Week 10

We learned through our My Tech High homeroom teacher that October is National Cookie Month. This week, we celebrated by reading books about cookies, drawing smart cookies, and learning the science of cookies (Thanks, Alisha!).

I also learned when to use baking soda vs baking powder. "Powder puffs, Soda spreads". So if you want fluffy biscuits, use baking powder, if you want delicious cookies, use baking soda.

 And, of course, we baked some cookies with Grandma! 

Grandma makes the best cookies. 

Grandma also taught Life Skills by reading them the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? 

Grandma let them each of them create a bucket and they spent the rest of the day writing nice notes to each other. It was so cute! Thanks Mom! 

They created these notes to write nice notes to others too. 

J also created her own craft inspired by Grandma's fall decorations.

LA- Before our visit to Grandma's, we had a read-a-thon in a blanket fort with stuffed animals (and a couple real ones) during a rain storm.

Math- Example page by A. He getting pretty good at addition and we're ready to focus again on subtraction.

Science- Besides cookies, we explored what happens when you leave your garden for a week.

And we built a bridge out of popsicle sticks. Supposedly triangles are the strongest shapes. 

While waiting for our bridges to dry, the kids watched The Magic School Bus on bridges. 

The next day we tested our bridges.

The bridges weren't holding as much weight as we thought they would, so we experimented with using duct tape to secure joints.

It worked better, but in the end the structure still collapsed after only one and a half bricks.  

We did observe it wasn't the triangles that gave out, but the places where the different pieces where they were taped together.

We also explored some Earth Science by looking at beautiful fall leaves.

Exploring Tech- Crunch Labs Art Machine

Lastly, Presidents by J- Eighteenth President, Ulysses S. Grant, was a war hero. His real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant but someone miss wrote it on important paperwork and the name stuck.

Ruthford B Hayes was the first president to travel to the west coast as a president and was the first president to have a telephone in the White House.

President James Garfield, the 20th president, was not very well known, and didn't finish his term because he was assassinated, and he didn't even want to be president. But the people wanted him to be so he ran.

President Chester A. Authur became president after Garfield was assassinated. He was a good president and he owned 80 pairs of pants!

Stay Curious- Question by A

Why does lava explode when water touches it? 

The rapidly boiled water turns to steam and pushed outward to escape, resulting in "exploding" lava.