We are studying the planet of Venus, which is covered with volcanoes.  This is one of the projects recommended in Apologia's Exploring Creation With Astronomy.  The butter represents lava which is soft, molten rock.  The experiment shows that as time passes, the molten lava hardens back into rock.

Memorization: The Presidents

Note: We made the cute hat & powdered wigs yesterday to celebrate finally learning the Presidents. Link credit at the bottom of the post where I got the craft ideas.




Ideas for celebrating the Presidents:
http://holidays.kaboose.com/presidents-day/presidents-day.html

Scripture Memory: I Corinthians 13

Here they are reciting I Corinthians 13. They needed a little help, but they've got it. I love their silly actions.

Video Memory Verse: Psalm 23

Scripture Memory Video: Matthew 5:1-16

Matthew 5:1-16

Ryan is so funny........he loves to watch himself do something silly in these videos.

Words are Wonderful Things _ Poetry Video

Bunny Trails

Occasionally when we are reading a book or discussing something, we will
go on a "bunny trail."

Today was like that. We are currently reading a book called Growing Together in Courage by Barbara Rainey.
It is a fantastic compilation of stories about people who exhibited courage during extreme situations. After reading one of the stories (which are all true), we somehow landed on the topic of September 11th, 2001. As we were discussing it, I realized that the boys-especially the two youngest- hadn't heard much about that horrible, not-so-long-ago day. That led me to the computer to pull up some clips of the Twin Towers being attacked and collapsed, which led to a torrent of tears, which led to a documentary about it. Basically we spent most of the day talking about what happened and all of the courageous people involved. So what started out as a short story to introduce the topic of courage to my children, led to an all-day "study".
I think they do truly understand how important courage  is.
Bunny trails are good.

Psalm 1: Memory verse

I didn't mean for the camera to veer away from Jonathan; I was trying to video and look at the paper on which I had typed out the verses to make sure they were saying it correctly. :-)

Poetry Memory:Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Here they are reciting the poem: "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" by Eugene Field.

 The easiest way to learn a poem or verse of any kind is to just say it every day.  I learned this one as a child too! :-)

They were a little distracted by the camera, so this gets pretty funny. :-) 

Justin's first electricity experiment: The Joy Buzzer

Justin wants to study electricity, so we bought him a kit from Dangerous Books for Boys.  Here is his first experiment:  the "Joy Buzzer".   I didn't do the best job videoing, but I am glad you can actually hear the buzzing. He is so excited about it.

"The vibrating motor is a tiny motor that has an off-center weight at the end of its rotating shaft.  When the shaft spins, the center of gravity changes because of the rotating imbalanced weight.  This produces the vibrating motion.  These little motors are used in electronics such as cell phones and vibrating video game controllers to generate their vibrating action."