Throwback Tuesday: Solar Powered Science
*Originally posted July 5, 2012 when the boys were 4, 6, & 8
I wasn't planning on teaching today. I finally decided it was summer vacation and we were just going to focus on social skills and life skills-- basically just enjoy our summer and have fun playing with family and friends we don't always get to see.
Unschooling appeals to me since you allow kids to learn naturally, mainly through unplanned activities.
The boys, however, asked if we were going to have school since we hadn't had any the last three days. When I said I really hadn't planned anything to do today they groaned and Ian asked if we could at least have science today and Alec asked if we could do art today. So I quickly pulled a few lessons together incorporating more solar power.
We read one of the books from the library about solar power.
We did a quick experiment to see how fast ice cubes would melt on different colored paper. The book said darker colors attract more heat so we pulled out a piece of red, yellow, white, black and blue paper a few ice cubes and we headed outside.
They made predictions before we started with Ian and Alec guessing the black paper would melt cubes the fastest and Evan guessed blue. To our surprise the ice cube on the yellow paper melted first!
We did discuss factors that could have influenced our results; maybe the ice cubes weren't really all the same size, maybe the wind was keeping some of the cubes a bit colder than others, etc.
We also made sun art using this special paper I had ordered on Amazon. You place objects on top of the paper, lay it out in the sun until the paper changes color and then put it into a water bath to set the color changes.
They had fun creating nature collages and since it only take about 3 min. for it to change paper in the sun it was a wonderful, quick, engaging project that even my 4 yr old could do with little to no help.
We were done school for the day and I let the boys go swimming.
Evan totally mastered swimming underwater today without any life vest, float or help from me! I am so amazed that in just under a week he is swimming around without help!
Just goes to show that when they want to learn something bad enough they'll put their minds to it and learn!
Unschooling appeals to me since you allow kids to learn naturally, mainly through unplanned activities.
The boys, however, asked if we were going to have school since we hadn't had any the last three days. When I said I really hadn't planned anything to do today they groaned and Ian asked if we could at least have science today and Alec asked if we could do art today. So I quickly pulled a few lessons together incorporating more solar power.
We read one of the books from the library about solar power.
We did a quick experiment to see how fast ice cubes would melt on different colored paper. The book said darker colors attract more heat so we pulled out a piece of red, yellow, white, black and blue paper a few ice cubes and we headed outside.
They made predictions before we started with Ian and Alec guessing the black paper would melt cubes the fastest and Evan guessed blue. To our surprise the ice cube on the yellow paper melted first!
We did discuss factors that could have influenced our results; maybe the ice cubes weren't really all the same size, maybe the wind was keeping some of the cubes a bit colder than others, etc.
We also made sun art using this special paper I had ordered on Amazon. You place objects on top of the paper, lay it out in the sun until the paper changes color and then put it into a water bath to set the color changes.
They had fun creating nature collages and since it only take about 3 min. for it to change paper in the sun it was a wonderful, quick, engaging project that even my 4 yr old could do with little to no help.
We were done school for the day and I let the boys go swimming.
Evan totally mastered swimming underwater today without any life vest, float or help from me! I am so amazed that in just under a week he is swimming around without help!
Just goes to show that when they want to learn something bad enough they'll put their minds to it and learn!
.jpg)
I remember using that sun art paper with my kids. Such fun memories!
ReplyDeleteOh, you said that right- 'when they want to learn something bad enough they'll put their mind to it'. You have that right! My son was 3 and still in diapers. We drove by this daycare center with really neat playground toys. it was an old school house with dirt ground under all the outside toys. (Adam loved digging in the dirt.) One day we stopped to take a tour and ask about attendance. Must be 3 and potty trained. I told Adam he could not be wearing diapers. That same weekend he went the whole time diapreless- even thru the nights. Come Monday, he reverted back to diapers. Well some time passed. We drove by that preschool. Adam said he wanted to go to that school. My response was- Adam, you know what you need to do. Lo and behold- that was the last day he wore diapers. No accidents, big boy pants there on. Imagine that. He went to that preschool. up until he started kindergarten. Once in school, the preschool had an after school care program which he attended.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder about sun paper! I'd forgotten about that but when I taught summer school my kids always loved making collages using that paper. Then others would try to guess what objects were used to create each project. I love the ice cube experiment, too! I love it when kids lead learning experiences!
ReplyDelete