Something That I Learned

• Science experiments are more fun if you don't watch how they're done on a DVD first and then try to go and replicate them. Somehow the magic is lost if you know that the top of water is going to stay level when you tip the bottle on its side and it makes doing the experiment yourself a little redundant. The smart thing to do is to do the experiments yourself, then watch the video to make sure that you did them right. Then you can hi-five each other and say, "Way to go, science experiment genius!" and everyone is super-pumped!

There are two things that I added this year. OK, well, three actually, for those literal minded people out there who probably think I probably should count that whole Kindergarten thing with Declan. Anyway, I added science and history and The Kids are just crazy about those subjects! (So far, anyway.) I chose Sonlight Science because the thing that always bogs me down when doing science experiments is scrambling around, trying to gather up 3 feet of copper wire, a dowel, 2 cubes of clay, a soda bottle and a magnet. These simply aren't things that I have around the house and they somehow always seem to be on the list for experiments that can be done with "things you have around the house".

Enter Sonlight! The great thing about Sonlight curriculum is that, while it's a wee bit expensive, they send you virtually everything you need for the experiments and all the books that you need to read! I say "virtually" because I believe that I've had to come up with things like "a container of water" and I think that we can all agree that, as wonderful as the company is, it might be expecting a lot for them to ship that to their customers! I chose a level that is a little bit "under" where Reilly is, mainly because I figure that way Declan can actually keep up and learn along with her. Plus, since this is her first experience with doing science on a regular basis, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to start out a little easy. I'm amazed at how much fun they have, and how much they both learn though, specifically Deco. This evening, he was explaining to Troy how we got water into our house through the pipes. He didn't have it down perfectly, but he had a pretty good grasp of how it worked, especially since my money would have been on him not paying attention while I was reading!!

Oh, here's a picture of the Disasterous Erasers! I want to point out my adorable ear of corn on the right lower side! One of The Kids said, "I wonder if I can make an ear of corn!" and I said, "I bet I can!" and proceeded to make a really cute ear of corn non-eraser! Too bad it didn't work!