World Geography--Oceania

Our study of Oceania was quick and easy. In addition to the following resources, we use Material World and Hungry Planet with each region we study.

Books:

• New Zealand In Pictures by Francesca Di Piazza
• Wombat Goes Walkabout by Michael Morpurgo
• Peace Child by Don Richardson
• Are we there yet? : a journey around Australia by Alison Lester--excellent!!
• Call it courage Armstrong Sperry, book takes place on Polynesian islands
• Wombat stew by Marica Vaughan
• Coral reef by Donald Silver

Movies:

• Whale Rider a movie about a Maori village trying to reconcile the old ways with modern life
• Families of Australia
• Full circle with Michael Palin. vol. 3, Borneo and Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand [videorecording]
• The Man From Snowy River great family movie based on the traditional Australian ballad
• Father Goose Cary Grant on a South Pacific island during WWII, a classic
• The Rogue Stallion
  

Web Links

• http://folksong.org.nz/epapa/index.html
• http://www.azmetro.com/nzrecipe.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INdjRCNcZj0

Engineering for Kids: Lesson 3

From Legoengineering.com

Materials:
Lego bricks
Floppy stuffed animal

Design and construct a chair that keeps Mr. Bear (a floppy stuffed animal) from falling backwards, forwards, to the left and to the right.

Discussion: Discuss your design. If you had to continue to improve it, what would you start with?

Engineering for Kids: Lesson 2

From Legoengineering.com

Materials:
Lego bricks
Heavy books or medium weight child (about 75 pounds)

Students will build a platform 6 to 8 inches tall that will hold the weight of several heavy books or a medium weight child.

Discussion: What design decisions did you have to make?

Engineering for Kids: Lesson 1

From Legoengineering.com

Materials: Lego bricks

Each child builds his/her own wall that must be about 6 to 8 inches tall and withstand the "flick" test (judge flicks the wall with finger).

Discussion: did you have to make any changes? what worked? why? can you think of a better design?

World Geography--The Middle East

We are finishing up our study of the Middle East. This was a much longer study than I had anticipated, but the kids now have a good handle on the locations they hear about in the news.

We used "A Child's Geography: Explore the Holy Land" as the basic text. Following is the supplemental material:

• One Thousand And One Arabian Nights by Geraldine McCaughrean
• Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher
• Tales of Persia: Missionary Stories from Islamic Iran by William McElwee Miller
• Families of Egypt (A Families of the World DVD)
• Families of Israel (Another Families of the World DVD)
• Ali and the Golden Eagle by Wayne Grover
• The Copts--One issue of Calliope Magazine featuring the Ancient Egyptian Coptic Christians
• Ushpizin A beautiful movie for parents or older kids
• Cairo to Casablanca A Putumayo Kids CD of Arabian Music
• The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winters
• Alia's Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq

Chemistry for Kids: Lesson 6

Materials:
bag of rocks and shells
jar of rock powder
jar of shell powder
HCl acid with dropper
wet paper towels to clean up messes
glass pie plate

Separate the rocks from the shells.
Put several rocks in the glass pie plate.
Test each with a drop of HCl.
What happened?
Wash the rocks and the pie plate. Dry thoroughly
Put several shells in the glass pie plate.
Test each with a drop of HCl.
What happened?
Wash the shells and the pie plate. Dry thoroughly.

How can you use the information from this experiment to determine which jar contains ground rock and which one contains ground shell?

Get approval for your experiment.

Do your experiment.

Which jar contained the rock?
Which jar contained the shell?
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For the parent: This experiment sometimes works with vinegar. If you would rather use vinegar than HCl, do the experiment ahead of time to make sure that it works. Also, I never leave my children alone in a room with chemicals. While I don't hover, I am doing something that I can drop immediately if there is a problem. Train your kids to always put the dropper back in the bottle and twist the cap on securely between EACH use of any chemical.

Chemistry for Kids: Lesson 5

Materials:
a bag with some rocks and shells in it
a jar with some rock powder
a jar with some ground shell

Open the bag. Separate the rocks from the shells.
Was it easy to do this? Why?
How are rocks and shells different?

Get the two jars with powder in them. One has ground rock, the other ground shell. Which is which? How can you tell?

How can you know for sure?
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For the parent: My husband made the rock and shell powders using some kind of hammer-thing. Do not label the jars "rock" and "shell." If you want you can label them "1" and "2" or "A" and "B." This is another experiment meant to help kids see that we can identify things if we know something about them. In this case, they have experience with rocks and shells and can differentiate between them based on what they know rocks and shells look like. But, if rock and shell can no longer be identified visually, can we still differentiate between them?