What Preacher Guy? or Day 9

Yesterday afternoon as a reward for finishing his very first novel-read-for-pleasure, I asked George to tell me one thing he'd like to do today in homeschool. He quickly shouted, "NO MATH!"

(At the top of this blog I listed some of George's likes. Perhaps I should have listed his dislikes: math, fiction (lies!), competitive games of any sort, amusement park rides that go upside down, and all vegetables other than carrots. Not necessarily in that order.)

And so today was (begin booming announcer voice) Science Day!, though I may or may not have snuck some math in, just as I may or may not sneak veggies into spaghetti sauce and "banana" bread.

We did a lot of different science work, but our favorites were setting up a sugar water experiment (you'll hear more about that when we finish our observations in a week or so) and some introductory physics centered around simple machines.

For that we used How Machines Work, which is sort of a book-kit. Ignore the 3 star rating; I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK ENOUGH. It gives you a brief history of each discovery then details the practical usage through time. You can then build a simple model to see how it did, indeed, make life easier.

To demonstrate how gravity is a force operating against one during lifting (this arose during a discussion of ramps and pyramid building), I used a piece of iron ore (what, doesn't everyone have iron ore laying around the house?) and asked George to push it straight up then push it straight out. He reported straight out to be easier. Voila. Blame gravity.

On a non-scientific note, in lieu of reading a poem today George wrote a poem, using a color poem formula.

Purple looks like
Little flowers 
King robes 
Mommy's cellphone 
Loud trumpets sound purple 
That preacher guy 
Persian warriors 
Ice cold popsicle sticks taste purple 
Sweet grapes 
Funny looking eggplants 
Your soft cheek feels purple 
My yoga mat 
Petting the cat, her name is Hadley 
Purple makes me peaceful. 

nonfiction read & react: Meet Captain Underpants' creator: Dav Pilkey
math: NONE WHATSOEVER. NO SIRREE BOB.