Learning Happens Everywhere

The checkouts at the grocery store we frequent the most not only have candy, but books, too.  Puzzle books, coloring books, novels and lots of non-fiction for children.  Once B realizes that I will not be saying yes to any requests for candy (I say no every time!  Why does he keep asking?), he picks up a book or books and reads.  Yesterday’s book du jour was about whales.  He shared all the fascinating facts out loud so that I, the cashier and the lady behind me in line also learned with him.

  • Female Narwhal whales do not have horns like the males do.
  • The male Narwhal’s horns can be up to 9 ft long.
  • The dorsal fin of a male Orca can be up to 6 ft tall.
  • Sperm whales have the largest brains of any creature on Earth.  Adult Sperm whale brains can weigh up to 20 lbs.
  • Sperms wales are distinguished from other whales by their somewhat squared heads and by the scars they bear from battling the giant squids they eat.
When he finished the whale book, he was excited to see one on snakes and one on spiders, my two least favorite creatures.  Luckily, I was all checked out and it was time to go.  But those facts stuck with him (I had to ask him to tell me some of the facts for this blog post because I, myself, had forgotten all except that the female Narwals have no horns.)  He constantly teaches me to slow down, stop and see the wonder and learning opportunities within everything we come in contact.

Dinner Prep Turned Into an Impromptu Science Class

B was watching me unwrap and clean out a duck this afternoon for dinner tonight.  It turned into an impromptu Science class.  He took this picture of me cutting the duck’s spine out.  He was fascinated and grossed out all at the same time.  LOL  We went over the anatomy from the inside and labeled things.  He wanted to know what each organ was that came out of the cavity.  He also wanted to know how the duck got from the state of freshly killed to wrapped in the store, i.e. how do they clean it out, how to they get the organs out and then put back in before wrapping, where did the blood and feathers go, etc.  He had opinions on the entire process and I’m so glad we had that discussion!  Something that never would have occurred if he was in a brick-and-mortar school today.  :o)

Science Class – Weather Experiments

Great hands-on Science experiments – a homemade barometer and a thermometer and the pushing air trick.

We have been learning about weather in Science class for the last month, and this week we did some experiments.  We learned that air pushes up, not just down and side-to-side, with an experiment that made B feel like a magician.  We made our own barometer to see how the air pressure changes with the weather and demonstrated how a traditional thermometer works.  These experiments can be found on pages 58, 59  and 65 of  “The Usborne Book of Science Activities, Volume Three”.

1.  The Pushing Air Trick
We learned that even though we don’t feel the air around us all the time, it’s there and pushes on everything. We feel it push against us when it moves as wind, but this experiment showed us that it pushes in all directions, even up.

B filled a plastic cup all the way up to the brim with water, then covered it with a plastic-coated postcard and pushed the card down.  He kept one hand flat on top of the postcard and held the bottom of the cup with the other hand.  Then, over the sink, he turned the cup upside down and removed the hand holding the postcard.  He laughed with glee when the postcard stayed under the cup, exclaiming. “I’m doing a magic trick!”  The air under the postcard was pushing up enough to keep it in place.

2. Homemade Barometer

To measure how much and when air pushes more than other times, we made our own barometer with an empty mason jar, balloon, straw, rubber band, tape and cardboard (cut from a cereal box in the recycle bin).
I cut the “neck” off the balloon, stretched it over the mouth of the mason jar and B secured it with a rubber band.  I cut one tip of the straw at an angle to form a point and B taped the other end of the straw to the middle of the balloon.  Then B taped a piece of cardboard to the jar.  Using a pencil, B made a mark on the cardboard where the straw pointed and checked it several times this week for movement.
We’ve had a lot of rain and thunderstorms come and go and the straw has mostly been pointing down. Yesterday morning, B woke me up, pouncing on the bed in excitement, “Mama!  Our barometer is finally pointing up!  We’re out of low pressure and into high pressure, finally!” It was a clear, sunny morning.  When the air pressure outside the jar became high, it pushed down on the balloon, causing the pointed tip of the straw to rise.  When the air pressure outside the jar was low, the air in the jar pushed up and the pointed end of the straw lowered.
3. Homemade Thermometer
B had been asking exactly how a mercury thermometer works.  His Nana has one at her house but we only have a digital ear thermometer.  So this experiment came at the right time.
B took a bottle out of the recycle bin, pulled the label off and filled it with water.  I added some blue food coloring to the water.  With modeling clay, I sealed the top of the bottle with a straw sticking out of it.  B put the bottle in a glass bowl and I poured simmering water into the bowl (see photo, left).
As the blue water inside the bottle heated up from the simmering water outside of it, the blue water expanded and rose up the straw (see picture, below).  As the water cooled, it contracted and the straw emptied back to the way it was at the beginning of the experiment.
As the air around a thermometer warms up, the liquid in it rises.  As the air around a thermometer cools, the liquid inside lowers.
Water inside our thermometer rising from the heated water outside of it.

Watching the Space Shuttle Discovery Land on April 17, 2012

Can you see the flag? The pilot of the carrier plane opened the far cockpit window and hung up a flag!
(If you click on this picture, it will open in a bigger screen and you can click through all pictures in one space.)

The hubs called and woke us up at 7am to tell us we should get dressed, grab some breakfast and head out to the Udvar-Hazy Center.  I won’t share with you the language I used to express my, “No“.  He then proceeded to call every 10 minutes to tell us to go outside with the camera and make sure to take pictures.  His last call, around 10am, was to tell me how excited he was that Discovery had flown over his office building and he got to see it out the window.  He also told me to put on a local news channel that was tracking the route.  I did that and found that it was flying over The Capitol building in DC.  “You have to get outside now so you don’t miss it,” he exclaimed.  “Uhm, it’s not even in our state and it’s cold out.  Stop calling,” I replied.

B was upstairs, having just gotten out of the bath after spilling a bowl of cereal and milk in his lap.  *sigh*  I called for him to come down and watch the Discovery coverage with me.  According to the news, the trip was ahead of schedule and Discovery would land at Dulles at 10:30am instead of 11am.  At 10:25am, B says, “Let’s go see it, Mama!”  Thoughts that went through my head:

  1. It’s supposed to land in 5 minutes and we’ll never get there in time
  2. I have not showered
  3. I’m still in my PJs
  4. I still haven’t dealt with the spilled cereal and milk that had, by now, soaked into the couch
  5. Traffic is stopped on all major roads and bridges and we’ll never get through
I hopped up, ran upstairs, grabbed some socks, a zip-up and a hat, ran back downstairs and yelled, “Let’s go!”  Luckily, B was already dressed appropriately.  We back out of the garage at 10:28am and I just knew it was too late.  But, he wanted to try and I said yes.  He couldn’t ask me for anything more than that.  I had planned to get as far as traffic would allow on the main road leading to Udvar-Hazy, but at the last minute decided to head into the airport.  I figured I would pay to park in the hourly lot in front of the terminal and stand outside the car.
As we drove up, there were cars lining the roads.  It was amazing to see so many people out there.  On my way to the hourly lot, there was a lighted sign directing traffic to a designated Discovery viewing spot.  It was a parking garage to the right of the main terminal.  We parked on the top level and walked over to the designated viewing end that was blocked off to cars.  People are talking with their friends, kids are running around and most spots at the railing are taken.  I see a plane in the distance, directly in front of us, coming toward the airport.  I asked B to come over and the gentleman in front of us told B to go up to the railing in front of him.  “I can see over him,” he said and I thanked him profusely.  It turned out to be the shuttle!  It flew over the terminal and the hourly parking lot next to us and then turned around and flew over Loudoun County, Virginia.
Then it came back toward the airport at the same angle, straight at us, and landed on a runway on the far side of the terminal from us.

Then it turned around, went back behind the main terminal and stopped on the other side, where the pilot hung the flag out the window, and we got cool, closeup shots.

This is the little plane that accompanied the shuttle.  When it was in the air, we thought it was a fighter jet escort.

On the move again, heading over to the cranes which will lift the shuttle off the carrier plane.

Now it is parked in front of the cranes.
People movers showed up.  Who was in them?
Wheeling the stairs over.
Told you he was dressed appropriately. Just gotta find him the leather helmet…
Another mom was kind enough to take this with the shuttle in the background, behind the huge UPS plane close in.
The excitement was tangible and the adults were more excited than the kids.  I saw goosebumps on many arms besides mine.  The animation in our voices as we talked to perfect strangers and the consideration shown to get out of the way after one person got their pictures to make way for others was amazing.  Why can’t we all treat each other that every day?
I am so glad B asked to go and that I didn’t listen to all my reasons why we shouldn’t.
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