Field trippin' (Rocks, Minerals, and Earth Science for Homeschoolers, Part 2)

Continued from Part 1.  Now that you are thinking about rocks and earth science, and you're on board with the field trips, now what?  What do you take with you, where should you go to see the good stuff? 

Now, none of these things are mandatory to a good field trip experience, but they do help.  If you are a hiker, you've already got most of the important things.  This is my geology field trip packing list:

1. A small first aid kit.  Doesn't have to be fancy, but if you find yourself without at least band aids and moleskin, you're gauranteed to need them.  But I shouldn't even have to mention that, because you already have something like this in the car, and the little one would be superfluous, right?  Right?
2. Bags!  A comfy, roomy backpack to carry your gear (I like water bottle pockets and lots of nooks and crannies with a big central open area), and more ziplock baggies than you're going to expect, to carry the ever-important snacks, keep trash separate, and cart home small pebbly treasures.  Trust me on this one. 
3. A camera.  It is so pretty outside!  And kids are so cute!  And sometimes you need to take a picture of a flower or something you want to identify later.
4. A notebook.  If you make a habit of spending time outside in damp weather, rite-in-the-rain is a good idea.  If you are a fair-weather field tripper, whatever notebook you prefer. 
5. A magnifying glass or hand lens.  Any old magnifying glass will do, but if you are feeling fancy, my kids love to use my hand lens under my supervision.  Good optical quality, small, conveniently hangs around the neck on a lanyard.  Just gotta get your eye up close to the thing, that's the trick.  A student hand lens I wouldn't feel too bad about scratching up is this one.  I find having a magnifying glass or hand lens on me far more important than the next item...
6. A rock hammer.  Geologists use these to crack open rocks to see "fresh" material inside and kids just find it fun to bank on rocks, but they don't vary too much and you really don't need one for casual field trips.  Mine usually stays in the car.  Estwing makes the nicest rock hammers, but the budget models do fine for student use. 
7. Safety glasses.  If you are bringing #6, bring these too.  Shards of flying rock hurt.  Minimize the chance you'll need that first aid kit.  Buy cheap ones at the hardware store or kid-size ones online, not a big deal which kind because you're not wearing them very long.
8. Water and snacks.  Seriously.  Do not forget the water and snacks. 
9. Layers for conditions warmer or cooler than expected.  A change of socks can be a wise use of space. 
10. A hat, season dependent.  Toque for winter, wide-brimmed hat for summer.  Sometimes both but that's for the advanced class. 
11. Map of and/or to the destination and compass.  Not mandatory for your afternoon stroll at the beach on the other side of town, but anywhere unfamiliar or mountainous, a good idea.  We keep a Gazetteer in our car at all times, just in case a road trip breaks out.  If there is a specific destination in mind where we will be spending some time, I'll often have a specific map as well, which brings me to...

OK.  All packed up.  Now, where do we go? 

Good question!  I am often overwhelmed by too many options.  The way I see it, there's two kinds of field trips: the afternoon trip, and the destination trip.  Each has a slightly different kind of destination and mindset. 

The afternoon trip is somewhere nearby, within an hour or so, that you can see a little nature, low-key and easy.  Since we live in the Puget Sound, we have a couple state park beaches we like to visit on this kind of trip.  You get familiar with these areas and go to them more than once, and over time get to see the small changes that occur seasonally and yearly.   Other good choices for this kind of trip, depending on your location, could be a river delta, sand dunes, a rocky creek, a lakeside.

The destination trip is longer and gets you really outside the comfort zone.  Depending on how far you can travel, it can take a day or a weekend or a week.  Day trip destinations are good if they are 1-3 hours away and have lots of good interesting stuff to spend 4-6 hours when there.  Finding the day trip destinations can be tricky, since you often already think you've been everywhere in your area, but that is rarely really true. 

Good places to look for destination field trip location ideas:

1. State Parks.  Any you've missed? 
2. National Parks.  These places are our national treasures for a reason.  Don't just do the "car tour" if you can help it; after a liesurely stroll through the interpretive center, ask a ranger for recommendations for a good short hike and get away from the crowds.  Remember though not to collect any rock samples from these heavily-traveled and protected areas.
3. The website for your state's Department of Geology.  Sometimes it's called a Geological Survey, or is a part of a Natural Resources division, or something like that.  But every state has one.  Many of these state departments have education as a part of their mission statement and have good lists of local resources and field trip locations for you to browse.
4. Regional geology guidebooks.  There are Roadside Geology and/or Geology Underfoot guides published for many states.  While these books are written for adults, many kids also find them interesting to browse.   There is also a growing collection of regional geology guides/activity books for kids by Cynthia Brown being published for children that can be worth a look.
5. If you want to try rockhounding (intentionally looking for and collecting specific mineral specimens), hook up with your local rock and gem clubs for guidance. Rockhounding books exist and give information on where to find specific types of rocks/minerals in an area, but even with those guides it is often difficult to find specific things on purpose and the legalities regarding rockhounding vary from place to place.
6. Hiking guidebooks or websites like this one.  The point is just to go outside and look around, not find a world-class unique geological feature at every stop.  Most hiking guides for an area that bill themselves as "With Kids" or "Easy Day Hikes" have wonderful places in your area that kids can enjoy.  Sometimes you can cross-reference these hikes with the regional geology guidebook to help explain what you're seeing and that, is fun!
7. And one of my favorites--Serendipity!  Don't plan a specific destination.  Pick a direction and go.  Take a few turns in the road you've never taken before.  Take that Gazetteer with you and see what you find in that area you've never been. 

Now, you know where you're going, or you just got back and want to find out more about the pretty stones you found or that crazy rock formation or that big mountain.  Where to start for further reading and keep that enthusiasm going?  See Part 3.

Look Around! (Rocks, Minerals, and Earth Science Resources for Homeschoolers, Part 1)

Rocks are often fascinating for kids.  They come in so many different colors, and some are sparkly, and some are pretty or clear or spotted, and a lot of them look like the gravel in the driveway. 

Unfortunately, it is this last part that causes many adults and parents brush off a kid's interest in a pebble as a boring rock.  Even the well-meaning homeschooling parent often overlooks the humble pebble, treating earth science as an afterthought or a less-important scientific sibling to biology or chemistry or physics.  This is a missed opportunity.  All the sciences are dependent upon each other, and earth sciences are an easy and gentle way to introduce your kids to nature, cultivate skills of observation, and even act as a "gateway drug" to a lifelong love of science and nature.  When I was a small child, my grandmother, a hardcore mineral collector with many rare, world class specimens in her collection, gave my sister and I wooden collection boxes with a few nice specimens, and took us along on a few rockhound expeditions.  Combined with my parents that encouraged my budding love of driveway pebbles and other interesting things to be found out-of-doors, little did anyone know it would eventually lead me to a couple degrees in geology and a hand lens in every backpack.  So, suffice it to say, I have strong opinions about how to teach our kids about geology and earth sciences. 

And I'm not too shy to share, haha! 

Parents, the single most important thing to encourage an interest in earth sciences in your kids, is to go outside and look around.  (This also works for interest in lots of other topics, too, but I'm trying to stay on track here.)  Try going somewhere new, or someplace you enjoyed but haven't been in a while.  Both you and the kids.  Get away from the city or subdivision where you can't see the land beneath you any more.  A groomed city park is great for playdates, but not the place to go for earth science.  Go to the mountains, or the beach, or the river, or the desert, or wherever you can get close to the land without the covering of man-made changes we are so used to seeing.  Have a nice, relaxing outing.  While you are there, open your eyes and LOOK.  You might notice things you never saw before.  "Huh, I never noticed these black sand grains at this beach."  "Wow, the bend of this river is a lot narrower than it was last summer."  "Dang, that's a big rock!" 

These observations lead to questions, naturally.  "Why is that mountain shaped that way?"  "How come this part of the trail is so much steeper than that first part?"  "What's up with all these little sparkly bits in this boulder?" 

There, now you and the kids, you're already thinking like scientists.  It's ok if you don't know the answers.  And, it's ok, even essential, to tell the kids you don't know the answers--and to tell them you will try to find out, or to gather more information.  "Hmm, good question, let's take a picture of that cliff and ask the Ranger about it."  "I don't know, I've never noticed that before!  Let's go see if the rocks over there are the same."  "Beats me, good observation!  Why don't we come back next month, and see if it is different."

If the kids don't have questions, parents, YOU have the questions and curiosity, model that for the kids.  Honest curiosity and enthusiasm is infectious.  Kids will more than likely catch on.  You can't fake it though, kids see right through that.  At least, mine do!  If it's an off afternoon or the weather is bad or you should have stopped for lunch an hour ago, oh well.  Don't force it.  Go have a snack.  It's the habits of observation and curiosity and investigation that are crucial, not any one specific experience.

And, there you go.  Those habits in themselves will get you pretty far.  To encourage further interest in specific earth science and rocks and minerals study, there are some helpful tools that are easy to put in a backpack or the trunk of the car, though.  And I've put them in Part 2.

Another honey-do project, done!

The boys here are into archery.  They have been planning for a while to make a real target of our own for the back yard.  Does that sound like an chance for "learning opportunities" or what?

The plan:

The kids honestly did not help much with that.  But they did "help" with The Shopping Trip:

If you count weighing down the cart and checking bolt sizes counts as helping.  Luckily, I do!

The help they provided during the power tools portion of the assembly, was more of the moral support variety.  But they were outside during that phase of work, and found some fuzzy caterpillars on the grass not far from the assembly station, so I'll take it.

Fully on-board with project testing, however!

The closer you stand, the easier it is to hit the target.  True story.

Combining two kids to one MBTP level

My son reads like a pro.  My daughter just this week learned to sound out "cat". (Go, Miss L!)  So they aren't really at the same level, but I am using the same "level" of MBTP curriculum for both kids.  Right now, they are both in the 5-7 level.  I alluded to this in a previous post, but I tried for a while having my son in the 6-8 and my daughter in the 5-7, and it was too much for me.  The two levels didn't mesh in content very well, and I had trouble doing the work for both of them while they were both in that sadly-short-attention-span window each day.  Plus, we were new to homeschooling at the time. I probably should have allowed my son to "de-school" for a while after the unhappy kindergarten experience, but I was high-strung about things.  And probably my daughter just wasn't ready yet.  So we took a break of many months, during which I did a lot of research into homeschooling methods and curricula and my kids did Time4Learning on the computer.  We all relaxed during that period, and eventually the kids became less-than-enthralled with the computerized options.  So one day, I pulled out the MBTP again, with both kids doing the same lesson just to see how it would go. 

It worked!  The attention span window was open long enough to also do math or one other morning thing, and they were extra engaged because they like each other's company and can share ideas. I am lucky that the two of them are less than two years apart in age, that helps, but because the 7-year-old is clearly "gifted" and advanced in reading well beyond his grade (but a reluctant writer) and the 5-year-old is only now to the Hop on Pop stage of reading, so I was concerned I couldn't make it work as the were too far apart in skills. 

But I needn't have worried.  To bring the MBTP 5-7 up to my 7-year-old son, it is a simple matter to give him the "advanced" options provided in the curriculum, ask him for more writing, more advanced ideas, and give him more advanced books that go along with each lesson.  I usually do it on the fly.   My 5-year-old daughter gets the recommended materials and the basic options in the curriculum.  For example, in the social studies unit we are currently working through, which frequently asks for the child to look through internet links or geography books for pictures of how different people live, eat, and play, I put two or three applicable books of complementary content but different level on the table between them.  Almost always, they pick they book most appropriate for their own level: my son usually prefers this DK Geography of the World, and my daughter usually goes for the old classic, People by Peter Spier. 

I won't say that this method of combining will work for them forever, but because my daughter's reading is only getting better, I think eventually it might actually be easier.  We'll see.  Yes, my son often knows the answers to the questions before I ask them, but I think that would be true of almost any curriculum.  Because MBTP is not our only curriculum choice, he is stretched intellectually in other subjects.  Meanwhile,  MBTP fills in gaps I would not have noticed on my own, and is helping him make connections I might not have thought. 

Anyway.  Back to nuts and bolts.  Two kids, one level, this is what it looks like when they are each doing a "final project" on the same topic. 

The 5-year-old gets more verbal guidance.  The 7-year-old did more work with the presentation materials and more independently.  Those papers on the wall, hard to read in the videos, are his words dictated to me with his own drawings below to illustrate the concepts. 

I know MBTP is not for everyone. Yes, it's often discussing simple things that my kids already understand.  But, what's key for me, is that it is helping cement their understanding and draw connections to other parts of life while gently encouraging a variety of writing and expression skills.  Drills and workborks, while they have their place (for us, that place is just math and phonics) are not happy ways for us to develop skills.  And, it is not too difficult for me to implement and the kids enjoy it. That's as much as I can ask for.

When left to their own devices

During the kids' copious free time, often they choose to play Lego and/or Playmobil.  Sometimes they read books.  Frequently they choose that old standby, run in circles while screaming.

But sometimes they sit quietly and tell each other stories. 

All together, now:

Awwww.

Fibonacci Spirals in the Woods

A few weeks ago I ran across the wonderful videos by Vi Hart combining mathematics with doodles and plants and flowers.  These start by beautifully demonstrating how many plants and flowers grow in spiral forms that follow the Fibonacci series of numbers (you remember, in which each number in the series is the sum of the two previous-- 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.)  Part 1 is below. 

This captured my imagination. So during one of the sunbreaks, the kids and I watched this again, then headed out to the trails in the woods out the back, to see if we could find any spirals.  Being mid-winter, it's not the best time to go looking, but we did find cones from a Douglas Fir and some kind of lonely pine tree (we forgot the identification books in our haste to get outside). 

Then, we brought the cones inside and got to counting. 

Like Vi Hart, we used different colors to help keep track of the rows of spirals.  Glitter glue was involved. 

And it worked!  For both types of cones, Fibonacci numbers represent!

If/when we try this again in the spring or summer, I'm going to make sure we have *fresh* tubes of glitter glue on hand, and find larger cones or flowers to count.  These little guys were still tight and tiny.  Definitely a fun diversion, though!

Miss L just saw the video screen again over my shoulder as I type this and asked to watch it again.  So, until next time...

Sensory Experiences

Someday, I'll need to do a post about our curriculum choices, but one of the cornerstones of what we use now is Moving Beyond the Page (MBTP). After trying different levels and permutations of how to make it work for our family, what seems to be working now is using the level appropriate for my younger child (right now, the 5-7) with both kids, but and enriching and supplementing as we go to make it more difficult for the older as well.  He's the trickier one anyway, I haven't found any curriculum that will work for him without modification, so I might as well stick with what *I* like for now and just find the way to use it with him. 

Anyway, we're just wrapping up a MBTP unit on the senses (Level 5-7, Concept 2, Unit 2).  This has been great fun, with lots of little projects and experiments using sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.    Often, several at once. 

Or taking some away.

The kids were blindfolded so often in these lessons, to try tasting things they couldn't see, or walk down the hallway using only touch, or to identify their location in the house using only sound, that I think those bandannas have new permanent creases.

One of Big K's favorite experiments was one in which I (unbeknownst to him) poured a small amount of clear soda into several glasses, then added a drop of food color to each glass, making the soda in each glass a different color.  The kids then tasted each one, we wrote down their impressions of the flavor in each glass, then blindfolded them and had them taste each glass again.  Of course, the answers were very different this time.  The objective--teaching the kids that sometimes your senses can trick other senses, came through loud and clear and was definitely a "lightbulb moment".

Another thing I liked about this unit was the frequent suggestions to go outside and practice using your senses outdoors.  Being mid-winter, we're often reluctant to go outside in the cold and the damp, but the recent snowfall made for some very interesting sensory observations!  For Miss L, yes, all of the 5 senses were represented.

Then, the snow melted.  Mud, everywhere.  We're having a bit of a run of sun this week, a very different but welcome sensory experience! 

The next unit, which we will start in a day or two, is "We're the Same, We're Different" and explores what makes people similar and different, both nearby and different cultures.  Looking forward to it!

Washington State Geology - Resources for Homeschoolers

It's true for any location, in addition to selections from the below list, you and yours need a rock hammer and a hand lens to really get into geology.  And most importantly, get outside!  Indoor learning is great too, but it is nothing without the context. 

Jessica's list of Washington State Geology resources for homeschoolers:

Books

General geology  for the youngers:

·    Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole

·    Any rock/mineral guidebooks with nice pictures (like Eyewitness books, Smithsonian Handbooks, DK Pockets). Rocks and minerals resource recommendations will be the subject of a future book list.

Regional geology, field trip ideas, and out and about information, appropriate for all ages:

·    Geology of the Pacific Northwest by Cynthia Brown (great for late elementary!)

·    Hiking Washington’s Geology by Babcock and Carson

·    Roadside Geology of Washington by David Alt

·    Gem Trails of Washington by Garrett Romaine

Further regional geology overviews for high school/adult:

·    Northwest Exposures: A Geologic Story of the Northwest by Alt and Hyndman

·    Restless Northwest: A Geological Story by Hill Williams

·    Geology of National Parks by Harris and Tuttle.  Fairly technical and pricey, it includes sections on North Cascades, Olympic, and Rainier National Parks as well as many, many others across the USA. This one I always consult before planning a trip.

Specific topics for the intrigued:

· Channeled Scablands and Ice Age Flooding

On the Trail of Ice Age Floods by Bruce Bjornstad

Cataclysms on the Columbia by Allen, Burns, and Sargent

· North Cascades

Geology of the North Cascades by Tabor and Haugerud

· Mt. Rainier

Roadside Geology of Mount Rainier National Park and Vicinity by Patrick Pringle

· Mt. St. Helens

Several great books listed in my Eruptions book list

Web links

• Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Links to the discussion on different regions of the state as well as field trip lists, guidelines for collecting, research science, and information on landslides, earthquakes, good stuff! http://www.dnr.wa.gov/ResearchScience/Topics/GeologyofWashington/Pages/geolofwa.aspx
• Burke Museum! Great to visit in person, solid online exhibits, and even fun educational materials to rent: http://www.burkemuseum.org/geology  
• Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network. Keep track of our recent earthquakes: http://www.ess.washington.edu/recenteqs/latest.htm  
• Science with Mrs. A. An elementary teacher’s website with a some great Washington fossil sites: http://www.sciencewithmrsa.com/
• Washington Interactive Geologic Map: https://fortress.wa.gov/dnr/geology/?Site=wigm
• YouTube video of a completed geology puzzle project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdulAw_foXY
• "Garret’s World of Geology" YouTube channel. This is the author of Gem Trails of Washington and he has several short videos that include rockhounding hunts in Washington, including jade near Darrington (episode 7) and quartz near Snoqualmie Pass (episode 2): http://www.youtube.com/user/DustyFingers5
• Stonerose Interpretive Center: http://www.stonerosefossil.org/index.html  (this site will make you want to go find fossils in Republic!)

TV Shows/DVDs, most available through Netflix or Library

·    Cash and Treasures with Kirsten Gum A Travel Channel series on hunting for gems , now off the air.  A few episodes took place in Washington.

·    How the Earth Was Made  Great documentary series from History Channel.  Season 2 Ep 10 is Mt. St. Helens.

·    Mystery of the Megaflood: Nova  Describes the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington and the fascinating story of J. Harlan Bretz.

A month of Vikings

Yesterday, we wrapped up our informal history study of the Vikings.  I think the kids learned a lot over the last month, from mythology to longships to trade routes. 

We started by putting Viking times in context by browsing through A Street Through Time once more, but our main "spines" were read-alouds of a few pages at a time from Eyewitness Viking and Usborne Viking World.
 

Big K also read Time Warp Trio: Viking It and Liking It and Horrible Histories' Vicious Vikings while the Beena really enjoyed browsing the Viking section of Usborne Time Traveler.  Early on we read a simple version of Beowulf and many tales of Norse Mythology from the wonderful D'Aulaire Book.  The kids, they do love their monsters.  We finished up by reading Harald the Ruthless.  

I like to tie subjects together whenever possible, so along the way, not long after our visit to the aquarium, we folded in some science by reading The Cod's Tale (fabulous book, like all of Mark Kurlansky's books) which has several pages about the Viking use of dried cod, which in part allowed them to sail long distances and settle briefly in North America.  A few informal and impromptu art projects were generated from The Story of the Vikings (Dover Coloring Book) and Viking Designs (Dover Clip Art). 


And because I like to engage in what the kids are studying too, I read A Viking Voyage: In Which an Unlikely Crew of Adventurers Attempts an Epic Journey to the New World and The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman. 

Next week we'll segue into expanded medieval study, which I think will take a couple months.  I'm drowning in options planning this one, rather than the relatively sparse pickings for kids' books on Vikings.  Thinking to start next week by reading about the Silk Road, linking the Vikings with Constantinople and on to other parts of the then-known world, then circling back to a few pages in the Usborne World History Encyclopedia to set the scene before diving into the era of castles and knights with both feet.  Here we go!