Learning By The Way

“Anyone want to guess how much of the earth is made up of the elements Oxygen and Iron?”

We have finally started reading The Mystery of the Periodic Table, and occasional questions during the reading help my students stay focused on the chapter. Several hands shoot up in the air. The hardest ones to miss are the two attached to the body of my eldest son, Samuel. These two wave wildly in accompaniment to strange, desperate sounds coming from his throat. I do not call on him however, as the sounds are muffled by what appear to be an extremely large number of grapes puffing out his cheeks alarmingly. It is obvious that any attempt to speak on his part will cause some of that food to exit inappropriately. So I call on Moriah.

“Half?” she guesses.
“Good guess. It’s low, though.” I reply.
The sounds eminating from my son become increasingly more desperate.
“Three-fourths?” she follows up.
“That one’s too high.”
Samuel finally manages to safely channel his grapes down into his esophagus. His hand waves again.
“Samuel?”
“Sixty-five percent” He states emphatically.

Amazingly, this is the answer. His siblings stare at him, astounded at his supernatural abilities. I am amused, but somewhat less suprised, having given my share of fortuitous answers in my life. Still, this answer gave Samuel minor celebrity status in our house yesterday.

I can’t guarantee even minor celebrity status, but if you want to brush up on your knowledge of the periodic table, you can use one of the handy printables available here for your studies. I printed one up for each of the children, and even Peter enjoyed hunting for the symbol of each element mentioned in the book.

Peter got an impromptu phonics lesson after his regular learning time the other morning. James asked him a simple question about a letter sound, and received in return a wide-eyed guileless gaze and an “I don’t know.” So James begins a phonics review. Peter looks suprised and giggles at the information, which he seems to regard as new. We zoom in on the ‘g’ sound. What letter makes that sound? Samuel helpfully draws a backwards G in the air. What letter is that?

“I don’t know!” Peter is clueless and grinning.

“But” I say, “You just did a page on that sound this morning!”

“Oh.” Peter smiles happily.

I pull out the ‘G’ page, hoping to jog his memory. “See? It says ‘g’. What letter is that?”

“I don’t know!” Peter giggles.

All the surrounding Lansberrys suddenly go very guttural, uttering numerous words with the emphasis on the ‘g’ sound. This culminates with me finally announcing the letter as being ‘G’! As final wrapup, James asks Peter “So, what says ‘g’?”

We wait in anticipation of his regurgitating this newly relearned bit of knowledge.

“I don’t know!” Peter is cute is his ignorance. I exhale sharply at this unexpected reply and spit my gum at him.

So please, let this be a lesson to all homeschooling mothers everywhere whose precocious 5 year old sons have little interest in learning the letter ‘G’- don’t chew gum while teaching.

I just put the 4 older children’s Science Passports out in the mailbox. We visited 9 places of interest (8 for Moriah- she missed the reptile show when she was in San Antonio, much to her delight) and completed 8 mini-experiments. We went to:

Dickson Mounds Museum
Peoria Geological Show
Herpitological Show
Wheels O’ Time
Wildlife Prairie Park
Glen Oak Zoo
Luthy Botanical Garden
Lakeview Museum
Jubilee College State Historical Site

One of the favorites with all the children was the Geological show, with an amazing array of minerals, rocks, fossils, geodes, implements, jewelry, etc. Even though Peter is too young to participate with his own passport, he enjoyed getting to explore all the various places, too!

The experiment questions were related to all types of scientific fields, including biology, physics, and astronomy. Now that we have sent in the entry forms, they will be entered in a drawing to win science related books and such. It was a lot of fun (and I am somewhat amazed that I managed to keep track of all 4 Passports containing an increasing number of validation stamps for several months). Thanks to Peoria Academy of Science for sponsoring this. We hope to participate every year.