Stalking the Wild M&M

Last week, we finished our first science lesson of the semester. It was an introductory lesson on zoology and Ella loved it. She loves animals so she couldn't wait to start this new curriculum. In fact, I was waiting to start it until she finished her science report on Sea Urchins from last semester. The day she finished the report she asked to start the next book. Yay for science!

At the end of the lesson we got to do an experiment on camouflage. It was fun, educational and didn't require a huge shopping list. Plus it involved chocolate...so I'm in. I got this experiment out of Apologia's Land Animals of the Sixth Day: Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 textbook.

So if you're looking for a fun activity for your science days, here's an idea:

1) Dump out a bunch of M&M's (I went with dark chocolate flavored because, um, I'm the mom and I get to pick) and then sort them into color groups. You need to have the same number of M&M's in each group.



2) Create a wild M&M habitat. You'll need a laundry basket or other habitat container and construction paper in three M&M matching colors. We went with brown, green and orange. Yep, we pretty much set those blue M&M's up for failure. Tear the construction paper into strips and then crumple up the strips and toss them into the basket.



3) Mix up the color sorted M&M's and gently scatter them in the habitat. I say gently because if you just dump them in they will all sink to the bottom.

4) Turn your M&M stalker loose to search for as many M&M's as he/she can find in 2 minutes.



5) Count how many of each color M&M was found. Theoretically, your M&M hunter will have located more of the M&M's that didn't have matching construction paper for camouflage, thus demonstrating the important of camouflage for animals in the wild. Theoretically.

We actually had to do this experiment twice because the first time Ella didn't see this as an opportunity for scientific learning as much as she saw it as "Candy, candy, candy!" So the first time she just shoved the paper out of the way and scooped up all the M&M's that fell to the bottom of the basket. But, after a bit more explaining of the purpose of the experiment, and an assurance that she would in fact get to eat some of the captured M&M's, we did it a second time and lo and behold the numbers worked out.

The only downside...the sugar rush that followed. Note to self, Jack should not be given M&M's unless he's outside and has a very long distance to run.

My Children are Spies

Well, maybe not official CIA endorsed spies, but they're definitely on the way. Today they each got binoculars in the mail. As I have mentioned, we're studying birds and flying things for science so to make it really interesting (and because I'm just a super cool mom) I ordered a kids field guide and binoculars for each of them. I love Amazon.com. And I didn't even get paid for that plug...that's how much I love Amazon. Where else could you get a duvet cover for a dog bed, marshmallows, a Shamwow and a sump pump all in one place and with free shipping?

*Note...that wasn't the actual contents of my shopping cart. Just so we're clear. Ahem....anyway...

So today the box with the smiley face logo arrived and we were all excited. Jack got a pair of kids binoculars. The ones that the manufacturer swears will survive the catastrophic drops, crashes and bangs that a 3 year old can inflict. Ella got a grown-up pair of "binocs." That's right, I said it...binocs. That's the way we roll out here. She loves them. They make me laugh (not to her face of course) because they are so huge on her little face.

Anyway, as soon as the cool new gadgets were out of their boxes, the kids had them glued to their eyes. So here they are, my adorable children standing in front of our kitchen window, both with binoculars up, staring out at our neighbor's house. Technically I think they were looking at a tree and searching for birds, but to drivers passing by I'm pretty sure it looked like they had our across the street neighbors under heavy surveillance.

So here's hoping that our bird watching doesn't turn into a Homeland Security investigation.

Scientific Proof That I'm Right

Once again the schools are closed today due to snow. And once again the merciless mommy is making her kids do schoolwork. And I think I'll be able to get away with it until Ella is old enough to talk on the phone with her friends and figure out that when it snows this much they don't have to do anything school related. Then I might be in trouble. But until then...bwaahahahaha!!

Many thanks to those of you who asked if Ella finished her work card or if she had to pull a math marathon. She did a great job and finished everything by Friday afternoon. And I mean early afternoon, not "4:59 and 59 seconds still counts as afternoon" afternoon.

One of our last adventures of the week was our first science experiment. We're using Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day for her science text so we're learning all about birds and critters with wings which, unfortunately for me, also includes insects and other creepy crawly things that have mastered flight. Ick. Anyway, our first experiment was to make two different gliders out of cardboard and straws and see which wing design was more aerodynamic.

Ella loved this and couldn't wait to test fly her gliders. First she had to fill out an experiment worksheet where she had to write her hypothesis. She guessed that the narrow glider would fly further because most planes have long narrow wings. I peeked ahead in the text so I knew that the long narrow wing is more aerodynamic, but I was more than a little worried about whether our backyard experiment would work out that way. Ella would have to toss both gliders the exact same way to accurately measure which one went further. I'll admit it, I was pondering ways to rig the experiment if necessary. Now I'm not proud of skewing scientific research for the greater good (*cough* United Nations), but I was willing to to toss the gliders myself with a little extra oomph on the narrow one if it came to that.

But dear friends, never fear, my integrity is still intact. It turns out that the laws of science can't be thwarted, not even by an enthusiastic 7 year old. The narrow wing glider won hands down. And when we sat down to complete Ella's worksheet and I asked her what her conclusion was she said, "That I was right!"

Binomial What?

I know, it's Saturday. There should be no scientific terms used during the weekend and I apologize. But today when I got Jack down for a nap, which is a minor miracle in and of itself these days, Ella had a question for me.

"Mommy, can we do my science lesson now?"

Now not even I, The Merciless Mommy, Denier of Snow Days, had planned any schoolwork for today. But, how do you say no when a 7 year old wants to study. So I broke out the book and we sat down for a lesson. We're doing zoology, which is the only reason she wanted to have a lesson. She is nuts for animals. In fact, she wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up...and a champion figure skater and a mommy.

So I'm reading about zoology, taxonomy and binomial nomenclature and my brain screamed "you already have a college degree stop reading big words!" Again, I'm not sure which of us in school because today I learned all about animal classification and the Latin names for animals. Would you like to get smarter today as well? Great, here's your lesson:

Do you remember anything about animal classification? You know kingdom, phylum, etc. Yeah, neither did I. Anyway, they gave us a helpful mnemonic device for remembering the order of all the groups for classification. "Kings Play Chess On Fine Glass Sets." Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Ah, can you feel the smart cells growing?

Of course the next question asked Ella to come up with her own mnemonic. She went with Kids Play Checkers On Fine Gold Sets. And while I admire her upgrading the sets from glass to gold, I however would have gone another way with my mnemonic. Such as "Killer Penguins Chewed Off Franny's Green Shoes." But that's just me.

Feel free to post your mnemonic in the comments...but keep it clean please.