The rest of the 2023-2024 school year

I do not have my science book in front of me, so I don't remember everything (I'm in Utah right now) but I want to get this blog-catch-up done with, so bare with me.

The first of the year, our first class was about crystals. I got the kind of crystals that grow really fast, and we had a crystal Christmas tree by the end of class! We also started my sugar crystal candy that I always do for this lesson. We also made borax crystals and we made snowflakes since they're crystals as well!

The next week we did soluble vs insoluble. We also talked about colloids. As part of this we made homemade mayonnaise. 

I don't have any photos of the next week, but I'm almost certain we learned about mixtures and compounds.

The next week we talked about chromatography, but I know that's no the only thing we talked about because it's never the only thing we talk about since I don't have very many lessons about it. We may have also talked about how to test for an element and did some testing for metals. -I might edit this blog when I get back home to my books-

The next week we talked about Ph scales. That was a fun week. We made Ph indicators using purple cabbage and we also made indicators using turmeric. 

(the days I have a lot of photos Amy Bay has come)

The next week I finished up teaching about the Ph scale by making "Butterfly Pea" tea which changes colour when you add honey. This was a BIG hit.

But then we changed gears completely. I had been kind of rushing through the chemistry lessons, and I had started them in the summer, so we had finished all the chemistry in my book, so I changed gears and we went back to learning about weather, because that was something I completely missed while sailing. Don't get me wrong, we got REAL world experience with weather, but I wanted to teach about it.

We learned, umm. I guessing from the photos that we learned about convection currents and air pressure. Yep. Pretty sure.

The next week we talked about air currents a lot more. We talked about how hot air rises and cold air falls. 

Later we even went out to the land and lit Chinese lanterns to celebrate this, however, those lanterns are a PAIN to light! ANd it was windy, so the lanterns went everywhere they shouldn't and it was amazing the Proffitts house didn't light on fire!!

Next time, do it when it's not windy and bring a BLOW TORCH!

The next week we talked about what happens when low pressure and high pressure come together. We even made a little storm in a jar.

The next week we talked about natural disasters caused by weather. Hurricanes, tornadoes, storm surges. etc. I think I needed those 2 litre pop bottles to create tornadoes, so I gave them all pop. I can't remember why else orange pop has to do with natural disasters. 

This was our last lesson about weather, and then we switched to learning about the earth's crust.

We talked about the layers of the earth's crust, and the next week we talked about the ways we can know what kind of rock it is and what it's made of, so we talked about the Moh scale and the sediment left behind in a scratch test and density and lots of things.

We were supposed to have one last class where we learned about earth quakes and fault lines, but my kids had the sniffles, and I was lazy, so I said we should just go to Frank Slide as a field trip instead. 

We did eventually go, but it took so long to get there and it was a bit of a nightmare, so it ended up to be just me and the Peavoys (but the Chelsey Bennitts went early enough....when we were supposed to be there.)

And besides my science club, we also had some pretty epic science experiences. There was the eclipse. Iw were far away from the totality area, but we did see the partial eclipse. We looked through awesome glasses and pin hole cameras we made out of cereal boxes.

Also, we saw some northern lights, however on the night with the strongest solar storms there were CLOUDS grrrrrr.

Also, our science crew found a baby bird that fell out of its nest and forgotten by it's mumma. We (the Roberts) tried to feed it until it was old enough to take care of itself, but sadly it died. But it was still educational. 

And that's it for Science for the school year! Whoo hoo!