What fun projects have you done so far this year?

[NanceXToo]

Have your kids done any projects that they've really enjoyed this year?

 

We've just completed our 3rd week of school. So far for 5th grade, my daughter is LOVING Environmental Science. She made a forest mural using different media (colored pencils, construction paper cutouts, craft leaves, magazine cutouts, etc) in which she included living and non-living things.

 

We buried a bunch of things in our yard yesterday after reading about decomposers. In 3 weeks, we'll uncover them and see if and how they've changed. Things like: An orange peel, an apple core, a quarter, a piece of styrofoam, a plastic baggie, a plastic spoon, and a piece of lettuce.

 

For social studies, she's made a wooden sailboat, made her own compass, made a diorama of Jamestown and a Pocahontas puppet. She's also been tracking her shadow stick (measuring the length of a stick's shadow once a week; after 6 weeks she's got to chart the differences).

 

Next week we'll be making and trying "hardtack" and making a simple "worm bin" (Ick)! :)

 

She says science is her favorite subject, followed by reading, and then math (she loves math now that we've started TT)! But I think she's been enjoying most of social studies, too- even though OM assigns a fair amount of writing assignments for social studies this year. My daughter is actually MUCH better this year, though, about doing writing assignments independently. So that's good!

 

I do love how many hands on things she gets to do in OM even in these "middle school" years! And the writing assignments are usually interesting and she gets a choice of things to write about.

 

So, what are the favorites in your house so far?

[blessed3x]

DS8 and my DH are building a castle. Love it!

 

http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Model-Building-Kit-Medieval/dp/B000VKR4X0

[Kebo]

My kids especially enjoyed making brownies in a solar oven.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

We've been learning about weather, and we made a rain gauge and kept a rain diary. We looked up average rainfall for this area and compared this month with the average.

 

We learned about wind in science and compass directions in geography, so we combined a lesson and took streamers outside to see which way the wind was blowing. We learned that wind can change direction frequently.

 

I traced the boys bodies on huge sheets of foam board, and each week we are learning about a different organ or body part. Then we color in a picture of the body part and glue it on our traced bodies.

 

These have been the big hits, so far.

[mcconnellboys]

We haven't done too much hands-on stuff yet. My son blew his own glass orb at a glass factory earlier. We've been playing with dangerous chemicals and haven't blown ourselves up yet (does that count)?

 

We've just finished some history related trips and are getting ready to do a series of chemistry related field trips over the month of October....

 

He's working on some new pieces for piano and is doing pottery in an art class, but we have no finished products just yet....

 

His favorites are, as always, history/lit and science (if he gets to do experiments). Favorite readings right now all have to do with the age of piracy: Gulliver's Travels; Dark Frigate; Treasure Island, etc....

[lisamarie]

Last week the kids made a dike out of rocks and dirt in a big pan. They poured water in one side to see if their dike would hold up which it did. I think they mostly liked the idea of playing in mud.:lol: (Our history lesson took us to Amsterdam where they saw a dike)

 

Yesterday we went to a nature center with 3 other HSing families and next week they will be making a mural of some of the things they saw--there was one up in the visitor center and they had used a 4x8 piece of bark as a tree trunk and crumbled up green tissue paper to make the leaves of a tree. My kids loved that and want to make their own trees.

[RamonaQ]

We made a monkey out of brother's sock to serve as a gift to the Egyptian Queen (from SOTW activity guide). Huge hit, and it turned out super cute!!!! It wasn't frustrating as other projects we have done, either!

 

We are aiming to have Friday be our SOTW project day. Science also has been going well...good stuff!

[Tree House Academy]

My older son is enjoying his water color paintings each week. He also loved making a hebrew head dress and eating a simple Hebrew meal that he made himself. We sat on the floor and ate off a blanket.

 

Younger ds has enjoyed watching his caterpillars turn into butterflies and his favorite Science experiment was the really easy pepper and dish soap one. :) Both of these are Elemental Science: Biology things.

 

We took a field trip to a local historical site and my kids got to try candle dipping, cooking over an open fire (like kettle cooking at the fireplace), and soap making.

 

We use HOD and we do lots of fun things every week. Some are more fun than others, but the kids love them all. This is the first year since we started homeschooling that I have actually been able to fit in the fun stuff!!

Edited September 26, 2010 by Tree House Academy

[Food4Thought]

We built a pyramid out of sugar cubes. The best part was creating a small mummy out of clay, then wrapping him up, complete with metal amulets between layers. DS made little jars for lungs & brain & heart too. Gruesome. :)

 

We also did self portraits (mine is my avatar) from Art Projects for Kids. That was a hit.

 

On the small critter side, we have several caterpillars currently in chrysalis stage, a small terrarium full of roly-polies/woodlice/pillbugs/whatever you call them, and we just let our worms go out of our worm jar. That one was fun.

[joannqn]

We've done a half dozen or so art projects from artprojects4kids.com, including the self-portraits mentioned by Food4Thought. One of the projects we did with some friends. Next week we have another friend joining us for art.

 

We've done a couple of science activities and experiments. A fun one was detecting chemical reactions with various household items (milk, vinegar, lemon juice, egg whites, salt water, and baking soda). I was suppose to give them two unknowns so I threw in cranberry juice and bleach which had a cool reaction with each other.

 

We've also done a couple of history activities from SOTW3. The kids liked making a play dough dike and pretending to be sea beggars. They made "Spanish doubloons" and played a game with them several times.

 

We also explored the tidal pools in Cannon Beach and got to see a rare dragonfly migration while camping over Labor Day.

[AK_Mom4]

Marshmellow molecules

[zaichiki]

Dd's hit has been craft-making every week in a fairy folklore class. She's also been baking bread. She calls it kitchen chemistry! Ha!

 

The boys have enjoyed raising fruitflies and working on science experiments together without me (the older one is running them for the younger one and helping him keep a log).

 

We borrowed an idea from friends: the kids made models of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells with model magic. They liked doing that!