was suitably impressed.

The minuteman game we played last time was so much fun that we did it again. This time the children had to get on all their clothes and run around the house with their musket. We timed everyone and then they tried to beat their times. There was LOTS of laughter. Especially because the boots and coats they were using were so big and hard to run in!

We loved learning about Ben Franklin's glass armonica, and making a similar one ourselves. Getting the glass armonica to work was surprisingly hard! Sebastian had gotten really good at it last time, but for awhile I was convinced we had the wrong kind of glasses because we could not get a single sound out of them! (I don't actually think you have to have any certain kind of glasses, but it sure was hard at first!) It took us a good twenty minutes of trying (unsuccessfully) before we produced some sound, and another ten minutes before being able to get anything to work reliably. Junie persevered for a long time and eventually became quite good, and then all the other children were impressed and became more patient themselves too. I think everyone was able to play pretty well by the end of the day!

Junie reinvented the wheel and made this music notation sheet so she could play a song more than once, and remember which levels to fill the glasses to.

Here are some videos that demonstrate the glass armonica being played:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKlRUvk9zc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQemvyyJ--g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSK_qObahWY (this one is from Mr. Rogers--it's cute)

Monday, February 22, 2021

Revolutionary War Clothing

Last time, we made colonial tricorne hats for the boys. It was a cool project, but quite involved, and since we still have the hats I didn't think it was worth doing it again! We just got out our old hats for the little boys to wear. Ziggy (the hat-lover) was SO PLEASED to wear his. He wore it all the time for weeks. Maybe months.

He was always marching around outside or inside, often singing or holding a musket of some sort. Funny boy.

We also made mob caps during our previous unit, and they were really cute, but I just had to sew them myself because the children were too young to help. They probably could have handled it this time, but we were pressed for time that week and I finally just ended up having us make these simple new-sew versions. They were cute too, though the other ones are more authentic. Here is a link to the simple version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ougzi-6PjY

The girls were really interested in colonial clothing, and we found some cool videos that showed in a lot of detail how the upper classes and the lower classes would have dressed.

Getting dressed: colonial men

Getting dressed: colonial women

Getting dressed: servants

Daisy was quite inspired after viewing these videos, and made herself a very authentic colonial outfit, complete with underclothing and long woolen stockings with garters.

For our end-of-unit celebration, we watched our favorite movie about the Constitution ("A More Perfect Union") and the children dressed up as people from the time of the Revolutionary War. Daisy was George Washington (in this portrait).

We had red, white, and blue jello (using this recipe, and making the white layer with unflavored gelatin, sour cream, and whipped cream).

Junie went through several costume iterations. This one was her dressed as the haughty King George III.

And Goldie was the lovely Martha Washington!

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