Hi Everyone!
It's been a little quiet around here, I know. Just super busy is all. One time I read that a person homeschooling is basically running a private school full time in their home, in addition to everything else that goes along with running a household. This thought made a lot of sense to me! In addition, for me, there are very few commercially made foods that I can eat, so that means I am making almost all our food from scratch as well. I don't mind--in fact, I enjoy all of it--but there ARE days that it rather seems like I am trying to get a drink of water out of a fire hydrant! ;)
Anyway, I thought I would share a project my daughter and I did together last week. Believe it or not, this honestly was a suggested project in her Physics/Chemistry book. If only we had projects like this in MY textbooks when "I" was in school!
We are using the Apologia Physics/Chemistry elementary level book, and enjoying it very very much. My daughter has a special interest in Physics--she is 10, and at this point in her life she says she wants to be a Physicist when she grows up. She very well may do just that, I have no doubt. We'll see where God leads her. But reguardless of whether she stays with that as a career choice or not, last Spring she came to me all on her own, and told me that I needed to teach her Physics. Umm, I think she may have gotten the wrong parent here. I mean, her dad is a Chemist, and he could probably do a great job of teaching her Physics. But since he has a full time job teaching, and I happen to be the only teacher home with her each day, when I turned around to see whom she was addressing I didn't find anyone else to look at except me! ;) Fortunately, God enables, and He also has many creative people out there who have written wonderful Christian based Science books! So after using some great free on-line things for a couple of months, God led me to find the Apologia Physics/Chemistry book over Christmas time as I was brousing in a used book store. I am familiar with the Apologia company, having used their high school level books with our son--and I had used one of their elementary level books with our daughter before (Astronomy), but I had had no idea that they had even come out with a Physics/Chemistry book! But God knew!
There are way more experiments and projects in each chapter than one could possibly do, so we have fallen into the routine of my daughter reading the chapter on Monday, and she chooses which experiments or projects from the chapter that she is interested in doing herself. Some of the experiments there are on-line videos of that they can watch, so even if you are not doing all of them you can see many of them being done. And you guessed it--when she saw the "make your own periodic table out of sugar cookies" project that just had to be the project that she choose for that chapter! One hundred and twelve sugar cookies later, seven different colors of frosting made so we could model the different sections of the table, it was finally finished! It took us all day--I mean, ALL day long, with time out for one quick shopping trip to find frosting we could write with (Walmart has icing specifically for writing! I didn't know this, as I do not hang out in the cake decorating section of the baking isle!) Overall, it was a blast! I admit to groaning a bit when she told me which project she wanted to do, but I am SO glad we did it!
So in the day to day grind, when I have to say "No" or "Not now" to so many requests that she makes, I hope she remembers that sometimes, just sometimes, mommy said "Yes!" and we spent the day squishing cookie dough and creating something unique!
And if you are homeschooling an elementary level child, I do highly recommend the Apologia science books. She has already picked out the Physics experiment for this new week. It has something to do with chocolate chip cookie dough. . . I think I am seeing a pattern here! ;)
Have a wonderful week with your Savior--and remember to spend quality time with the child in your life. Afterall, Jesus thought they were priceless. You too!
~Susan
