3.14.12

Too long away. Taxes and life, but now back to the more important things. :)

There is a lot of catch-up to do so I will break it up into a couple of entries.

Our last entry for classes was 2.13.12 so the next class was 2.20.12.

2.20.2011
Day 1 – Build a Crystal Radio
Today we began a crystal radio experiment. I thought we would be done in one day; I was wrong.

It took most of the day just to coil the wire around the tube.

Brennan helped to hold the wire so it would not unravel. He had actually started to wind the wire first, got tired and let go not realizing that in doing so the wire would spring of into a myriad of directions.

We spend a good deal of time re-spooling the wire carefully so as not to kink it. Then we had to re-wind is around the tube.

Owen participated as much as he could, but spent time experimenting with circuits and lighting.

Brennan checks the wiring, Owen assembles the housing

What big teeth I have.             Almost done.

I hear something. You want 19.99 for what????

What You Need to Know to Help Your Child Embrace Veggies

Vegetable is a word that can make even a non-picky eater run for cover.
So how do you get your child to eat some of those healthy veggies?

And change your child from this:

To this:

When children associate healthy foods with fun, they become more interested and excited to incorporate them into their daily diet! Cooking time becomes an exploration in personal creativity and health education.
Parents and kids come together to plan 'creative' meals.

Let them use their imagination, be involved and encourage their creativity.

Make Healthy Foods Fun!

****

This is what one parent had to share:

Every parent wants their child to eat healthy because it is so important for their growth and development, but not every parent is lucky enough to have a child that loves their veggies.
Here are some tips I have learned raising my 6 children on how to get your children to eat their vegetables either willingly or without them even knowing.

1. Sneak veggie purees into their mash potatoes or pancakes.
2. Make muffins with chopped veggies and a little frosting on top. Call them cupcakes. They will never know.
3. If using tomato sauce in a dish you can add V8 or just a bunch of chopped vegetables.
4. When the kids are starving after sports or heavy playing offer them veggies with dressing or peanut butter rather than other snack foods.
5. Grow a garden in your yard and allow them to help you. They will be more excited to eat what they actually grew.
6. Never tell them what they are eating is healthy or good for them, just act really excited about the veggies and your attitude will transfer to them.


I hope all these tips help you like they did me. If you have any special tips feel free to comment and let us know.
Thanks, Kitty
******

The tips on the Veggie Boom Boom site are a little more commercial than personal, but it was low key, not in your face ads and there was also some information on being vegan as well as ideas for items that might help you attain a vegan diet. All of which can be useful even if your goal is to eat more vegetables not become vegan.
It was still an interesting read. 
Veggie Boom Boom 
While searching for information to write this article I found the following sites I thought were quite interesting. (note the pictures, look familiar? )

The following link is to a site I am looking forward to exploring more.
The heading; "Heirloom Vegetables" definitely caught my eye.
 (Bookmark**)
Garden of Eatin
http://frankentrina.com/gardenofeatin/mykidsveggies.htm

Cheryl has created a site with so many good ideas on kids and foods I decided instead of picking, choosing and paraphrasing I would just link to it. She is a young mother who has been blogging for years, writing articles about food and quilts.

I followed links from this blog to her other blogs and found them enough that I bookmarked them all even though some are no longer updated. They had so much reference material I could spend hours reading them.
(Bookmark**)
Simple Bites
http://www.simplebites.net/how-to-help-your-child-embrace-food/

Dr. John came to the point in easy to understand words.
I loved what he had to say as well as his 10 ways to encourage your child to eat their veggies.
(Bookmark**)
Virginia Hopkins
http://www.virginiahopkinstestkits.com/kids_veggies_dr_john_lee.html

This last one, which looked fairly current, was written by a woman who makes a living at helping people stay healthy and has information beneficial to the whole family.
 (Bookmark**)
House of Health
http://houseofhealth.wordpress.com/

Despite your best efforts your children still might not eat their veggies, but they will have fun memories associated with veggies.

Who knows though, they might just pick up a veggies while creating and eat it.

The important thing is to never stop offering veggies and to continue to search for new and interesting ways to encourage your children to eat them.

Remember you too may not have eaten all your veggies when you were young.

Healthy eating is essential for proper growth; mentally, physically spiritually.
You really are what you eat.

The fast food generation is creating too many children who look like this:

Sadly this lack of healthy eating has not only seen a rise in childhood obesity, but a rising tide of health issues that were not so prevalent in years past.

Delicious Nutritious Kid Snacks

Flower Power 

1. Ask mom or dad to buy some Broccoli and Cauliflower.

2. Wash in the kitchen sink.

3. Pull off the leaves from the floret heads.

2. Separate the florets. 

If you need to use a knife make sure mom or dad is with you. 

3. Ask mom or dad to steam them for you. (Steam is very hot! Never try to do it yourself)

(Make sure to set a few of the florets aside so you can compare the taste and texture of raw versus cooked.)

The broccoli should be a beautiful bright green when it is done cooking.

4. Have mom or dad put them on a plate for you.

5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, a little parmasaen cheese, or a delicious dip!

6. Have fun and Eat them all up!!

MMmmm

FANTASTIC !!

What do you think?

a. How do broccoli and cauliflower grow?

b. What part of the plants do we eat?

c. Describe broccoli and cauliflower.

d. How do they look, feel, smell and taste?

e. How are they alike? 

f. How are they different?

g. What does heat do to these vegetables?

h. Do you like them better cooked or raw?

2.13.12 Electricity and Magnetism

We covered a lot of information on electricity this week. O and I plunged into the world of Michael Faraday, a man who I give credit too for the many electrical advances that bless my life today.

He is called the Pioneer of electricity and quite rightly so as it encompassed his entire life. Every discovery brought a new set of questions and he ever ceased to search for the answers.

 

He was born poor to a Christian family in 1791. At 13 he was hired out to help the family income. It was there at his job for a book binder that his fate was sealed. Books all around and a parched thirst for knowledge he found what was needed to temporarily quench his thirst. Always though, he wanted to know more. He carried a notebook with him and journaled all his thoughts and discoveries.

We learned of some Michael Faraday’s science contemporaries; Humprey Davy, Andre’ Ampere, Alessandro Volta.

Michael Faraday is credited for many discoveries, some of which we learned were the first electric motor, the first generator.

He also had the most input on a safety light for miners, but Humphrey Davy took the credit and the lamp was called the Davy lamp. It saved many lives of coal miners.

We covered more on static electricity. I do believe O now has a good grasp on what it is.

 

BJ also covered electricity and magnetism in his Usborne Marvels and Mysteries of Science book.

We learned that electricity is inside everything and how essential it is to life. How it powers the brain, makes our lives more comfortable, solves crimes.

Magnetism by itself or in conjunction with electricity affects our daily lives and those of animals as well.

It is a part of the magnetic field that is generated around the earth, it helps us find our way when we use a compass, and birds to fly south for the winter.

The internet provides a good deal of extemporaneous information. So we took a stroll through the suggested sites and went “inside” a wire, battery and light bulb.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/edison/sfeature/acdc.html

We also got to view an informative animation on lightning.

http://www.knowitall.org/nasa/simulations/electricity/lightning.html

As well as take a 3D tour of the brain. It itself, functioning on electrical currents.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/

From there we were able to take a virtual tour of an MRI machine.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/scanning/mri.html

Electricity 2.08.12

I was really sick on Mon so I moved this weeks class to Thurs.

Even though there are a few years difference in the boy’s ages they are both taking Physics; O is in Physics 1 and BJ is in Physics 2.  I mentioned earlier at the beginning of the school year. To make the classes go more smoothly while teaching them both I went through the NOEO lesson plan and had rearranged the order so that the boys would be studying the same parts of Physics at the same time whenever possible. That worked out really well for the most part, but there were times when it doesn't work.

I felt bad when BJ would have web sites to go to that I thought would be great for O as well, but O had things in his lesson plan that he had to get done and there was no time left for him to go to the sites. Then a couple of weeks ago I made a little change in our lessons to allow for that. Now if BJ is covering something that I think O will benefit from we just stop and go join BJ.

This week I took it a step further and we ended up having a fabulous time in school. BJ had several fun experiments with electricity to do so we all did them together.

The first experiment was a simple one involving static electricity. Using two balloons and wool we created friction which excited the electrons and the protons in the balloon and observed the balloons now repelled each other.

 

 We began the other electrical experiments by first taking a good look at the different kinds of batteries. With the exception of the 9 volt the others were 1.5 V even though they were all different sizes.

The next couple of experiments dealt with complete circuits and power.
What happens when you complete a circuit?

 What happens when you add another battery and double the power?

What makes good conductors; paper, paperclip, glass, spoon, wood, rubber band?

While BJ was going through this list of things to test O was experimenting on his own, unbeknownst to us. I was not really tracking as I was caught up in BJ. All of a sudden O  makes an exclamation, we look around and he has taken bits and pieces of wire, connectors and a light, created his own circuit and lit the light bulb!!

This led into our next discussion about insulators.

We had created electrical circuits, but we did not get shocked. Electricity ran through metal but not wood, paper, plastic. How would that benefit us? How could we use it? Where would we want to be during an electrical storm?

From here we used the information that metal is a conductor to create a very simple circuit board from aluminum and cardboard.

The electrical current travels through the aluminum and lights the bulb.


The next experiment was just for fun. BJ made a one eyed monster.






We experimented using a paperclip as a switch. By opening it and having a wire attached to each side the circuit would close and light the light when the paperclip was pressed down to touch the metal.

Creating an electromagnet was interesting. It did not work at first, but when it did the boys got so excited.
The side effect though was the 9 volt battery got really, really hot!!

The last experiment was another fun one. I had bought a little robo bug kit. The boys put it together. When complete you turn it on, it buzzes and the vibration it creates moves it across the floor.

Can't wait till next week!