Jr. Disease Detectives! CDC Museum Field Trip!

This past week we got the opportunity to visit the CDC Museum here in Atlanta. This year my children are participating in Science Olympiad. I am the coach of our team of 3rd-5th graders that will be competing with over 17 of our local public schools. Its a great opportunity for our children to be able to compete with there public school peers in the community. Mecca the Great is signed up to compete in the Disease Detectives event which is all about epidemiology. So what better place to take a field trip than to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was am awesome experience. We received a guided tour by volunteer who works in a STEM field. He did a great job of catering to our mixed age student group. He provided a scavenger hunt for lower and upper grades. The lower grades scavenger hunt was pictorial base. We watched a short film that highlighted the Ebola Outbreak of 2006. It showed how the center response to global outbreaks and how they work with the country for containment, identifying the source and prevention. 

They had three floors of exhibit space. They started with the video in round meeting area overlooking the exhibit halls. 

Even Chunky Diva got to walk around and enjoy the learning experience. 

We stopped at this exhibit and got a bit of Black History facts in. This display highlighted the unethical practices of the Board of Health in Tuskegee, AL in an effort to compile research data on non-treated syphilis in over 300 African American patients from the 1930's to the 1972. 

Mecca the Great squealed with delete when she spotted this hug contraption. She shouted out "Look Mom its an iron lung!" Of course it turns out she was spot on. This machine was used to treat TB in sanitariums. 

The exhibit that had the most profound impact on our experience was "GYRE: The Plastic Ocean". When we learned that there are 5 major whirl pool like vortex of plastic waste floating around in our planets oceans we were floored. The children really got to visualize the impact that plastic has on the environment. This was a surprise to see at the CDC for us. But it worked out great as a bonus info session for Kinetic Kid since he is competing in the Save Our Earth event at the Science Olympiad competition this year. 

Here is an artist creation of a dog sled team made of plastic found in the Pacific Ocean Gyre found off the Alaskan coast, 

Here is Pony Princess listening to information of  on "Ghost Dog" which is made from synthetic ghost net. 

Mecca the Great is standing in front of  "Thongs" an printed canvas environmental piece.

Here the children are looking at the sorts of plastics toys and everyday items found in the oceans. 

Of course my Lego League kids couldn't resist taking a picture of the plastics timeline and pointing out when LEGO was born in 1953. 

1492 History Unit Wrap Up!

About the end of October we started a unit on 1492. A lot of people associate this with the year that Christopher Columbus made the first of four trips to Caribbean. But what a lot of people don't realize is that this year was a significant turning point for the medieval world. It was during this year that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella united the largest kingdoms of Spain Castille and Argon creating a military force strong enough to push back the Moorish Empires stronghold all the way to Southern Spain and back into Africa. The Moors conquered Spain back in 711 A.D all the way to 1492. So this is why 1492 was such a significant year. This made way for Spain to start funding off shore navigation expedition such as the one Columbus took. With the help of Moorish Navigator Pedro Alonso Nino Columbus made his way to the island of Hispaniola( Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Columbus learned about gold and riches in the West while trading in the Senagambia Coast of Africa. This is evidence that Africans had traveled to the Americas prior to the voyage of Columbus in 1492. 

Instead of reading propaganda filed fairy tale stories about Christopher Columbus and his 1492 voyage we decided to go with the 1st source resources. Columbus' ship logs have been published. Of course they were originally published in his language so we had to read a translation. There are several good ones out too. 

Here are the ones we found helpful. 

Another helpful resource we used is the work of the late great historian Dr. Ivan Van Sertima.

He wrote the book "They Came Before Columbus".




 We also did notebooking pages for Pedro Alonso Nino, Christopher Columbus, The Moors in Spain, and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella for our notebooks. I also printed out a map of all four of Columbus Voyages. I used a blank template notebooking page and printed down pictures of them from Google images.

Christopher Columbus Voyages Encyclopedia Britannica Kids

In all the children really enjoyed this unit. Learning the backdrop to the voyages really helped to get a greater understanding of how connected world events are.

Muscular System Oral Review!

It took us a while but Mecca the Great is finally wrapping up her chapter on the Muscular System, Instead of just doing a chapter test I decided to go for an oral narration approach. Some of you who are familiar with the Charlotte Mason or Classical Education approach to education know the important role narration plays in helping the student develop the ability to reason with the content and teach back what they know. We still have a model of how muscles work and a few more end chapter questions to finish up before we move to our next body system. But I am very please with her progress thus far. Here is the video of our informal oral review. You can hear her siblings in the background listening to cartoons. 

The Bones Book and Skeleton Kit!

Tonight after dinner the children decided to pull out this skeleton kit for a little model building fun. My husband and I came upon this kit by happenstance when we were in Sam's Club the other day. We finished our study of the skeletal system weeks ago but I thought this could be a way to review in a fun way. 

It was really funny watching them put the rib cage onto the spine upside down. We also got a big laugh out of mistaking the pelvic bone for the scapula( shoulder blade). 

Dad got in there and help us get our guy up onto the stand. He said we should get an extra one next time we are in the store so he can have his own.  He really tried hard not to take over the kit from the kiddos. It is pretty hard not to get swept up in the model building mania.  Dad was even talking about painting his kit with metallic gray paint and adding claws to make it look like Wolverine's animantium skeleton. 

Probably one of the best things about this kit is that it came with its own display case. With all the little hands I have around here it is a necessity to keep the pieces from coming up missing or in little folks mouths. 

Look at all my "Mad Scientist"! 

Our 1st Jr. FLL Exhibition!

Right before the holidays Pony Princess and Kinetic Kid got the opportunity to participate in their first Jr. First Lego League Exhibition. It was such an awesome experience. I got to see how all their weeks of collaboration and teamwork paid off. At this level is more about learning how to present your project to the judges and other teams rather than any direct competition. All the children received a certificate and a medal. Not only are we signing up for Jr. FLL again next year but we will also be supporting Mecca the Great in FLL. I guess we are officially those people now. You know the Cool Robotics Kids family. 

The Baker's Little Apprentices

Pony Princess and Smallville have always shown an keen interest in cooking. They are always quick to help out in the kitchen. They especially love baking task. Rather its kneading bread dough or mixing muffins you can find the littles afoot. 

Here they are helping me make burger buns. 

Dad is our in house master baker. His specialities are pizza and pies. Here he is showing the children how to roll and prepare a pie crust our holiday sweet potato pies. 

Hour of Code @ the Apple Store

Last night the children got the opportunity to participate in the global movement to expose students to computer science called Hour of Code. This particular Hour of Code event was held at our local Apple Store at the mall. They go to use an Ipad Mini provided by the Apple Store along with a set of earphones that they got to keep as a parting gift. 

The Apple Store employees went around assisting the children in completing a logic puzzle based app designed to familiarize them with the concept of coding with Java Script, The game is available for free on Code.org. It had an Angry Bird theme which the kids got a kick out of. One of the facilitators also told me about another cool free resource site that goes further into depth with coding and that is Code Cademy.  The Hour of Code events are free. As of today 73,678,242 students have participated in an Hour of Code.