Discovery Center at Murfree Spring

Today the three of us went to a children's science center which we had never before visited. The Discovery Center at Murfree Spring is in Murfreesboro, TN and is about an hour drive from our house. We all had a lot of fun. Below are some highlights. (Click on any image to enlarge.)


There is a neat auto service center that Gerrick really enjoyed.


This crane spins all the way around when pedaled.


There is a mining area that fascinated Gerrick. He was very interested in the old photos of actual mines, equipment, and workers.


He spent a lot of time setting up this wetland diorama.


The water play section has a nice garden model that Gerrick flooded several times by adjusting the dam.


There is a .45 mile trail around an outdoor wetland area. Signs are posted along the way that show the kinds of animals that live there. Gerrick was excited to find that bluegill are one of the breeds of fish living in the water. (This is the kind of fish he caught on his first fishing trip recently.)

New Tools!

Granddaddy and Sharon came up Saturday for Thanksgiving. They brought Gerrick an early Christmas present of a tool box full of tools. Gerrick is thrilled to have the tools, but I'm looking for some ideas about what he can do with them. The other day I found him "working" on his guns. :) I hope to set up a small table/workbench for him in the garage when it gets warmer--maybe as part of his birthday in March. I'll get him some scrap wood, wood glue, nails, screws, etc. But until then...what ideas do you have for us?

In the past Rick has helped him take apart old small appliances. He loved this, so if any of you local people have broken VCR's, etc., please save them for us. These are the type things I'd like to provide for his exploration at the future workspace in the garage.

I thought for now I might start with getting him some wire that he could play with using the wire cutters...and maybe check out the book Galimoto from the library for a little inspiration. But if you have any other ideas/suggestions, PLEASE leave a comment.


The day before this picture was taken he asked,
"Why do the bubbles in the level never pop?" :)




I'm glad he knew he needed protective eye wear. :)
I'll add a pair of children's clear safety glasses to the wish list.

Unplugged Project: Thankful

30 Days 'til Christmas!



This week's project theme at Unplug Your Kids is Thankful.

Yesterday, I used a circle cutter to make 31 red & green circles. I asked Gerrick to tell me things that he is thankful for and wrote one thing on each circle. Here's what he said, in this order:

1. myself
2. Mama
3. Daddy
4. God
5. airplanes
6. fighter jets
7. soldiers that fight battles
8. Santa
9. Jesus
10. all the animals
11. hair--to keep people warm
12. the sun
13. my toys
14. my books
15. crayons
16. markers
17. paint
18. leaves
19. birds
20. pencils
21. Wal-Mart
22. the earth
23. trees
    
24. tree branches
    
25. lights
26. my house
27. graveyards
28. Ms. Mary Lynn (& her house)
29. Mr. Wallace & Ms. Marian
30. Mr. Gilbert (& his house & his boat)
31. Granddaddy
    

I then let him tape them to the pantry door in a red-green pattern to make a Christmas count-down candy cane. He can take one circle off daily and count how many circles are left to know exactly how many days are left 'til Christmas.

Unplugged Project: Sort

Unplug Your Kids hosts a weekly unplugged project. Last week's theme was Sort/Junk/Donate. Today we had a project which fit into that category. We sorted branches so that we could assemble our artificial Christmas tree. Each branch has a letter label. Gerrick found & identified the letters, then sorted the branches into each one's appropriate pile. After we had the tree put together, we talked about possibly buying one for next year that is pre-assembled and pre-lit. If we do, we're going to donate the old one to a family in need of a tree.

Homeschool...or Not?

"Real learning is a process of discovery, and if we want it to happen, we must create the kinds of conditions in which discoveries are made. We know what these are. They include time, leisure, freedom, and lack of pressure."--John Holt, Learning All the Time

The last time I checked, none of these conditions were found in schools.

"What often happens to kids in school is that they are required to repeat, as sense, what makes no sense to them, to the point where they give up trying to reconcile what people say about the world with what they really feel about it. They accept as true whatever authority says is true. They do not try to check or test it. They soon forget even how to test it. "--John Holt, Learning All the Time

I am strongly considering homeschooling kindergarten (at least). We've pulled him out of preschool; Dec. 17 will be his last "paid for" day, though I doubt he'll go much more, if any, between now and then. When given the choice, he always prefers to be home vs. go to school. At home he has choices and freedom. At school he is told what to do--when and how to do it. He's a thinker, and I don't want to watch school kill that.

Here is a link to an article that really sums up nicely how I feel about home learning. It is NOT sitting at a table doing workbooks all day--to me, that would be worse than sending him to school.

Gerrick Recommends...

Gerrick: "This is the king of all the books! Rumplestiltskin makes treasure on a spinning wheel. I like the illustrations. My favorite pictures are the miller's daughter sleeping on the spools of gold thread and the servant peeking around the tree."


Gerrick: "This is a good book. My favorite part is when the alien ship shines a green light on Beegu when it picks her up."

Beegu inspired Gerrick to make his own aliens. Meet Beegu's brother and sister:

Gerrick's Science Center

In our old apartment, we had a tiny table in Gerrick's bedroom devoted to his science collections (rocks, sticks, shells, leaves, dead bugs, flashlights, magnifying glass...); it was always overcrowded and overflowing. Because he is so interested in science, I decided to set up a whole corner of our family room in the new house as a discovery center. Here it is as of today. I plan to eventually get a bookcase for each side of the TV armoire and use the one on the window side to house some of the science collection. This would free up a lot of the table top for more work space. I also would like to get a bulletin board or two to hang between the bookcase and the window so that he could hang scientific drawings/photos/small nature posters/ etc.


All of our science and nature books are in a nearby basket. Baskets of blocks and Legos are housed under the table.


This table rocks! Gerrick's Granddaddy built it for him two years ago; it's original use was as a train table. The top is made of laminate flooring and so far has proved to be indestructible!


Here are some ongoing observations: berries in a jar are molding; a plant is rooting in water; and the newest...a banana peel, which we are going to watch decompose.


This is another experiment Gerrick is currently conducting. He put all this stuff in water and is watching what is happening over time. He's going to be getting some Prismacolor pencils and a notebook for Christmas, and I'm going to encourage him to keep them at this table and start documenting his projects.


He was so excited when I pulled all this together a couple of weeks ago and has spent a lot of time there every day since. :) What other ideas do you have that might complement this area?

Apple Banana Ice Pops

Gerrick was recently inspired by Sid the Science Kid to make ice pops.


Slice a banana.


Put a banana piece in a paper cup and poke a stick into it.


Pour juice into the cup.
Freeze.
Tear the paper cup off...


...and enjoy!

Microwave Bisquick Play-Doh

Thanks to Teaching Tiny Tots at Mommy School for this great Play-Doh recipe. I've made a lot of dough in my teaching days, but this is by far the easiest and best recipe I've used.

Microwave Bisquick Play-Doh
2 cups Bisquick
1 cup salt
2 cups water
1 TBSP cream of tartar or alum
1 TBSP oil
food coloring and/or KoolAid
(You may also add cocoa, peppermint...whatever you like.)

Pour ALL into a MICROWAVE-safe bowl and stir.
Microwave for 3 min.
Stop and scrape/stir the bowl.

Microwave for another 3 min.
Scrape/stir.
It should be ready for kneading now. If not, cook for another minute or so!






Stirring halfway through the cooking proces, Gerrick said, "It feels like sponges."


...kneading the warm dough.


He's playing with it still as I type this post--it's been over an hour! :)

Play with Wordle!

I was just introduced to Wordle by The Well-Read Child. Wordle is an online toy that allows you to type in any text or a URL (the above image is based on the URL for this blog), and automatically generate a "word cloud" that you can customize to your own liking and even print. I think this could be a lot of fun for playing with sight words or spelling list words for older kids. You can see a larger version of ours in the Wordle Gallery by clicking here.

Decorating with "Fire and Lava"

Here's an inexpensive decorating idea:
Get a poster frame (we had an unused one in the garage). Turn over the glossy paper that comes in it, and fingerpaint on the back of it (or on the back of any old poster). Let dry, then place back in the frame for a unique piece of art to decorate a large blank wall.

Gerrick entitled this one "Fire and Lava". We haven't decided where to hang it yet, but he had a great time making it.

Homing Pigeon Transformed

Gerrick was vomiting all last night, but nevertheless he was waking me up at 7:25 a.m. telling me he needed help drawing a homing pigeon. He had found some of my post-it flags and had put them on the side of a piece of paper and said they were the messages we could attach to its foot. So I helped him find a picture of a pigeon in his DK Animal Encyclopedia (By the way, this book is excellent; not a week goes by that we don't refer to it at least 2-3 times). He didn't think he could draw it, so I showed him how he could trace the basic outline. By the time he had it colored, he decided it wasn't a pigeon after all (apparently he didn't want to stick to basic pigeon colors). It had become Benjamin bird, a new puppet to add to the alphabet puppets he's been making.

Iron Man

"Well, I wanted to be Iron Man, but I didn't want to have to keep putting on a mask and gloves!"

He did this with a stamp and ink pad!

Jellyfish Cells

Yesterday evening I walked in Gerrick's playroom to check on him; I had been cleaning the kitchen and hadn't heard anything from him in a while. This is what I found...


I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "I'm pretending my binoculars are a microscope, and I'm looking at these cells." I asked him what kind of cells they were and he said, "jellyfish cells." I left to try to fit in another chore while he was so occupied, and fifteen minutes later I went to check on him again...


"Now what are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm testing the cells," he responded, with a tone in his voice that implied he would like to be left alone. So 10 minutes later when I peeked in the room again, I didn't ask him anything, but this is what I saw...


I didn't interrupt him again. I waited until he came back in the family room, then I sneaked off to the playroom and took a picture of what I found...


I can only assume he documented his results. :)

Move Over Indian Headbands--Here Comes George Bush!

When I dropped Gerrick off at preschool this morning, one of the first things his teacher said to him was, "Do you want to make your Indian headband or go play for a while first?" When I glanced over at the table and saw pre-cut pieces of construction paper ready to be glued together, I had to force myself not to start banging my head against the wall right there in the classroom! This is not art; this does not develop creative thinking; this IS NOT a headdress of ANY Native American tribe!!! Oh, I know, I've got a long hard road ahead if I don't just go ahead and home school; this is only the beginning of the things which must be unlearned if I send my child off to the establishment. (By the way, he chose to play, and I was so proud!)

Anyway, the post "A Sample Provocation" at Camp Creek Blog had inspired me a few days ago to provide a similar experience for Gerrick. This seemed like the perfect day to follow through with the plan. When he came home from preschool I had the kitchen table set up for him to discover, and of course it didn't take him long to dive right in. :) I didn't give him any direction other than saying he could do whatever he wanted. We spent over an hour enjoying ourselves with real art which led to real conversation and real thinking! During moments like these I wonder how I could possibly even think of sending my child off to school.
















The little comedian said that this was George Bush. He went on to ask, "Do you know why his name is George Bush?...Because he lives in a bush! HAHAHAHA!!"




He said the red fingerprints he made were poppies...which led to a discussion about The Wizard of Oz...which led to questions about witches, then witchdoctors...which led to looking up witchcraft in the Bible...


I originally didn't have this photo posted because I feel that the process is more important than the product at this stage...However, when I showed the post pics to Gerrick, he said, "Well, where is the finished picture?!" and insisted that I add it. :)