Back To School 2011

1st day of school... home school style!

Roots

We are learning all about roots this week!

To make this fun experiment we wet a paper towel and placed it in a plastic baggie. 

Then we put a lima bean seed in the bag too. 

We taped the baggies up in a sunny window and then we watched. 

Thankfully this is a quick sprouting seed. 

By day 2 the bean had swelled to double it's original size. 

The next day there was a big crack in the shell and a little sprout was peeking out. 

After a few days we had a ton of roots! I love semi instant gratification!

A few days after that we had a nice green shoot popping out the top and then we had leaves! The kids have been so excited about this experiment! 

We have also learned about plant cells (yawn) and xylem. 

Photosynthesis was fun to talk about and ecosystems kept their attention too. 

We watched a cool DVD from Eyewitness that reminded me of the science movies we used to watch on projectors at school (sadly dating myself) . Do you remember the movies where they filmed a flower bloom and then sped it up? This movie was similar to those. It was really cool!

We made a chart of growth and the kids labeled the different parts of the plant. 

We mounted them on construction paper, I think they look very nice! 

The ONLY issue is that we are done with the plant chapter 

and I still have little baggies of lima beans taped to my window...

no one wants me to take them down....

so.....

1st Charter Day

We are homeschooling through a home based charter school. They offer a weekly workshop for the kids and today was the 1st day of classes. The kids were very excited! My darling daughter picked out an entire new outfit all the way down to the hair style and type of rubber band she wanted in her hair. The boys wore clean clothes and begrudgingly brushed their teeth and hair (it's a Mars/Venus thing). I had every intention of taking a picture of them by the school's welcome sign but alas, we were about 10 minutes late due to parking issues and I forgot the camera anyway. Thankfully I did bring my cell phone so I was able to take a pic of my crew before hurling them in to new classes at a new school with children they have never met. Yeah, I know...Mother Of The Year...

They had a good day. My sweet little girl made a friend. She can't remember the girls name but they own the same skirt  and she also wore her hair in a side ponytail - friends for life! My Babbalou had fun in his math class and then we worked together one on one doing his "dyslexia" exercises - that is tough work but he is doing better every day. T-man loved his math class and he thinks he will get used to his writing class, even if they have to write poetry. After the classes were over we all sat down to have a nice picnic lunch. When we got home the kids all crashed on the couch - 3 whole hours of learning outside of the home is just exhausting!