Both art and craft

Do not attempt to refresh your browser.  You are on the Smithey Science Academy page, and yes, we did both art and craft today.  Frankly, the whole Spanish language is great and all, but the real reason my kids go to school twice a week is so I don't have to feel guilty for never doing art with them.  Glitter and paint are really not my thing.

Our water study has been going well, but now it's time for the tricker concepts: evaporation and condensation.  We began with the classic puddle experiment (making me miss my days at Michigan - we  talked so much about this concept in the elementary ed class I taught).  We poured a small amount of water on a plate and traced the water.  We predicted what would happen throughout the day.

Then we (gasp) did some painting.  We used a "wet-in-wet" watercolor method and talked about how the paint spread when it hit the wet paper and what we expected to happen to our paper as it dried...and where that water went!  This came from an old favorite: Art and Science Connections.

Zoe practiced reading some color and fall words.

We read some of our library books about Nigeria and learned that the Yoruba people dye their fabrics indigo.  So we did some tie dyeing of our own!  We are very anxious to see the results but are waiting until morning to untie them. (Note the craft!)

Our favorite book about Nigeria so far has been The Village of Round and Square Houses.  We liked the idea of girls living in one place and boys in the other, but the volcano was the real draw.  I still struggle with how to present cultural stories that give explanations for scientific phenomena.  I glossed over that part of the story, but it will continue to come up as we read stories from around the world.

Below you can see girls in the round house, boys in the square house (some boys have no hair) and Fairy Zoe with big wings in between.

After rest time, we were astonished to see no water on our plate!  

We learned the word "evaporate" - not disappear - and talked about water being in the air.  We also were impressed with how dry our paintings were and how our t-shirts were still wet but not as wet as when they were in the sink.  Some days, it all ties together nicely...

But maybe the coolest thing today, was Lucy wrote her name by herself!  In the afternoons, they sometimes ask to do "just a little bit of homeschool" and I found www.twistynoodle.com where you can print out a ton of pictures and modify the text at the bottom.  Big hit!  What a big girl.