Starting Early

Rabbit has decided to start some of her school for this fall this week. She is doing her Apologia Physical Science, writing, and her Progeny Press guide for Anne of Green Gables. Today we did the first science experiment. Thought I would post pictures and issues we ran into for others. (The boys also joined in to watch - anything using wires and a battery has interest to them!) 

So, first we had to set it up. The hard part was getting the wires to stay on the terminals of the 9-volt batter. We tried electrical tape, but it was too slippery. So then we went with masking tape and that worked better. There is one piece of tape over each wire and terminal, plus another piece of tape over both.

We definitely got bubbles going off our wires when we got them in the water once we used the masking tape. If you don't get bubbles, your wires are not taped to the terminals very well.

And here you can see how the copper started to turn that blue-green color copper usually does. It was kind of weird that it only happened to one of the wires. Not sure why.

We're using the Knowledge Box Central lapbook journal lab reports with the introduction and procedure all filled in. All we have to fill in are the observations, diagrams, and summaries. We also created a page with these pictures to go with her lab report.

1850MOD - We're Finished

Well, we've been "finished" for a while. Our state only requires 172 days. When we hit that, we're done! 

I did want Rabbit to at least hear all the history (the boys will get it again in 5 years), so we buckled down one day and spent 2.5 hours listening to and reading the last week of history. She has also listened to the rest of her General Science book. We are still working on Saxon 8/7. We usually only get to about 4 days a week of that. I have finally gotten her to use a calculator: I got a Calculator app for my iPad. She loves the big buttons, she can change the skins, and we can check the history to find her mistakes. 

I didn't worry about the boys finishing the 2nd/3rd grade supplement stuff. They finished Singapore 2B recently and we started on 3A this last week. I've been able to teach them their lesson and then work with Rabbit while they do the workbook. They can then come to me when they have questions. That has worked pretty well. 

We've just been doing Spelling, Math and trips to the library this summer. My plan is to start ECC on August 5. I've upgraded to the 2nd edition and Rabbit will be doing the 7th/8th grade supplement. I've been trying to figure out a schedule/routine for the fall, but I keep feeling overwhelmed with it all. I'm sure it will come together soon, but right now it's AAAAHHHH!