Because of Him

Be Creative Every Day

This is a fun activity!

Check out  Draw a Stickman.

Your kids will want to do it over and over.

Scientific" Eggshellence"

Dusting off an article I wrote years ago for The Sentinel.

Scientific “Eggshellence”

As a distracted homeschooling mother I’ve had some unforgettable scientific experience with eggs. Do you know what happens when you put a pot of eggs on the stove to boil and then you forget all about them?  Let me save you the trouble of dangerous experimentation. They blow up!  I wasn’t smart that day, but I was brave. It isn’t easy to remove a pot of exploding eggs from the stove without losing an eye.

In honor of eggs, their invitingly economical price this week, and science, here are some seasonal science lessons.  The incredible, edible egg is also the terrific, scientific egg!

*Float an egg.  Put one cup of tap water into a clear glass.  Place a fresh egg in the water.  It will sink.  Remove the egg, then stir ¼ cup of salt into the water, one tablespoon at a time.  Replace the egg and it will float!  (In freshwater the egg is denser than the water, but in saltwater the water is denser than the egg.)  

*How strong are eggs?  Put four raw eggs of the same size in the second and fifth rows of an open, empty egg carton pointed ends down.  Gently stack books on top of the eggs in a balanced pile.  How many books can you stack?  This is a good demonstration of why a mother bird can sit on her eggs without breaking them.  (The egg’s shape of two domes pushed together, make it resistant to compression.  However, this shape is weak in tension, which is why baby birds can easily peck their way out.)

*Dissolve an eggshell. Put an egg in a container and cover it with vinegar. Bubbles will form on the eggs.  Let it sit for 48 hours.  When this is done, you’ll have an egg without a shell!  It’s held together by the membrane and is translucent. (Eggshells are made of calcium carbonate. Vinegar contains acetic acid, which breaks the solid calcium carbonate crystals into their separate parts. The carbonate goes to make carbon dioxide—the bubbles that you see—while the calcium ions float free. This is a good object lesson for showing kids what can happen to their teeth and bones if they don’t take good care of them!)

*Experiment with “naked” eggs.  Dissolve the shells of 2 eggs. Put one shell-less egg into a small container and cover with corn syrup.  Put the other shell-less egg in a small container covered with water.  Put both eggs in the fridge.  After 24 hours, take a look.  The egg that was in the water will be plump. The egg from the corn syrup will be shriveled. (The membrane of the “naked” eggs is selectively permeable. It will allow some molecules to move through it, blocking others. Water moves through the membrane easily, but sugar molecules are much bigger, so they won’t pass through.  In this situation, because egg white is 90% water and corn syrup is 25% water, water molecules from inside the egg will move outside, leaving it limp.)

*What’s the physics behind egg spinning? Take both a hard-boiled egg and a raw egg and spin them on a table.  Stop both eggs then let go of them.  The cooked egg will remain at a standstill while the raw egg will start spinning again! (The liquid inside the raw egg didn’t stop moving when you stopped the shell, so it starts the shell spinning again.) Now set the raw egg aside and spin just the cooked egg. Once it’s going fast enough (faster than 10 revolutions per second), the egg will spontaneously rise up on end! (Friction between the tabletop and the eggshell destabilizes the egg’s spin and causes it to shift position. Kinetic energy is converted to potential energy for a few seconds.)

*It’s magic!  Peel a hard-boiled egg.  Take a glass bottle with an opening slightly smaller than the egg and demonstrate how the egg will not fit through the opening.  Light a couple of matches and drop them into the bottle. Put the egg back into the opening and amaze your kids as the egg gets “sucked” into the bottle. (What’s really happening is that the heat in the jar expanded the air molecules, but then they contracted as they cooled. The air pressure outside of the jar was then greater than inside the jar, so the heavier air pressure outside pushed the egg inside the jar.)

*Try some natural dyes this year. To three cups of water and a teaspoon of vinegar add either one cup strained canned beet juice (pink), one cup purple grape juice (purple), one cup yellow onion skin, (orange), one cup torn red cabbage leaves (blue), or one teaspoon turmeric (yellow). Eggs must soak in the dye for half an hour. Experiment with other edibles to see what colors you can come up with.

*The golden egg. It would take many more pages to list all of the interesting facts about chicken eggs, not to mention all the other eggs in the world. A quick Internet search will give you a wealth of information.  Study the anatomy of an egg. Teach your children why some eggs hatch chicks, and some just make a good breakfast. Compare various bird eggs, learning why some are colored and speckled and how they get their shape. Compare bird eggs to reptile and amphibian eggs.  Learn the science behind heating, beating, and mixing eggs.  

Whatever you do, have an “eggshellent” week and experiment with something!

We Believe in Being Honest

I have felt the need to focus on the 13th Article of Faith with my children, breaking it down and getting very acquainted with each point contained therein. I could spend just one daily devotional per point, but I've decided to give each one at least a full week of our attention for maximum understanding and retention.

The following are resources and activities used for understanding, discussion, contemplation, and action in our week with honesty. 

Songs:
 "I Believe in Being Honest" (also used as copywork)
"Do What is Right"
"Choose the Right"



Copywork:

Proverbs 12:22 "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight."

"To be honest means to be sincere, truthful, and without deceit at all times." (from True to the Faith)

"Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving."
-James E. Faust

From The Children's Book of Virtues  we read "The Honest Woodman" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." Then for a fun twist we read The Wolf Who Cried Boy.

The Book of Virtues for Boys and Girls has a section on honesty. I read a few of the selections in it, but not all. To be frank, I didn't like all the stories in this book. I did love the examples from Abraham Lincoln's life.

And the perfect way to end "We believe in being honest" and segue into "We believe in being true" was with a fabulous talk from Ann Dibb titled, "I Believe in Being Honest and True."

Irish Blessings Poetry Practice

Over the years I have collected several Irish Blessings on my hard drive. I like to use them both in poetry studies and Irish cultural studies. The above blessing is perhaps the most famous.

Full of thoughtful goodwill, Irish Blessings are a lovely way to practice poetry in a new way--with wishing the things you think nicest and best on others.

May there always be work for your hands to do.

May your purse always hold a coin or two.

May the sun always shine on your windowpane.

May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.

May the hand of a friend always be near you.

May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

May you be blessed with the strength of heaven

The light of the sun and the radiance of the moon

The splendor of the fire

The speed of lightning

The swiftness of wind

The depth of the sea

The stability of earth

And the firmness of rock

In addition to trying your hands at "regular" Irish Blessing poetry, you can also put twists on the topics. For example, this time of year is the beginning of baseball season and so my house is bustling with anticipation for that. Therefore, one year we wrote Irish Blessing-type poetry on the subject of baseball--blessings and best wishes for the game. 

For the first game of the season I wrote a silly little ditty of this type to go with some treats and handed them out on the bus.

My kids wrote some really great Baseball Irish Blessings, and I would share them with you if I could currently locate them, but I can't. The point is, though, you should give this poetry form a try.

Shamrock Appreciation

I'm not Irish. I'm not Catholic. I still feel traumatized by that whole "wear green or you'll get pinched" business from my childhood. For many years I just had no use for St. Patrick's Day (except for trying to remember to wear green, which was tough because I never had much in the way of green apparel). But one of the blessings of homeschooling, for me, is being able to pursue insatiable curiosity and expanding previous horizons for the benefit of my children. Thus learning more about the man Patrick and his life's work and coming to really appreciate who he was.

I admire Patrick's life of selfless service and his missionary heart, even after being liberated from his captors. I really like how he used the shamrock to teach the Holy Trinity. After all, Christ also used the common to teach the divine. 

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I don't believe in the Holy Trinity as Patrick would have explained it, but I do believe in the Godhead, which is similar, with a few distinct differences. I find the shamrock an excellent symbol for the Godhead, three distinct holy beings who are one in purpose.

With that in mind, I have in years past taught this to my kids and had them create something based on this. The goal was to find pictures representing members of the Godhead and incorporate those pictures with a shamrock. Here are some of the creations.

Sprinkles O'Shivers and the Other Leprechauns

Looking for a fun, festive nod at Saint Paddy's Day that's also pretty easy?

Walmart carries packages of 16-page blank books that are ready for creating stories. Kids love to write "real" books. I purchased a stack of these a while back and for this project gave each kid a blank book and a sheet of leprechaun stickers. The objective was to write/create a picture book using the stickers as inspiration and aid in illustration. 

Of course, you don't want to put things in official book form until the plot, grammar, spelling, and punctuation are perfect, so this project lends itself perfectly to learning to work through drafts and proofreading.

For extra fun, use something like this leprechaun name chart my son found while looking for "authentic" names for his story. 

Sick Day Prep Kit for When Mom is Down

Ugh. This "new year" continues to be something else for me. I've got some health issues that are turning things--almost literally--upside down right now. But homeschooling moms can't be "Man Down" for long without repercussions, so we've been on Plan B and Plan C this week, some of which includes doing our group unit study schoolwork in the evenings when I tend to feel better than the rest of the day right now.

The roller coaster ride of the past week is causing me to dust off and share an old article I wrote, so you can think and plan ahead for your own upside down weeks, which will certainly come. This was originally published in The Sentinel in February of 2010.

Sick Day Preparation Kit

It’s inevitable.  No matter how meticulous you are in your eating habits and hygiene; no matter how careful you are in your activities; and especially the more you have planned and scheduled—there will be sick days.  They come in all shapes and sizes, seasons and spells.  Sometimes they’re simply “sick of school” days.  Whatever the scope, it’s best to be ready for the subsequent disruption.

Seasoned homeschool moms will tell you that when there is illness, it’s time to rest through reading.  Children can lie snuggled in blankets, near compassionate Mother who is reading aloud to everyone.  It’s a nice picture, but what if it’s Mom who is sick?  What if Mom’s head is pounding and eyeballs throbbing? What if her throat hurts or she’s hacking or has lost her voice? What if there are younger children who are sick and need Mother’s full attention while older siblings who are healthy and wanting to be active can’t stand reading another minute?  That’s when it’s time to pull out your Sick Day Preparation Kit.

The idea is to have a secret stash of engaging educational items that are fresh and inviting, but which don’t require much supervision from Mom.  These can be one-time consumables, or objects which can be used over and over again but which may only “come out to play” on sick days. They can even be new items to add to a favorite family collection such as a new puzzle, card or board game, or Quantum Leap cartridge.  The point is to have an attention grabbing, time occupying diversion that frees up Mom to either heal or be healed, but which enriches the child in the pursuit.

This bit of inspiration came to me during my last illness, when I was horribly sick in bed for a week while the other 6 members of my family were fabulously, vivaciously healthy.  I could barely move or even talk and wanted nothing more than silent slumber.  My precious ones could only handle so much of my checking out.  They were bored and “Mommy lonely.”  At last they were taking to mischief when they found some science kits I’d tucked away to do together “someday,” as well as a special recipe book (The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions by John E. and Danita Thomas) that had always been on the shelf but which lay forgotten.  Long story short, many happy hours thus passed wherein I rested peacefully while my children turned mad scientist, laughing and learning quite independently.  When I finally came to, I realized that my illness and those activities were an ideal match.  I much preferred the kids making those messes when I was too sick to care about it.  I had been waiting for the perfect day to do those things—when the kitchen was “ready,” when there was no hurry or other distraction, when I felt like it, when the stars aligned.  It turns out the perfect day was when I was sick!

It might sound daunting or expensive to make a Sick Day Preparation Kit, but it really doesn’t have to be.  Plenty of great items can be found at the dollar store, or in a bargain bin.  You don’t have to rush right out and buy, buy, buy.  Just pick something up here and there when you find it and tuck it away for that future emergency.

Other suggestions to get you started:

*Pictureka!—a game even very young children can play happily by themselves

*Crayola’s Model Magic

*Disposable cameras—let kids take pictures of their toys or anything that strikes their fancy

*Special snacks

*Simple models

*Easy all-in-one craft kits 

*Paint with water books

*The History Channel’s Modern Marvels DVDs, the Magic School Bus DVDs, or any educational video viewing your family would enjoy.

And if you find yourself with a scratchy throat but still needing to read aloud, I recommend Ricola’s Natural Honey Lemon with Echinacea Throat Drops.  Be prepared and get well!

Parable of the Pencil

A pencil maker gave the pencil five important lessons just before putting it in the box:

1.  Everything you do will always leave a mark.

2.  You can always correct the mistakes you make.

3.  What is important is what is inside of you.

4.  In life, you will undergo many painful sharpenings, which will only make you better.

5.  To be the best pencil, you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the hand that holds you.

We all need to be constantly sharpened. This parable encourages you to know that you are a special person with unique God-given talents and abilities. Only you can fulfill the purpose which you were born to accomplish. Never allow yourself to get discouraged and think that your life is insignificant and cannot be changed. And, like the pencil, always remember that the most important part of who you are is what's inside of you. And then allow yourself to be guided by the hand of God.

(Wish I knew who gets credit for this, but I don't. Good things to think about...)

Pickles Poetry

I recently challenged some students to write more poetry (see last page), beginning with a "Roses are red..." format just to get started. I loved what two of Pickles' daily strips did with it this week. (And thanks to my 14yo for pointing it out to me!)

Has mayonnaise made the world a better place?  It's sure made my world better!  

Favorite Picture Books for St. Patrick's Day

Once upon a time there weren't many books for St. Patrick's Day. As our society has increased its marketing mayhem of anything and everything, there has been an increase in reading material, but much of it is just nonsense. These two books, however, are gems.