Summer Camp Week 6

Miss Roo

On Sunday night I asked Riley what this week was going to be and she replied without hesitation: "Lego Mania!" When I pressed her (assuming she was just making something up) she insisted, "Lego Mania, mom we'll play with just Legos!" The calender reveled it was "Game Show Mania." Hence the confusion, Roo has never seen a game show. When we tried to describe it Roo said, "You mean like Wild Kratts on the Kindle?" We told her no, that was a game not a game show. Then she said "Oh, like Wild Kratts on Netflix." We explained that was a show, but not a game show at which point she got bored and left. I had a few moments of feeling old at that point, who watched Game Show Network? I loved those cheesy 70's shows.

They learned about being good sports, trying new things, working as a team and playing fair this week. Riley explained how team apple won and got to pick from the treasure box and then later team orange (her team) won and "only got stickers." We discussed how we should be happy for our friends when they win. She was super sweet about it.

Isaac

Isaac spent some time watching documentaries about storm chasers and making a robotic hand. He also finished the library's summer reading challenge and collected his invitation to the end of the summer party! We also saw a rather impressive magic show at the library this week. It was quite humorous and the magician explained some tricks to teach some scientific concepts. Isaac also wrote an interesting story about living in a colony Mars that I quite enjoyed.

Week Six Video Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up Questions
1. What did you learn that you didn't know before?
2. What was the worst part of your week?
3. What was the best part of your week?
4. What was your favorite meal?
5. What was the weather mostly like?
6. What was your favorite activity/project?
7. How many books did you read?
8. What were they called?
9. Which book was your favorite?
10. Where are some places you went this week?

Sorry about my shaky camera work, gang.

Ready, Set, Camp!

First Day Smiles!

Miss Roo's summer camp is at her regular preschool. She gets to be with her friends and teachers from the school year, but this time...she's in the VPK classroom. She's thrilled to be a big kid! Their theme is Cruising into Summer! They have a big cruise ship on the wall and they go to a different port every few days. They even have a suitcase with objects they can velcro on to pack for the trip and a passport they get stamped. Fun stuff, right?

Here's Miss Roo on her first day. Her teacher had attached star balloons to each seat with the kids names to help them find their seats, cute and clever! At the end of the day she got to take her balloon home. That wasn't her only swag during the week either, on Wednesday she brought home leis for her and I. Such a sweetie. They are super on the ball (which I've come to expect after a pleasant school year.) and even had a photo collage up when I came to pick her up on the first day.

Wet Wednesday

Another fun change for summer is that every other week is wet Wednesday! She got to wear her bathing suit to school thrill beyond thrills! They had buckets of water and a bunch of sponges on the playground. Fun stuff! Riley drew her friends having Wet Wednesday on my chalk board. Later in the week she kept drawing herself and a friend holding sponges dripping water, so adorable!

Happy Friday!

Isaac's Week

Isaac and I decided we would do a weekly video wrap up this summer. Wrap up questions:

Weekly Wrap Up
1. What did you learn that you didn't know before?
2. What was the worst part of your week?
3. What was the best part of your week?
4. What was your favorite meal?
5. What was the weather mostly like?
6. What was your favorite activity/project?
7. How many books did you read?
8. What were they called?
9. Which book was your favorite?
10. Where are some places you went this week?

Here he is to sum it up. I thought about editing the noisy 4yr old, but I decided to leave it uncut.

Ready, Set, Read!

Every summer the library launches a summer reading campaign. They have special shows and activities to encourage kids to check out and read books. They even have an incentive chart school age kids can fill out to earn prizes! The kick off event this time was an awesome science demonstration complete with liquid nitrogen, fire and rockets!

It was a great show. It was sponsored by the science museum I had just taken the kids to over Memorial Day weekend. Those are my little scientists front and center in the pink and green. They really enjoyed themselves! After the show they had a raffle and gave 10 lucky kids a brand new chapter book! Guess whose number was the first one picked!

Isaac got a new Geronimo Stilton book called Curse of the Cheese Pyramid. He was over the moon! That's the second time he's been the first winner called at a library raffle, lucky boy. Riley didn't get called, but I had just given her my last free book from the Kellogg's rewards free book program. It's a Ready Freddy series book about Sharks. She had been looking at it on the way to the library so she was ok not getting called. Oddly enough they called the number right before and right after hers.

After the raffle Riley made a rocket ship with shiny star stickers while Isaac read his new book. I've said it before and I say it a thousand more times, I love the library! Where else can you have this much fun for free? Aside from the fun summer programs and shows the kids and I agreed we'd visit the library once a week this summer (at least).

Science Camp Week One Wrap Up

Isaac has successfully completed Beginning Lego Robotics. Pretty Cool. He actually owns the Lego Robotics set, but since Santa dropped it of it was mostly collecting dust. He learned to build and program a robot from scratch. He even learned about audio and light sensors. They had sumo tournaments where their creations went head to head. He said taking his creation apart on Friday was sad, but deleting the code he had written was sadder! Possible future career? I think so.(CORRECTION) He'll be learning C.S.I. Forensics and tackling Intermediate Lego Robotics next week.

He calls this one Katrina.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!!

We woke up and excitedly dawned our Seuss-y-est attire. Riley wore her Cat in the Hat dress and I borrowed Mike's Grinch shirt. First, we headed off to the Dr. Seuss Book Bash at our library.

After the festivities there, we went home for lunch. The menu? You guessed it. Green eggs and ham!!

We read One Fish Two Fish before nap. After nap we made Oobelck! Click for the recipe. It's very easy and fast to make, but dried corn starch takes awhile to clean up. It's not difficult to clean up just time consuming. I'm told you can save it and reconstitute it with a little water, but I didn't try it.

It was A LOT of fun. We added a splash of extract to the recipe so it smelled nice too. Riley made pink coconut scented Oobleck. Isaac decided to stay true to the book and make his green. He attempted to make his smell like root beer, but it was subtle.

Today was good.
Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one

"Lorraine I Am Your Density"

After two weeks off (one for behavior issues and one for Science Camp) Molecular Monday returns. Let's be honest for a moment, I was all gung ho when summer started, but now I'm counting the days until school starts again like everyone else. I'm burning out on all this one on one with an angst almost 10yr old. Less than prepared to start this week I picked up a book of Isaac's called The Way Science Works and flipped through it until I found an experiment that didn't require a trip to the store or a big clean up. So "The Effect of Heat on Density" was the winner.

Water Volcano

Materials

• Large Glass Jar/Vase
• Smaller bottle
• String
• Food coloring
• Tap Water

As usual I found the experiment directions incredibly vague. They simply tell you to fill the larger vessel 3/4 of the way with cold water. So, our first attempt we did just that. It was a flop. It needs to be full enough that the smaller bottle is completely submerged.

Once you've got the larger vessel filled with cold tap water to a level that will submerge your smaller bottle fill the small bottle with hot tap water. Dish washing temperature is perfect. Than secure the string around the bottle and drop in some food coloring. We used yarn and red food coloring. The string is the handle you use to lower the bottle to the bottom of the vase. The food coloring makes the effect visible.

That's all there is to it. Be careful not to tilt your bottle lowering it in. The hot water will escape upward erupting into the bigger container. It slows down and stops as the temperature equalizes.

Why it works:Cold water molecules are closely packed together. They do not have enough energy to move far. As water heats up, the molecules gain energy. If enough heat is applied, they will fly off to become water vapor. The colored hot water rises because it is less dense than the surrounding cold water. The Way Science Works

Re-Charging the Batteries

Today's Molecular Monday topic was you guessed it batteries. Before we got science-y we did some word work. I noticed over the course of the last two weeks that Isaac reads every word on the dictionary page rather than using the guide words. We look up any work we come across that he doesn't know and then I pick one to be a bonus word in his writing prompt that week. He gets a .30 bonus on his allowance if he properly uses his bonus word. Anyway, this morning I gave him his first ever dictionary scavenger hunt hoping it would be a fun way to improve his dictionary speed.

He did well, but I printed it off the computer and two of the words there were questions about weren't in his dictionary. We looked those up in mine later. After that he wrote a story about going into space and what he'd pack, how he'd prepare and where he'd go. It turned out lovely, maybe my favorite of the summer. He had an eclectic packing list as expected, but his preparations were fairly logical. Then he took his rocket ship for a tour of extreme weather in space (mainly Mars and Jupiter). He even got his bonus word in there (it was scavenge).

Then after lunch it was science time! We read about Volta, discussed the evolution of batteries and made a lemon battery.

It wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. You feel a litte tingle so you've produced a current, but that's it. Mike and I looked, but couldn't find his voltage meter last night (which would have read .01). Apparently, it take 5 lemons to light an led bulb and would take 5,000 lemons to power a flashlight. The last picture is an illustration from The New Ways Things Work. It's a farmer harvesting giant lemons on mammoth back he has a zinc spear and the mammoth has a copper spear and when they use them on the lemon they get a shock. It's a wonderful book and we read the actual information below the humorous picture to end the experiment.

After that experiment Isaac filled out his physical activity pyramid with his exercise plan for the summer. Then we did a heart rate experiment. Which taught Isaac (after several tries) how to take a pulse. It taught me that Isaac is woefully out of shape! One minute of running in place and he was acting as if he'd run the Boston Marathon. After jumping jacks and incorrectly executed push-up he was acting faint. It was one minute each with rest in between. Daily laps around the yard from now on. Here he is contemplating his exercise program while munching a carrot stick.

To wrap up our day he's reading. I messed up. I requested all 15 of the summer reading list books at once because they all had between 60-200 holds on them already. Well, they started to come in 3-4 at a time. I just let him have them all regardless off due dates. Oopsie. Clearly, he should have only been able to read the ones due back soonest before I gave him the next group. So, with two he hadn't read due back Tuesday with no renewals I gave him a "Two Books in Two Days Challenge". I told him if he could read the two books between Sunday morning and Tuesday morning when we go back to the library he gets a $10 bonus on allowance and a whole day off from chores. He's well over halfway there. Go Isaac go!