From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah and Hannah FUNGI MOLD

Wow I haven't posted in a few weeks....why? Because I am crazy busy. I don't even have time to mentally recap what we've done let alone blog. But I have literally 15 minuets to spare tonight so I am going to quickly blog.

The boys and I (yes add Hannah in that too) are way up to our eyeballs with school. It's good but man we have a lot to cover. In January we added a few more kids to our amazing Science learning adventure. On Wednesday we have a few other homeschool boys come over for some experiment fun. It's a blast. They really love it. We finished bacteria and this month have moved on to FUNGI!

Here are the boys writing down their observations to the mold growing on a piece of bread. This mold had been growing in my kitchen for over a week. The things I do in the name of learning!!!

I am not kidding this bread was something to be studied. It was furry!! The boys then took some and prepared a slide to check out under the microscope. Mold is a fungus....it needs something to feed on to grow. My kids are going to try to grow mold on other food items....can't wait!
The next two pictures are the extra bonus our family gets for homeschooling. Here is Isaiah 11 reading to Hannah 2. The relationships my kids have with each other just blows me away. Not to say it's always peace and butterflies, sometimes honestly it's WW 111. But in these moments it just makes me well up with emotions of pure JOY!
Here's Isaiah helping Elijah with his math. I was pulled away trying to get Hannah down for her afternoon nap. Isaiah stepped in to help Elijah. I loved it! THESE are the moments that the Lord uses to whisper to my heart "keep going, stay focused on ME, I am doing a good work" AMEN!

From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah and Hannah

The weeks seem to go by more quickly each week. It really astounds me. I think I've said to many people this month "It seems like a weeks is a a day to me" It's Friday...AGAIN! With life moving so fast I guess it's easy to loose sight that the kids are growing just as fast as time is passing. It makes me sad, excited, confused and confident all at the same time.

I LOVE having my kids home with me every day. I love that I am part of their lives, not just their mom. I love that even though my 11 year old son is growing and changing he still comes to snuggle and has deep conversations with me about God, sports, and girls! My soon to be 8 year old son thinks I am the most beautiful woman ever. He freely hugs and kisses me. And then my 2 year old daughter who is as strong willed as I have ever seen, is saying EVERYTHING, new words, old words, complete sentences, it's always amazes me the things she says. Right now it's "Mommy are you happy?" (usually when she is doing something that does not make me happy) "Mommy are you happy? Let me see" Adorable!

Having them home all together is the most precious part of homeschooling. Yesterday for an hour the three of them played with couch cushions. The laughed, they squealed, they made a big mess. And there was a little voice inside me that said "ok these kids need to get to their school work" I quickly silenced it and watched them play in delight.

I delight in God's plan for our family!

So here are some fun pictures from our week....

Hannah is our little chef. She made bagel pizzas for lunch. She loved it. Look how precise she is with that sauce.

And lots and lots of cheese.

I think they were a hit!

"oh Mommy sa' good" she said.

I got this super huge ink pad for Hannah. I found some horse stamps at a second hand store over the the summer for .50 Who knew how much fun it would be?

ANOTHER cute find was this adorable Tupperware set. It looks just like the set we have but smaller. I love how Elijah wanted to sit with her and play "tea" party.

She had to line the cups up!

Ok on to some serious science! The boys are studying bacteria. Our first experiments involved swabbing our teeth and taking a look under the microscope...VERY eye opening. Our next was to swab the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink and grow our finds in a petri dish....the result. The petri dish on the left is bacteria from the bathroom sink and on the right from the kitchen sink....again very EYE opening.

Loved Isaiah's reaction!

We've invited some friends who also home school to join us once a week for some fun science experiments. Here's the group watching a video on how quickly bacteria multiply.

We did experiments dealing with how germs spread from hands to surfaces. I ordered this special gel and black light the simulates that process. The kids had a blast with this. The next experiment is in the works. We swabbed three hands. One hand had not been washed, another had been washed with soap and water and the last hand used hand sanitizer. We are waiting to see which works the best, of the three. You'll have to check back next week to find out. I commented to another mom "Science was never this fun for me in school" They all were disappointed when it was time to wrap up and that was over an hour of non stop learning. LOVE it!

From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah and Hannah

So our first week back to school after a much deserved and well received Christmas break went good. I give us a B+. LOTS of work was done, and hopefully some of it was enjoyable! Hannah has really changed over the past few weeks. She may be 2 but on the inside she thinks she's 6 or at least 5. Part of having an enjoyable day with her is not to overlook her desire to be counted. She is talking in sentences and is very clear in letting us know how she feels and what she wants. She's NOT a baby! I have to keep telling myself "she may be "the baby" but she's not "a baby" Now if only her independence and maturity would spill over into potty training!!

Here are some highlights!

Indoor water play is a favorite of Hannah's. Although her complaint this week " I want a boat" Gee!
This little wheel thing is awesome. It works with water, sand and rice!
The boys are studying genetics this week. We read all about Mendel's experiments with peas. Then we took a closer look at a fake family. We determined traits but flipping coins to represent each parent and then figured out what their children would look like.

Our chart

The family. It was super fun.

Hannah and I made my Gram's chocolate chip cookies.

Many chocolate chips were consumed before the cookies went into the oven.

She insisted on scooping the dough onto the pan herself.

After a few tries she actually did get the hang of it...well at least the licking of her fingers.

Perfect every time.

We viewed the "dna" of carrots.

The "ghostly" strands are it.

Hannah has never had her hair cut. It was getting SUPER long, way down her back but the front hasn't been able to catch up, so I decided to have the back trimmed up. She got about 3 inches taken off. She would NOT sit in the chair. The hairstylist tried everything to get her sit. Even putting her beloved puppy in the chair and pretending to give him a haircut. She eventually did sit but only with me.
Mommy and Hannah showing off her new cut. You can't really see it here, but I promise it's shorter. I think she has her mommy's hair because of how fast it grows, so in a few months it will be just as long again.

From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah and Hannah Cells part 3

First up HANNAH! She is just changing so much. Talking, it seems like she says everything, or at least tries to. She is so FUNNY! I love that about her. I appreciate her mischievous sense of humor. I pulled out the finger paints for the first time with Hannah. I can't believe she's over 2 and this is the first time she's finger painted. I knew it would be interesting because she HATES having her hands messing. But she did good. I had to have a box of wipes right next to her so she could was her fingers off at will. But it was super cute.

"Red and Blue" she knows all her colors.

"Look Mommy Mess"

Elijah has been studying knights and castles....I DO not enjoy this time period and will be very happy to move on but I thought we could have some fun while we're here. Elijah made his shield with his own personalized coat of arms.
My plan was just the shield. But Elijah had other plans...helmet and sword. He had a blast. And I did too!


Time to watch how carrots absorb water...sort of like the celery experiment with the celery.
Two carrots, one in blue colored water the other in just plain water to compare. Let them sit overnight.
Carrot experiment 2...take two pieces of carrots, tie string super tight on each one.
One carrot will go into a glass of salt water the other will go in a plain glass of water. Very much like the potato and bean experiment we did. Let them sit over night.
The next day they took out their carrots and compared. The water carrot was much firmer than the salt carrot. And the string on the water carrot was still super tight, and the the string on the salt carrot slid right off.
To see how the water traveled up the carrot they slices in sideways in half.
3 dishes....one dog drool sample (thanks Axle) And two boy drool samples, Isaiah and Elijah. Who has the cleaner mouth dog or human? We let our specimens grow for about 3 days....
The results? Axle had by far less bacteria, than Isaiah and Elijah. Now some bacteria is good, the boys concluded Axle had the cleaner mouth.

From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah CELLS part 2

Bring on the science fun!!It's a race! Well sort of...we wanted to watch some celery tissue carry water up the stalk to the leaves. We cut the celery up the middle, placed one half in a blue water and the other half in red water. And we waited.....
This experiment allows you to see the process of osmosis in action.
I only added the above picture because Elijah looked SOOO cute in it. We sliced a potato,placed one slice in regular water and the other in salt water and WAITED.
The potato slice in the fresh water became a little stiffer, while the potato in salt water became rather flimsy. The water outside the cell is saltier than the water inside, water will move from the inside of the cell to the outside. As the water left the cell it was like letting the air out of a balloon. As more and more of the cells lost water, the slice of potato became soft and flexible. If the water inside was saltier, the opposite happens, and some water goes into the cells, stiffening them up.

We also did it with beans

Checking out the results of the celery race. the blue and the red seem to be neck and neck.
We weren't seeing the leaves of our celery change color as quickly as we wanted to see decided to get white carnations....the result?
How many cotton balls can you fit in a full glass of water without spilling any of the water? Isaiah 4 Elijah 5.
The cell wall organelle supports and protects the cell. Cell walls have small holes, called pores, in them. This lets water, nutrients, and other substances into the cell.

Keep going...

Final count...Isaiah 27 Elijah 34....that's a lot of cotton balls.

In this experiment, you were able to get the cotton balls in the water because cotton balls are mostly air. Even the strands of cotton are mostly air, because the strand is just the cell wall from the cotton plant.
Here are our flowers. We're going to let them hang out for the week and see them change more.

Super cool!