Rocks

We Want to Know
-if rocks can grow in the car?
-if rocks can balance
-if rocks can grow from a weed
-where rocks come from

What we we did
Poem
A Rock Makes an Excellent Puppy
Ken Nesbitt
A rock makes an excellent puppy.
They're practically almost the same.
Except that a puppy's rambunctious;
a rock is a little more tame.

And maybe it doesn't roll over,
and isn't excited to play,
but rocks always sit when you tell them,
and rocks really know how to stay.

It may sleep a little bit longer.
It probably eats a bit less.
But rocks never pee on the carpet.
You won't have to pick up their mess.

So go ask your folks for a puppy,
and possibly that's what you'll get.
But, still, if you can't have a puppy,
a rock is a pretty good pet.

-Watched a video about how rocks are formed: http://www.neok12.com/php/watch.php?v=zX616a577c597f7c784c720a&t=Types-of-Rocks

Rock Paint


The boys went outside and collected rocks and grass. We put them in the mortar and pestle and they crushed them. I let go at it for about five minutes and I figured I would have to do the remainder.

Paint Powder


They had crushed it all to powder by themselves. We added some corn syrup and water. It made pretty good paint!



We Learned
-Igneous rocks are formed inside the earth and get very hot, they come out through a volcano, they are very hard, we have granite on our counters, they also use it to build temples
-Sedimentary rocks are made by shells and mud, they pack together and get really hard
-Metamorphic rocks are sedimentary rocks that get really hot and turn into crystals
-August birthstone is called peridot, it's green and represents August, happiness, sleep, and safe

Grass

We Want to Know
-can it grow in a bed, maybe if your bed is made out of dirt it can grow on it, it needs dirt so it can eat
-if grass can grow on the whole world, even our house
-if grass can grow on a lee lee (a puppy) and a daddy lee lee (dog)
-if it can grow on windows, socks, shoes, cars, and books
-if grass can grow in the desert or on water

What We Did
-Poem
Grass Grew Everywhere in the World
By Ezra
The grass grew in the house
The grass grew on the mouse
The grass grew on the tree
The grass grew on me
The grass grew in the bath
The grass grew on my brother's math
The grass grew in the mower and we couldn't mow the lawn
The grew in the dawn
We couldn't stop the grass
Because it was growing in a mass

Word Families Brainstorming
house - mouse, couse, douse, louse, fouse
tree- bee, me, ree, fee, dee
bath- math, cath, dath, fath
lawn- fawn, pawn, dawn, cawn
grass- mass, lass, cass, dass, fass

Grass Experiment


-Did an experiment with grass seeds
we planted seeds in dirt, in peanut butter, and on a wet paper towel. They haven't sprouted yet, but I'll post the results when they do

Results


-Results: Grass can grow on dirt and wet paper towels, peanut butter can't grow seeds. It needed water to sprout. That is different from us because we can eat peanut butter but not dirt or paper towels.
-played a pbskids.org game on going green and planting a garden
http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/groovygarden/groovygarden.html
-Songs for the week "Give Said the Little Stream" and "The Green Grass Grew all Around"

Ovens

We Want to Know
-why do ovens cook, why do ovens get fire
-do always have fire?
-can you break an oven really easily?

What we did
-Poem The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven
The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.

It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there'd never been turkey before.

I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
that I'd never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn't been popped.

Jack Prelutsky
http://www.homemakerscorner.com/turkeyshot.htm

-Made a solar oven, it's supposed to be cloudy and rainy this week, but maybe we'll have a few hours of sunlight where we can try it out.

Insulation

Crumple up scrap paper or newspaper and line the bottom of the box.

Oven

Place a smaller box on top of the insulation. Line the bottom on the box with black construction paper. Place a piece of glass on top of the box. I took the glass out of a picture frame. Hopefully we don't break it.

Panels

Cut 4 cardboard panels of equal height and place them at a 135 degree angle around the glass.

Solar Panels

Cover each panel with foil. Wrap the foil around the cardboard to secure.

Using the Oven

The weather has cooled down a lot. We used the oven on a sunny day but if we had used it when it was still 90 degrees outside, it would've worked a lot better. We got it to 150 degrees which won't bake much, but it did melt chocolate chips and marshmallows for smores!

Building Houses

We want to know
-how do they get up on the top of the roof and make the roof, they don't bring ladders, they can't even stand on the roof because it's not even made yet, so how do they do that?
-if houses can lift up a house
-is a bigger house stronger than a littler house or are they same size

What we did
-sang "The Wise Man" and talked about the symbolism of Christ being the solid foundation to build upon, and Satan being the sandy foundation.
-drove around to construction sites at different stages and took pictures
-treehouse building game
http://www.agame.com/game/tree-house-building.html#jump_manual
-built a house with a styrofoam foundation, skewers for 2x4's, poster board for wood boards, foam board for dry wall and a poster board and skewers for the roof. We carpeted the floor, made stairs, and put shingles on the roof. Ezra and Noah painted it.
-talked about the contractor and subcontractors

Foundation


Wood Panels and Drywall


Roof and Painting


Finishing


Final Product

Bowling

We want to know
-if bowling is really really hard
-if the ball is really really heavy
-if the ball is just like a weight
-is the ball heavier than you think?
-is the ball a circle like a grape? Does is crack like a grape?
-if any bowling ball is green, or is there only one

Poem
Polar Bowling
It used to be that polar bears
went bowling, just for grins,
with snowballs for their bowling balls
and penguins as the pins.

The bears would have a blast
with all the snowballs that they threw.
The penguins weren't as happy;
that's the only time they flew.

So penguins all moved south and now
they're at the other pole.
Well, wouldn't you move far away
if bears used you to bowl?
--Kenn Nesbitt

What we did
-listened to a bowling song by Raffi-
http://new.music.yahoo.com/raffi/tracks/bowling-song--764556

-played subtraction bowling. We set up 10 blocks (pins) and rolled a tennis ball to knock them down. I had him count the number of pins he knocked down and the number of pins that were left.

-Went bowling with Grandpa Miller! Noah won (101), Livi (99), Ezra and Grandpa
(87), me (75)I've never bowled so low in my life. Ezra didn't use the ramp, the other kids did. It was really fun!


We want to know:

Cookies

We want to know-how do you get chocolate chips inside cookies
-if cookies can get burnt
-if you can slice cookies if they are the hardest cookies ever
-if you can make cookie stand up by itself
-if cookies can get ripped easily

Ezra's recipe



I asked Ezra how to make cookies. Here is his recipe:

3 inches of salt
1 gulp of milk
2 eggs

I would mix salt, milk and eggs in a bowl. Then roll them into balls. Then bake them in an oven that is burning hot.

He made this recipe and added butter and granola. We baked it at 270 for 30 minutes. He sprinkled it with salt and we ate it as a side dish for dinner.

Noah's Pancake Recipe

Mix:
Lamanites
chickens
beans
Cook them on the griddle


The World's Biggest Cookie



We learned
-the biggest cookie ever was made by immaculate baking company http://www.immaculatebaking.com/company_bigcookie.php
picture of it: http://my.opera.com/Ghatne/blog/2009/04/10/weird-world-records
It used 40000 pounds of ingredients.(About 5 elephants. Ezra wanted to know). It took 8 months of planning and buildng the oven. It was 100 ft in diameter. They raised $20,000 from selling pieces of it.

What we did
-sang C is for cookie
-wrote the ookie family -cookie, bookie, lookie, tookie
-drew a picture of the ultimate cookie - had candy, marshmallows, and ended up with pants, a shirt and a hat.
-made playdough and cut it out with cookie cutters
-brought cookies to people in the ward

Playdough
4 3/4 c (24 oz) flour
2 c (16 oz) water
1 c salt

Computers

We want to know
-if computers are like your brain, it could be like sun because I think sun needs electricity, hot like fire needs electricity
-what computers do for us
-how they work
-what parts there are

We Learned
-the CPU it helps the computer think, it is the brain of the computer
-there is a motherboard, it sends messages like electricity messages to the computer
-there are little things like cords, they are like little gray casts, they connect things to the motherboard, the electricity goes through that to the computer
-heat sync, you can get an ice cube and it melts it even when it's not plugged in or attached to anything, it diffuses heat and cold, it is a heavy copper piece
-memory sticks help the computer remember stuff
-video card - helps the picture on the screen

We Did
-Mike took a computer apart for us and showed us the parts and told us what they did
-http://videos.howstuffworks.com/howstuffworks/23-computer-tour-video.htm
-I turned Ezra into a computer and gave him math problems to solve
-I turned my computer off and wrote a list with pictures of how to turn it on and get to PBSkids.org. He did it, the password was tricky for him, so he had to type it a few time. He followed the steps then got to play on the computer