This week the character trait we studied was Patience. Our verse was Proverbs 14:6. 'Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches and they are gone for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.'
In our finale of the Wright Brothers book, we learned that the boys were patient as they tried many different ways to better their invention. Their plane flew and no one believed the Wright's. They were patient in waiting for the government officials from France and the United States to decide what they should do with their flying machine.
This week we talked about the 4 different forces that help planes fly. The kids spun around with a stuffed animal and noticed their animal lifting as it spun.
Gravity; we dropped 2 objects at the same time.
As we rubbed our hands together we created friction. Friction slows the plane down. Propellers pull the plane forward and the friction from the air pulls the plane back. We learned that this is called 'Drag.'
We learned that an engine thrusts the plane forward thru the air. We used their powered remote control cars to show the thrust the car has as it goes forward.
Since Daddy is a pilot.... the kids have really enjoyed learning about the Wright Brothers and learning how planes fly. Couldn't resist posting this silly pic of how planes fly. LOL!
We took a closer look at the past 100 Years of Flight by Bill Sweetman.
In geography, we used a globe and map to locate France; the area where Wilbur perfected his flights. I printed out the blank map here: http://geography.about.com/library/blank/blxfrance.htm
We learned that Paris is the capitol of France. The kids drew the France flag and labeled the map with the areas that Wilbur visited.
We talked about the Eiffel Tower and the kids colored a picture of it I found online.
This week in our book we read that Thomas Edison fell through the ice. He wondered why the ice looked lighter in the areas that weren't frozen solid.
We experimented by freezing a shallow amount of water in a small bowl.
The kids were able to poke there finger through the center easily and realized that the water turned into a solid ice on the sides.
We read that Thomas Edison and his family moved to Detroit. Thomas wanted to take along his goose, Lulu.
The Edison family rode a steam engine train to their new home in Detroit. Thomas got to ride with the train conductor and asked many questions about how things worked. We watched this quick youtube video showing how a steam engine works. The kids thought this was so neat!
We experimented and learned about the 3 parts of matter; solid, liquid, and gas.
We dropped one drop of food coloring into both a cold and hot glass of water. The cold glass of water kept the food coloring close together and the color slowly moved around. When we placed a drop into the hot water, the color moved about quickly and spread throughout the glass.
We wrote down our experiment findings for our science experiment notebook.
We learned that solids have slow moving or even still particles, liquids move quicker but still bump into each other, and the particles in gas move very quickly. Water becomes steam when heated. Water becomes frozen into ice when it is cold.
We also learned that heat is transferred through metal easiest. The wood burning stove soon replaced the fireplaces.
Our vocabulary words this week were aviator, inscription, and beret. The little girl wanted to wear her sequined dance 'beret' all day!
In math, my 4th graders learned how to add, subtract, and simplify mixed numbers. We had a competition on the dry erase board to earn a piece of chocolate! That was the ticket in our 2 day lesson. So awesome getting to see the light bulbs turn on for your kids when they finally understand something they have been struggling with. We love homeschooling!
We had another great week in Bigger. Only 2 more units to go for this year! Yay!
See you next week!
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