Space study

We are in the middle of a space study. We started with earth, and then we ventured into space. We have been reviewing facts daily. Today we played a game to help the boys with review. I asked them what type of game they wanted, and they chose a jumping game (of course!).

Ryan was chosen to throw a stuffed animal at Justin and Jonathan to make it harder to jump to the next "level". If they got the question right, they were able to jump.


Here are just a few of the many questions I have been asking them in our morning review time. Facts are taken from Usborne Children's Encyclopedia.

1. The earth measures how many miles around the equator? Answer: 25,000 miles
2. The earth weighs apprx how much? Answer: 6,000 million million million tons (how could they possible KNOW this? :-O
3. Where is the hottest place on earth? Answer: the Sahara Desert
4. Where is the coldest place on earth? Answer: Antartica
5. What is the layer of air surrounding the earth called? Answer: The atmosphere
   
   
   
   I also had questions about what fraction of the earth is covered by land and water, what is the largest mountain, and how much of the earth's surface is covered by ice. Further questions were asked about the planets. We are still reviewing and adding more facts daily.
   
   Jonathan was so fascinated the other day by the fact that a pinhead as hot as the sun could kill you from 90 miles away, that he had to tell Daddy when he got home from work.

I found this picture to use as a model for our project:

I found a tray box lying around. They painted it black for the back-drop of space and then added some stars.

Back to the my favorite cornstarch dough recipe (recipe on the bottom of the post):

The Encyclopedia we are using. The pictures are really nice:

We formed the dough into balls. We looked at the picture I found online to give us an idea of the right size.

Ryan had paint on his face, of course...

The almost finished project (I finished it up by painting the outside of the box too).

This probably will get dropped or broken or smashed, but I hope the memories will stick.

Doing a hands-on project like this had a huge affect even on me. We talked about how just thinking about the size of our earth, trying to compare that with all of the other planets in our galaxy, and knowing that doesn't even touch what is really out there. Our God is really AMAZING!

Cornstarch Clay

• 1 cup cornstarch
• 2 cups salt
• 1 1/3 cups cold water

Put salt and 2/3 cup water in pan and bring to a boil. Mix cornstarch with 2/3 cup water and mix well. Blend 2 mixtures together and knead into clay. The dough has to be heated as it is combined to set. Makes about 3 cups. This clay can be air dried and then painted. Store unused clay in airtight container in the fridge.
Found this recipe here

Lapbooks: A fun way to learn

I have heard of lapbooks in the past, but we had never tried them...until today.
There are some pros and cons to doing the entire lapbook in one day (as we did today). If you do it all in one day, you get the mess over-with and the lapbook finished. However, because kids aren't the most patient individuals, they tend to rush through everything. Then it is harder to make a nice, neat book. One really needs time to add all of the information.

My kids really enjoyed the experience, and and now they have a nice lapbook at which to keep and look. We plan to do more of them in the future, but I will probably have them work on one mini book at a time. Then when we are finished with each part they can assemble the completed book.


A lapbook starts with a file folder - folded in the middle. The tabs fit nicely together.


I had bought some scrapbooking supplies for a project that I was planning to do in December, but I never used it. Because of that, I have some nice colorful paper and Mod Podge (which is a wonderful glue. It dries clear and shiny).
We are using The Usborne Children's Encyclopedia for Science. We have been studying facts about the earth, so we chose this as our topic. I did a search for a true picture of the earth from space. We found a nice one, and the boys cut a circle out of the scrapbooking paper and painted it.

Here is Justin's accordian mini book with earth facts...

I can't remember what you call these, but you turn the top portion to reveal facts. We used brads to fasten the middle.

Justin decided to make an icicle to write cold facts about the earth and a sun to write hot facts.

He made a mini booklet to write more items about the atmosphere...

Justin's finished product...

I cut some old camo pants into strips and stapled them to the front to make a tie closure.

Jonathan's lapbook. The nice thing is that you can have them customize them according to their age and patience level. He made an accordian book and a little slider circle.

He also drew a cute sun and icycle to represent weather patterns.

Ryan isn't finished with his. After painting the earth and writing one word, he was ready to be done. Hopefully we will do more on his tomorrow. :-)