Childcraft encyclopedias

We read and discuss the Childcraft encyclopedias about the ocean, animals, and dinosaurs. Gideon loves reading the sections on owls and on deep sea animals. He asks questions about herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores, and about ecosystems. He likes carnivores the best.

Drumheller museum

We visited the Drumheller museum and looked at the dinosaur bones. He asked lots of questions about the plesiosaurus and was very interested in the process of fossilization. We also discussed how dinosaur fossils are discovered and preserved and were able to watch archeologists working to clean dinosaur bones. We also discussed evolution, and how animals can change over time.

Hovercraft

Gideon and Jake and their Aunt Rebekah constructed a remote control hovercraft out of balsam wood and propellers. Gideon was very interested in how it worked, and we talked about lift and pressure and the mechanics of how the hovercraft is able to "float" on a cushion of air. We talked about how the propeller had to go really fast to move enough air, because air is so light and the hovercraft is much heavier. Gideon loved driving it around after it was built. We also talked about how the remote control worked off of electricity, and he thought the idea of radio waves telling the hovercraft how to move was pretty neat.

Wildcraft board game

We often play Wildcraft, a cooperative board game where the players learn about herbs and their uses an cooperation skills. While we played, we would introduce math skills by letting the boys to spin the wheel to find out how many squares to advance, then asking them to double that number to find out how far they could actually go. They would then count out the squares they had to move (from 2 to 12). Gideon was soon doubling numbers up to 6+6 in his head without counting on his fingers.

Calgary Science Centre

We took Gideon to the Calgary Science Centre. We learned how cartoons and movies were made, about air pressure, music, and pulleys. We talked about how you could use pulleys to leverage your strength, and Gideon thought it was pretty cool that he could be stronger than his dad.

We also used about inertia and momentum and velocity. Gideon had a lot of fun putting different size and shaped object on the spinning wheel and watching how long they could stay on.

Calgary Zoo

We have taken Gideon to the Calgary Zoo several times. He watched the zookeepers take the King penguins on a walk. We talked about the four different kinds of penguins and their different habitats. Gideon asked what a habitat was, and we explained that it was a place where an animal lives. Gideon asked if our house was our habitat.
We also visited the North America exhibit, and talked about bison and how the female bison looked different from the male bison. We also visited the wolf exhibit, and Gideon asked why wolves were so mean. We talked about how they were not vicious animals, but rather wild animals. We also visited several other exhibits, including the otters, the snow leopard, the monkeys, the giraffes, the hippos, the komodo dragons, and others.

Molecular movement, sedimentary rock

After our sedimentary experiment and our water experiments, we decided to combine them. We took two pots of water, one boiling and one cold, and put the chalk into each of them. Then we waited a few hours and checked to see which of them had formed more sediment. The pot with the boiling water already had a thin layer of sediment on the bottom, while the pot with the cold water had almost none. 

Water experiments

We talked about heat and molecular movement, and after our discussion, we tried an experiment to demonstrate the principles. We heated some water to boiling, and put it into one cup, and then poured cold water into another cup. Then we dripped food colouring into the two cups and watched what happened. As we had guessed, in the hot water, which had faster molecular movement, the food colouring dispersed very quickly. In the cup of cold water, however, the food colouring dispersed very slowly through the water.

Earth science, experiments

After reading about sedimentary rock and how it forms, Gideon took a soft chalk-like rock that he found, and we made sediment. We put it in a bucket with some water, and as the water evaporated, we watched the rock sediment form on the bottom of the bucket. 

Problem solving, construction, physical science

Constructing latches out of popsicle sticks and elastic bands to hook things together.