Homeschool Science Fair + Homeschool March

One of my only goals for 2021 was to host a Science Fair for our Homeschool Families. In August when we were starting school, I told everyone to plan on a science fair in February, even though with Covid, we weren't sure something like that would even be allowed. In January, I still wasn't sure that we would be able to do it. But by March, restrictions relaxed enough that we were able to make it happen and it was so wonderful!

We started with a Science Fair Kickoff. I printed out booklets for each of the kids and taught them about the scientific method. Then they got to go to stations and participate in three different science experiments, exploring the steps of the scientific method. The three stations: M&M Color Graph, Clicking Quarters, and Rainbow Cups. 

The kids had so much fun and I was grateful to all the other rooms who were so helpful and helped make it happen. After the science fair kickoff, the kids were given the assignment to select a question and complete the scientific method while experimenting with that question. We met back again in three weeks to present our experiments to each other. 

Lydia's Science Experiment: 

"Hi, my name is Lydia Peaden. 

For my science experiment, I wanted to see what forces could make liquid go through a tube fastest. My liquid was rootbeer, but if you choose something else it might do something different because I only tested rootbeer. I used three forces: Air Pressure, Gravity, and Chemical Reaction. 

First, I tested Air Pressure where I put an air blower on top of the bottle to blow the rootbeer out of the tube. Second, I imitated a water tower where I put the bottle with the rootbeer up high on a box to see if Gravity would pull it down. Third, I shook the bottle causing it to explode into the tube (some fell out). 

My hypothesis was that Gravity would be the strongest force. When I tested it, I found that I was right. Gravity pulled the most liquid through the tube in 30 seconds, over 5 ounces! The chemical reaction was the second most liquid pulled, over 3.5 ounces. It actually came through the fastest but it was mostly foam. In last place was the air pump with almost three ounces. It was a fun test and I’m glad I found a way to make rootbeer go through a tube.

Austin's Experiment

"Hi, my name is Austin. 

I really like this book, The Seven Silly Eaters. In the book, Mrs. Peters has six kids who will each only eat one kind of food.  For her birthday, they decide to make her a breakfast of all their favorite foods. It doesn’t go well. 

First Mac’s oatmeal turned out lumpy, which made poor Mac turn Grim and Grumpy.
In fact, the lumps got him so cross, he dumped them in Jack’s applesauce.
This bothered Jack so much he threw it in the dough of Mary Lou.
Who tossed the mismash that that made straight into Lucy’s lemonade.
And that put her in such a huff she poured the icky sticky stuff Into the double frying pan that held the eggs of Flo and Fran.
Who flung the hodgepodge on the spot into the milk in Peter’s pot.

 
It was a disaster so the kids put it in the oven to hide the mess.
When Mrs. Peters wakes up she finds a “pink and plump and perfect” cake! For my experiment, I wanted to know if you could Make Mrs. Peter’s Birthday Cake. So I made two cakes. For one I did exactly what the book said. I dumped each ingredient into the next. It did NOT work! The other we made with all the ingredients but different directions. It kind of worked. It was pink on the inside. It tasted good, especially the frosting! But it did not look like Mrs. Peters Birthday cake. I found that you can NOT make Mrs. Peter’s birthday cake like her kids in the book.

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

The Science Fair

I was so proud of these kids and how hard they worked.

The cultural hall was all set up with everyone's posterboards. 

Lydia and Austin 

I asked two judges to come and fill our rubrics for the kid's projects. My brother Jacob came to judge and a friend in our neighborhood with a Double Masters Degree in the Physical and Earth Sciences. They were amazing! 

We also had everyone fill out judging sheets and vote. The top three kids won a Science Fair Medal. It was such a great experience (Lydia tied for Second Place and she was SO thrilled about it.)

I'm SO grateful that we were able to make this happen, even amid a COVID schooling year. I'm learning that if I want my kids to have experiences like this incorporated into their homeschool experience, all I have to do is put in the effort and other people will come together to make it happen

Other Homeschool happenings this month: 

-More science experimenting 

-Park Days & Stem Activities

-Make your own board game: 

The Great Room Shuffle

Since just days before Lucy was born, almost two years ago, the three older kids have been sharing a room together. We've shifted who sleeps where a couple of times, but most recently: Austin has been sleeping on the toddler bed in the corner, Caleb on the top bunk of the bunk bed, and Lydia on the bottom bunk. It's been working well for the kids and for us - but David and I have casually talked for a while about the time when we would move Lydia out to share a room with Lucy and keep the boys together. One such conversation led us to realize that the time for that move was now and once we decided that we jumped in full force.

We have lovingly and laughingly termed this project "The Great Room Shuffle" because throughout this project that actually started in January every single bed in our house has moved to a different room, including our own. I thought it would be fun to do a quick walkthrough of what each room did look like and what it looks like now to show how much effort we've put into this great room shuffle (because, of course, we couldn't just, I don't know, move the beds around).

Nursery ---> Guest Bedroom

We started with Lucy's nursery by taking down the crib and moving everything out. We sold the changing table (and ended up selling the white dresser, too). We then moved in OUR bed to create a new guest bedroom. The bed we had as our guest bed is pretty old, as it was given to us by my parents when we first got married and they had already been using it for a long time. It's not a horrible bed, but it's not the most comfortable and our bed still has some good life left in it so it made sense to move our mattress in so that our guest bed could be more comfortable and get a new mattress for ourselves.

Before:

 

(Apparently I don't have a good photo of the large chair I used as my nursery chair in the corner - you can just see a peek of it in the second photo above.

Now:

Our Bedroom

As mentioned above, when we moved our mattress into the new guest bedroom, we got a new mattress. David wrote a whole post about this, so I won't go into detail, especially because everything looks exactly the same as it did before, but we really like the new mattress and are excited about the new motorized bedframe. Here's an update of what our room looks like now with David's office tucked in the corner.

Guest Bedroom-----> Boys Bedroom

This room is the biggest before/after reveal by far. This room has served as a guest bedroom for when my mom or one of our siblings comes to stay with us and is also currently serving as a room to store our extra "stuff" in. Extra homeschool stuff. Our old table. Just stuff. It used to be combined with our homeschool room, but we pulled that room into the extra room off the laundry room earlier this school year so for the past several months it's looked mostly like this:

We initially had thought to move Lydia and Lucy into this room and even after we realized that it would fit better if we moved the boys in, it took a lot of convincing to get be on board with having it be the boys room. Of course, David was right and moving the boys into that room was absolutely the right choice.

We moved the old guest bed and our old table down to the garage to give to David's brother Michael and cleaned out the room.

I painted the wall and moved the bookshelves my dad made for us pretty much by myself. David is in the middle of his busy season and I knew it would add stress if we tried to squeeze it in to a time when we could do it together. I was the one who wanted to paint, so I jumped into it and made it happen! It's certainly not perfect but I'm really proud of how much I was able to accomplish. (Of course, with the support and advice of David it wouldn't have happened. Just picture me as I stood in the boys room starting to paint without taping anything because I couldn't find the painters tape. Ha. It didn't go well and I had to admit that David was right, the project would go faster if I used the painters tape, even if I didn't want to take the time to go to the store - I just wanted to do the project.)

Even before I painted, Jenna came down and helped me disassemble the bunkbed to move from the kid's room into the new boy's room. She's a hero for jumping in to help me with this project.

The room turned out so darling. I love it! (We got a different dresser from David's parents that is a little bigger and easier for the boys to use, but I just love the way that white dresser looked against the navy blue wall. I'm so happy with this room!

(Pictures of the kids having a "sleepover" in Lydia's room while I painted the boys bedroom.)

Homeschool Room

In the great room shuffle, even the small homeschool room off of the laundry room wasn't untouched. When we pulled Lucy's crib out of the nursery, we weren't actually ready to move her into a bedroom yet, so we set up our extra crib in this little homeschool area and that's where she slept for the two months of our great room shuffle. I didn't take a picture of the crib squeezed into the room, but here is the room after it's all cleaned up - you can imagine it squeezing right into the middle.

Kids Room -----> Girl's Room

As I mentioned before, Caleb, Austin, and Lydia were all sharing the kids room. It was working well and I really loved this room. I loved the bookshelves made by by dad. The white curtains, the mini-bookshelves hanging by each of their beds, the dress up hooks along the wall.

Lydia was excited to share her room with Lucy and have a little more space without the boys (she was ready in more ways than one). She had already been saving up her money for a new bedspread for her bed (She'd saved up $30!) I gave her a budget of $20 that she could use to buy a few decorations or something else for her room. We talked about painting her room but I said that she'd have to use her money to buy the paint and it would probably take the full $20. She came with me when I was buying the paint for the boys room and was looking at paint swatches. She was looking as some tans/browns and was thinking about using her money to paint her walls her favorite color but she had other plans that she wanted, too, like a picture or a small plant. Then, as we were standing to get the blue paint tinted for the boys room, she noticed the "mis-tint" shelf where clearance gallons of paint were stored. As luck would have it, one of them was the perfect shade of tan. Just brown enough to still fall into her "favorite color" and just light enough that I thought it would look okay on the wall. She calls it Dingo brown and it was only $8 (instead of the $40 gallon I bought for the boys room). My parents let me paint my room any color that I wanted when I was young and I loved my bright purple with white sponge accent room and have always wanted to give my kids the same freedom. So imagine my surprise when Lydia's color of choice ends up being a fairly outdated tan color. It's amusing to me, but she loves it, which means that I love it, too.

It took us a while to get everything set up and to find enough consecutive time to paint her room, (I ended up waking up early early early in the morning to paint the second coat.) But Lydia helped with most all of it. (Pictured below Lydia painting with "LL room" and a dingo on the wall before painting over them.)

I mentioned above that Lydia had been saving her money for a new bedspread. She took the decision very seriously. We spend many hours and over 5 stores searching out the very best bedspread for the money she had earned.

She ended up buying a pretty white bedspread and a brown pillow for sitting up to read in bed. She picked out some lepoard print sheets and used the rest of her room budget money to buy a string of lights and two small plants from Ikea. The whole effect is very refined and lovely.