Thousand Word Thursday - Friend Groups

Who says homeschoolers are unsocialized?! Mane is part of both of these groups on a weekly basis. Such fabulous kids!

Homeschool Group

Swim Team

Make your own Bubble Tea!

After a trek to two different Asian grocery stores, we came home to make our very own bubble tea! Mane was pining after some good bubble tea after standing out in the hot sun this morning. She's a particular fan of mango smoothies with lychees jellies and tapioca pearls. I'm not a fan of spending $4 for a beverage at the bubble tea place. So, we set out to have a cultural cooking experience and make our own!

Our first stop was Shuang Hur Oriental Market on Nicollet Avenue. (This is where we bought banana leaves to wrap the lembas for Mane's Lord of the Rings birthday party.) We found lychee jellies at Shuang Hur. Here's Mane dropping them in mango orange juice (not quite a mango smoothie, but still very yummy):

Clearly, we have enough lychee jellies to last us for quite some time! We could not find tapioca pearls at Shuang Hur, though. So, we headed over to United Noodles, right off Franklin and Cedar. There we found, not only tapioca pearls, but also a giant assortment of tea, Chinese herbs, sauce, rice noodles, incense, curry, etc, etc, etc... We came home with rice wine for marinading chicken, bok choy, ginger, and snap peas. Mango is planning to do some cooking tomorrow!

Multi-Colored Tapioca Pearls!

We are looking forward to visiting United Noodles again very soon! Shuang Hur was smaller and had a meat market that didn't smell so great. They are still totally the place to go if you need banana leaves or if you want to see a live lobster. But for a bigger, cleaner store, we recommend United Noodles, which smelled a lot like black licorice...

Niagara Cave and the Alohomora podcasts...

Over Memorial weekend we found ourselves in serious need of a daytrip. So, we took Mango to see Niagara Cave in Harmony, MN. Mane and I went on the cave tour last summer and thought it was great. We knew Mango would love it, and the drive was a good excuse to spend some time together without so many distractions.

We listened to Alohomora podcasts for part of the drive. We've gotten hooked on them over the past several months...while cleaning the house and doing puzzles and driving in the car. If you're a Harry Potter fan, you're sure to enjoy these podcasts. The hosts are conducting a "global re-read" of the series with weekly analysis of each individual chapter! They're currently reading Half-Blood Prince, but all the podcasts are available for download.

In any case, the rain stopped long enough for us to get a photo outside the cave:

It's awfully difficult to get photos inside:

It's like an underground canyon. Sometimes you can see the walls go up 150 feet overhead! The underground waterfall is amazing! The cave stays a steady 48 degrees Fahrenheit and damp all year. We especially enjoyed seeing the chapel, the echo chamber, and the mineral deposits that glow in the dark after you shine a black light on them. The tour is a mile long walk, covering 250 stairs. So, it's not for the faint of heart...or the claustrophobic. For those of us who had been sitting in the car for several hours, it was welcome exercise!

Game Schooling - Munchkin Quest

Looking for a fun, humorous, strategy game to play on a long, rainy evening? Munchkin Quest is your answer!  Be warned that it takes a while to learn how to play. And the game cards can be slightly inappropriate - in a medieval and/or renaissance fair kind of way. I wouldn't attempt to play with kids under 12. Having said that, it's one of our games of choice for a family game night. Players build the board as they go. Every time a player adds a new room to the board, a monster appears, and they have to fight the monster by combining dice rolls with the cards they have in play. As players defeat monsters, they move up levels until they return to the center of the board and fight the "Boss Monster" to win the game. Turns are long and can include adding new rooms, fighting monsters, running from monsters, dropping treasure, searching for treasure, scoring cards, and giving charity! (This gives other players plenty of time to eat all the snacks, get something to drink, and change the music!) It's a great game for practicing strategy and logic...and laughing a lot!

Tour De Nature Centers - Westwood Hills

Westwood Hills is a little nature center tucked in next to a residential area in St. Louis Park, MN. We were tired of the indoors and decided to go have a picnic with friends the other day.  We spread out our picnic blanket under the trees near the fort-building area and not far from the playground:

We walked the Children's Nest Egg path to discover the nest lined with shiny metallic "feathers" reflecting the trees and the sky:

Finally, we went for a walk in the woods, where a daddy goose was standing guard on the path. We stayed out of his way after he started hissing and walking straight toward the 3yr old!

Thousand Word Thursday - Swim Meet

Mane aged up to the 13-14 year old category after her birthday this May, and she made two new qualifying times at her meet last Friday night!! She started the swim team in November 2013. This is her "gym class" (4.5+ hours swimming each week). She swims at the YWCA with kids from all over Minneapolis, not just homeschoolers. Learning to get around the YWCA on her own, take care of her own stuff, and get to practice on time been a tremendous growth experience for her. Her team is made up of kids of all different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds, and her experience with her teammates and coaches has been overwhelmingly positive. We are so grateful that she's found her niche in the sport of swimming and that she has the opportunity to continue to grow with such a great team!

Game Schooling - Storage Edition

Plastic soap containers or similarly-sized snack containers work great for storing card games:

I found these at the dollar store. I love that the lid clips to close the container. Now we can do away with rubber binders holding decks of cards together!

Dragon Box Algebra App

On Friday I mentioned Tech Time's list of the 15 Best Apps for Homeschooling.  I linked to the article on my facebook page, and a friend of mine posted a few days later that her kids were all over the Dragon Box Algebra app for ages 5+. She posted:

...its algebra for kids and the littles are obsessed with it. ... [My son] LOVED it. He finished the whole thing in 4 days. On the second problem, even though his age is all pictures, he looked at me and said "This is math. I like math." That in and of itself made it the best $5 I've spent in a very long time.

This is the app that sneakily teaches algebra while your children think they're just playing a game! Mane is finishing up pre-algebra this year and will be starting Algebra 1 over the summer or this autumn. I decided to give Dragon Box Algebra 12+ a try to help her approach algebra from another angle and to make conceptual sense of algebraic concepts. I believe alternate presentations of the same concept are essential to math success, and approaching math from different angles builds flexibility in the brain. This app does exactly that. From the website:

DragonBox presents the player with whimsical icons that must be manipulated until the ‘Dragonbox’, representing the unknown variable, is isolated on one side of the game board. ... Through the course of play, these icons are gradually replaced with numbers and variables until the player is solving real equations. The rules of variable manipulation are discovered through experimentation, and higher star ratings are obtained by manipulating variables more efficiently to isolate the ‘box’ in fewer steps.

Mane was dubious when we downloaded the app. The program does not present with rules. Players are expected to learn through play. This makes the rule-following child feel a little insecure...in a good way. She tried out the app with me and was quick to put it away. Later that day, however, when she'd been "forced" to find something to do while waiting for Mango to pick her up from swim practice, she took the time to explore and figure out the game, and now she's hooked.

Even better news? Dragon Box has a geometry App: Dragon Box Elements. We cannot wait to check it out!!

Homeschool - Learning a Foreign Language

We are embarking on a journey to learn German. In the past, I've tried to get Mane to learn some Spanish. She's been everywhere from totally resistant to very mildly interested. So, we dropped any attempts to work on a foreign language for a while. This semester I started talking to her about how she's going to need a foreign language in order to graduate from high school. She started casually mentioning wanting to learn German. She asked if DuoLingo (a language learning app that we've used for Spanish) has German. We checked, and she immediately started working through the first German lesson! For weeks now she's been playing around with German learning apps, attempting to use all the German phrases she's learning, and organizing a binder for keeping German vocab!

We've tested out a number of programs and apps, and it seems that a quick review might be helpful to others, who are also trying to learn a language at home. Here's our list:

• DuoLingo - Offers a huge range of languages, used by millions of people around the world, listed as one of the 15 Best Apps for Homeschooling by Tech Times, and it's FREE! The program includes listening, reading, writing, and speaking components. Progress is tracked and lessons are personalized. There's even an educator version now that allows teachers to track individual student progress. The only drawback that we have experienced is that Duolingo does not introduce common conversational phrases early in the program. So, the user learns to say, "I am a girl," and "The woman eats bread," but not, "Hello," or "Good Morning." Duolingo is, however, great for learning noun gender, verb conjugation, and general vocabulary. We love DuoLingo!
• Busuu - We were really excited about Busuu at first. Like DuoLingo, Busuu offers a range of languages, is used by millions of people, has won a number of awards, and is free. The activities are different from those used by Duolingo. So, while it offers all the same components, they're presented in a different way. However, after a short ad-free period when we first began using the app, we were quickly overrun with ads. It was too distracting and would make the app extremely difficult to navigate for younger kids.
• MosaLingua - Great for learning conversational phrases, and it's also free. The program offers flash cards for "learning" phrases, followed by activities, and then intermittent, timed practice based on research demonstrating how often people need to review to move things to long term memory. The app sends notifications to the user's mobile device that it's time to practice, and it tracks how many phrases have been learned. We have found this app indispensable for learning useful conversational phrases.
• Transparent - Free access to this online language learning program is available through Hennepin County Libraries. We found the program to be too drill/flash card oriented. There were some great activities, but it's no fun to get stuck on the flash card portion because it keeps setting you back every time you miss something. The program also relies on the user's feedback about whether they remembered a particular word or phrase, rather than having a way to test if the word or phrase was remembered.
• LiveMocha -  This is a free online program. It does not have a mobile app, and this was a serious drawback for us. LiveMocha is also somewhat similar to the free program our library offers. We haven't gone back to it in a while now.
• Coffee Break German - We LOVE Coffee Break German, the free podcast offered by Radio Lingua Network. We are only seven episodes in, but these are so rich in vocabulary, grammar, and culture that we have learned volumes! Radio Lingua offers instruction in French, German, Spanish, and Italian. They also have written materials available for purchase on their website.

With so many free resources available, I'm disinclined to purchase much. If we want it, our library also has Pimsleur, Mango Passport, and the Living Language Series. We have the Germanic American Institute not far from us, offering classes, cultural events, and conversation circles. And we found a number of inexpensive resource books from Half Price Books (textbooks and a German-English dictionary).

In the meantime, we're labeling everything in the house in German...

Reflex Math

In my previous post on Spelling Apps, I mentioned how much we love Reflex Math, and I still cannot say enough good things about this program. It isn't free. I guess that could be viewed as a drawback, but the truth is that it's worth every single penny, and the people who created it should get to make a living. So, I don't mind paying for it.

Since the very beginning of homeschooling, it's been apparent that Mane is a very different learner. She doesn't memorize math facts or spelling words just by seeing them regularly. She's been doing Saxon math since the 4th grade and was STILL multiplying and dividing very, very slowly at the beginning of this school year (7th grade). She was frustrated that math lessons were taking so long, and I was worried about her ability to be successful in higher mathematics. So, I set out to find a way for her to memorize math facts, aside from using them in her math lessons and without resorting to me quizzing her with flashcards. Knowing that, for Mane, sometimes the trick is just lots and lots of repetition, we tried out XtraMath. It's a free, drill-based program. Practice is timed and takes just a few minutes a day. The program tracks learner progress and gradually moves them through the math facts. However, a year later, Mane had not made a whole lot of progress. Truthfully, she wasn't fond of the program, and she dragged her feet about using it.

This year I heard about Reflex Math and decided to give it a try. They offer a free trial period to test out the program before buying. We liked it enough that we invested $35 for a one year subscription.

Similar to XtraMath, Reflex Math tracks learner progress and moves gradually through the math facts. Unlike XtraMath, however, "fact families" are introduced together so that learners can group or "chunk" their learning to assist and accelerate memorization. Reflex Math uses games for practice following a "lesson" portion of the program (which is also game-like). Learners feel successful from the beginning because the program is designed to give only a certain number of unknown facts mixed in with known facts. Carefully spaced repetition of unknown facts "jogs" the learner's memory as they play the games. Learners choose an avatar when they start the program, and playing games earns them tokens to spend on accessories, clothes, hairstyles, and a number of other things for their avatar. New games are unlocked based on how many days the program has been used. So, a learner does not have to meet a certain number of known facts to play new games. They just have to put in the effort to practice regularly.

What we love about Reflex Math:

• Free Trial Period
• "Fact Family" approach to math facts (Example: 3x4=12, 4x3=12, 12/3=4, 12/4=3)
• Progress Tracking (tracks days/minutes used, individual facts learned, percentage gain, total number of problems solved...)
• Individualized game play (spaced repetition of known & unknown facts based on individual student progress)
• Avatar reward system (use tokens earned through game play to purchase things for your avatar)
• New games unlocked at intervals based on number of days the program is used

The really great news? Mane went from 12% to 85% fluency with multiplication and division facts after 46 days of using the program! That's a gain of 3-4 new facts a day!

Fun, Effective Spelling Apps and/or Programs

Recently we went on a quest for apps or programs that might help Mane with spelling. Spelling does not come naturally to her, and the key to spelling for her is lots and lots of repetition. I seriously dislike quizzing her, and I have a hard time creating new word lists now that we've finished Logic of English. Mane has become brilliant with her math facts by using the online program Reflex Math. So, I was hoping for a spelling app or program that would work similarly. Because it's been such an involved process, I thought others might benefit from the information.

First, here's the short list of free android apps we tried and why we discarded them immediately:

• Brilliant Spelling - uses google voice and is super annoying
• Spell Friendzy - user must keep doing the same things over and over to have enough points to unlock new levels
• Spelling Mastery - cannot actually find this app in the play store
• Spellvetica - would not load
• Spelling Bee - opened with ads immediately
• Painless Spelling - designed to go with the book and also would not load
• Big IQ Kids - does not autoselect words or move through a sequence automatically

So, then we tried Learn That Word (more on that later). Once we discovered that we had to pay for the parts of Learn That Word that we really wanted, we decided to try Ultimate Spelling instead. It was less expensive and has been billed as the best spelling program on the market.

Ultimate Spelling was awful. Within a few hours of downloading the program and testing it out, I had contacted customer service asking for my money back and uninstalled the program. Here's why:

Things I wanted:  

• auto-generated word lists
• auto-tracking of progress
• spaced review/repetition
• individualized and automatic movement through the program

Things Ultimate Spelling said they had:

• the ability to get started quickly with expert lists, perfect for any grade level 1-10
• fun games based on levels of processing, operant conditioning, and spaced repetition
• detailed reports on spelling improvement (which I somehow took to mean that spelling improvement would be automatically assessed and progress through the program would happen automatically)

What I got: 

• expert lists that were FORTY-FIVE words long - resulting in me needing to sort and manually input lists because that's WAY TOO LONG for a new word list
• spelling practice that involved flashing the word for a few seconds and then having the student spell the word (Mane could do this absolutely forever and still never actually remember how to spell the word.)
• a terribly outdated and ugly user interface that wasn't nearly as engaging as their website
• games - not any better (and possibly worse because of the boring interface) than the free ones at Spelling City
• no automated determination of when a word is mastered or automatic, individualized movement to the next word or group of words. What I mean by this is that words have to be marked as "mastered" by either the learner or the teacher. The program does not have a built in system for determining mastery, taking old words off the list, or adding new words. Basically, everything has to be done manually, and the teacher/parent still has to quiz the student (on multiple occasions over time) to determine if a word has been mastered.

The best thing about Ultimate Spelling is that they have a money back guarantee/cancel any time policy. They did honor this policy, and I got my money back. 

So, we moved back to Learn That Word. We had tried it for free and then discovered that, although parts of the website are always free, the spelling quiz component of the website requires the purchase of "tokens." After such a bad experience with Ultimate Spelling, we decided to spend the money to purchase the smallest number of tokens and spend a little more time on the program to decide if we wanted to keep going. Learn That is a non-profit organization, which offers the spelling program Learn that Word. I like their mission statement: LearnThat Foundation Manifesto, and I appreciate the page comparing their program to Spelling City, which we used when Mane was younger: Spelling City Comparison.

Learn That Word is a quiz approach, not a "games" approach. But, unlike Spelling City or Ultimate Spelling, it has built-in repetition and review, which matter much more to us right now than games. The program is sequential and doesn’t require you to enter your own lists So, during quizzes the learner hears the word and sees a definition, sample sentence, photo, and blank spaces to represent the number of letters in the word. If the word is spelled incorrectly, the spaces are filled with whatever letters the learner got right. They then try to spell the word a second time. After the second try, the correct spelling is revealed.  Words that are spelled correctly on the first try are reviewed later, but they do not become part of the learner's spelling list and they do not use up tokens. Words not spelled correctly will be reviewed according to a spaced repetition pattern and must be spelled correctly a certain number of times to be considered mastered. Once a word is mastered, a token is subtracted from the learner's account. While doing quizzes, learners earn "gold coins," which may be exchanged to play games (like hangman). 

We are now 2 weeks into using Learn That Word, and it looks like this will be our program of choice for the next several months, if not years. There is a vocabulary component also, and both the spelling and vocabulary components extend into college level. 

Bullet Point list of what's great about Learn That Word:

• auto-generated word lists that can be customized for length
• automated progress tracking and movement through spelling lists based on individual performance and needs
• spaced review of previous words
• earned games
• spelling bee style quizzes
• access to vocabulary component
• optional (but not required) customization of spelling and vocabulary lists

Learn That Word is not a stand-alone spelling curriculum because phonics and spelling rules are not part of the program. I am comfortable with using it right now because Mane has already received (and continues to receive) instruction in phonics and spelling rules. If you want to use it in conjunction with a spelling program, there is an option to input your own words. 

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I feel that I should also say a few words about Spelling City. We used Spelling City for an entire school year, and it was excellent. We stopped because Mane was tired of playing the same games every week and was ready to move on to something new. (There are A LOT of games, but after a whole year it was still starting to get old.) I was tired of entering word lists and having to go back and create new lists of previously difficult words in order to make sure she was getting that spaced/timed review. Spelling City does have an option to use lists already on their site, but there is no way for the program to do an automatic spiral review, which is really important for Mane. This is not so important for student to whom spelling comes more naturally.

Bullet Point List of what's good about Spelling City:

• custom OR auto-generated word lists
• really great games
• allows teachers to assign games and activities ahead of time
• program tracks what assignments were done and what words were missed
• writing component allows teacher to log in and offer feedback

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If you have questions about our experience with any of these programs, leave them in the comments. I'll see what I can do to answer.    

Okee Dokee Brothers

What a delight that we got to see the Okee Dokee Brothers perform with the Minnesota Orchestra this spring! We're looking forward to checking out their concert schedule this summer!

Thousand Word Thursday - Formal Day at the Homeschool Co-op

Hair Braiding Practice

Vespera worked on Mane's hair while Mane worked on mine...

Vespera & Mane

All Dressed Up...no shoes for this wood elf!

Game Schooling - Quick Pix Animals

I picked this game up for next to nothing at the homeschool book sale about a month ago, and then I saw it at the science museum store. You know it's a good game when they're selling it at the science museum!

How to Play:
Each player gets 5 cards, which they place face-up in front of themselves. Each card has two animal categories, such as "mammals" or "reptiles" on it. The deck contains animal picture cards. When a card from the deck is flipped up, the first player to match their category card to the animal card keeps the match. I require older kids to call out the correct category, not just slap the right category card down on the animal.

We're finding that even our smallest player is getting pretty good at this game! The category cards have pictures of the animals on them. So, he can identify the matches by using the pictures:

Just look at his card stash on the couch there!

Learning:

Younger players practice matching/patterning and eye scanning skills. Older players learn animal classification. Grown-up players learn to be quick...because the kids are FAST! The game rules come with information about classification and all the animals included in the deck. Even our adult players learned some new things about some animals from this game. (Did you know that manatees are hoofed mammals? And that the porcupine is considered a rodent?)

Homeschool in Spring!

It's spring in Minnesota! Time to celebrate with books and bubbles on the front porch!

Game Schooling - Quiddler

I cannot believe I've made it this long without playing Quiddler! The game came out in 1998, and TDmonthly lists it as one of the top ten most wanted cards games STILL in 2014. The Card Game Reviews blog says:

Quiddler has won more than a dozen gaming awards, including a MENSA Select Award, a spot on Newsweek‘s Perfect Presents list, and the 1998 Tiger Award for Best American Game.

The game comes with a fat stack of letter cards, which players make into words. Play is simple, following a draw and discard format. Round 1 starts with 3 cards (meaning players will be making 3-letter words). Round 2 begins with 4 cards, Round 3 with 5, etc... up to 10 cards. Players must use their entire hand (minus 1 card to discard) to make 1 or more words with the highest point value. House rules could make this game easier or harder for kids of different ages. Those just learning to read could make shorter words than experienced readers. The deck could be stacked to include (or not include) letter blends. Players could decide to play up to a certain point value, rather than a certain number of rounds or to play all rounds with the same number of letters.

As a card game, Quiddler is delightfully small and pack-able, and Mane commented on how much she likes the design of the letters! I love a game that is beautiful, educational AND portable. This one definitely has some camping/road trips in its future!

Filming

Just a fun shot of Mane helping set up to film a fundraising concert with Mango back in March...

She's learned a lot over the past few years about the set-up and take-down of video & sound equipment for events, as well as getting good camera angles and doing a little active filming.

Passover 2015 - Bag of Plagues

For Passover this year we decided to use the idea from the Martha Stewart website and make a "Bag of Plagues" for Mane and her younger friends. We replaced a couple of the items (see below). Rather than dark chocolate cherries for blood (YUCK!!), we made red slime...

Here's the list of what we used for each plague:

Blood: slime (borax, polyvinyl alcohol, red food coloring)
Frogs: Plastic frogs
Lice: glitter
Swarms: Plastic bugs
Cattle disease: Plastic cows
Boils: Orbies
Hail: Altoids
Locusts: Plastic locusts
Darkness: Blindbolds
Slaying of the first born: Plastic lambs

Spring Break 2015

We had such a fabulous spring break this year! We saved up all our field trips and brought Mango along while he was on spring break, too. First up was the Habsburg Exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Thanks to my lovely friend, we got to go for free! Mane was much more interested and attentive than I thought she would be. She's gotten so much more grown up this year. I'm really glad she got to go, and I know it's an exhibit she'll remember. 

Later in the week we headed out to see Debutante's Ball at the History Theatre, a comedic play about Filipino immigration and coming-of-age parties. We got to bring along my friend, whose mother immigrated here from the Philippines. She said the play was spot-on, reflecting a lot of her experiences with her family and the tension of first and second generation immigrant. 

We followed up the trip to the History Theatre with the Space Exhibit at the Science Museum where we saw the new omnifilm, learned about the missions to Mars, and saw this giant astronaut:

Spring break ended with some serious kite flying and a beautiful Passover Seder...

Passover Moon & an owl kite...

Logic Curriculum - The Fallacy Detective

This was one of the best Christmas presents ever! We received The Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel Bluedorn & Hans Bluedorn from Mane's former-philosphy-professor grandmother. It had been on our wish list since the beginning of the school year. So, we dug right in as soon as we got it. Lessons are short, straight-forward and much easier to understand than what we were found in An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments. Each chapter is one lesson and include cartoons, examples, and a quiz. The quiz at the end of each chapter includes both the newly learned fallacy and all of the fallacies from previous chapters. We can easily cover a chapter in a half an hour, or we can spend a whole morning discussing the example arguments in the quizzes at the end of the chapter. The sample arguments relate to real world issues like belief in God, taxes, the Revolution, education spending, homework, chores, and global warming. 

Recently Mane read a ridiculously horrible parenting article by an expert, who shall remain nameless, and she was able to break the whole 8-page article down using what she knows from the first 12 chapters of The Fallacy Detective. She was so proud of her ability to read something by an adult expert and think about it critically. She wrote a paper describing the difficulties of the article, and we used this as an opportunity to work on writing skills and tactful argument, as well as critical thinking and logic.

Looking forward to the next two-thirds of the book!

Middle School Chemistry - Review

We finished up Middle School Chemistry from middleschoolchemistry.com this week, and I cannot say enough good things about this curriculum. It's totally FREE, but that it's nearly the best part. Middle School Chemistry was written by actual chemists, who clearly know the science, love it, and know how to teach it. Texts, labs, and animations are all available on the website in a clear sequence. Lessons reinforce and build one after another. Mane remembers things from the very beginning of the year because the concepts continue to be reinforced throughout the curriculum. Concepts that eluded me in college suddenly made sense when I went through the material with Mane. The text does not talk down to kids. It isn't silly or dumbed-down, yet it grabs the attention. The lessons all end with take-it-further labs and questions that relate the text and labs to real life situations.

And it wasn't hard. I'm serious. Chemistry is often considered the most difficult and esoteric of the sciences. Middle School Chemistry laid it all out in such a simple and straightforward way that it was almost impossible NOT to understand. It teaches all the correct vocabulary and concepts (I checked with my chemistry teacher husband) using language and explanations that you don't have to be a scientist to understand. After learning chemistry this way, though, a person could easily move on to become a scientist, having been taught the appropriate language in an understandable way!

Lab set-up to solve for an "unknown" substance

Can you tell what the unknown substance is?

Game Schooling - Chess

Do I really need to say more? You all know what chess is, right? But I always forget how much I enjoy playing, and the educational benefits are considerable. Chess is a game of strategy, requiring a whole lot of both planning and flexibility. There are entire conferences and considerable research studies devoted to the benefits of playing chess. From The Susan Polgar Foundation: Excel Through Chess:

Countless researchers and studies have shown over the years that chess does indeed strengthen a child's mental clarity, fortitude, stability, and overall health. Many schools are now finding chess as an inexpensive but essential way of helping kids grow mentally. In this technologically driven world, chess helps aid in the synthesis and growth of certain areas in the brain and mind where many children can benefit as they grow older from the game.

In 1986 a program called Chess-In-The-Schools was introduced in New York City to promote chess as a tool for developing essential skills for school children. The program is still going strong today. In 1992 New Jersey passed a bill requiring all students in New Jersey schools to be taught to play chess in the 2nd grade!  And just this April a senator in California introduced a bill to designated October as "California Chess Month," recognizing both the educational value and popularity of the game.

For an interesting history of chess, beginning with its origins in India around 600AD, check out the United States Chess Federation website. Fortunately for all of us, chess is available in a multitude of forms today - from high-end, hand-carved display games to mobile apps, and resources for everything from basic game rules to complex strategies can be found all over the internet. So, go dig out the old dusty box in your game closet, and start playing chess!!

Chemistry Lessons - Dissolving Salt & Sugar

Dissolving M&Ms (sugar) in water & alcohol

It's been a while since I've checked in about our chemistry class this year! Over the last month we've played with dissolving salt and sugar in water, alcohol and oil. We've discovered how the polarity of molecules affects how quickly the molecule can dissolve salt or sugar (if it can dissolve it at all).  Here's Mane in action:

Model of water dissolving salt

Dissolving M&Ms in water, alcohol & oil

We have continued to be very happy with MiddleSchoolChemistry.com! It's taken a lot longer to work through the lessons that I thought it would because we are doing every experiment and project in the lessons unless we absolutely cannot find materials. The early lessons were a breeze. The later lessons are more dense, and both Mane and I are getting a lot out of them! I'm understanding chemistry a lot better than I did in college!