ThadenPierce School

September – 1. Scientific Method, Experiments & Senses
- sensory experiments
- disability awareness experiments: ear plugs, blind fold
- will it float?
- water, ice, dye

Vocab: solid, liquid, gas, senses

C Cub Scout Award Science requirements here.

October – MATERNITY LEAVE

November – 2. Animals
- sorting animal cards
- visit animals*: zoo, Spirit Horse, farm (nutrition scout award)
- care for pet for 2 weeks, read book and list 3 facts about & make poster to share

Vocab: habitat

C Cub Scout Award pet care requirements.

December – 3. Life Long Ago/Dinosaurs
- animal tracks, make prints in clay & plaster (for scout requirement re: wildlife conservation & geology, footprints and fossil print)

Vocab: earth, dinosaurs

January – 4. Land
- rock, sand & other mineral examination
- samples of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic & 3 types of minerals

Vocab: rock, mineral, soil

C Cub Scout Award Geology requirements here.

February – 5. Body
- food groups
- safety poster: KidPower & Frisco fire station visit*

Vocab: body, heart, energy, exercise

C Cub Scout Award for Nutrition requirements here.

Games: All Systems Go and Heart Health.

March – 6. Earth & Outer Space
- shadow tracing
- constellation cups w/flashlight: planetarium trip*
- model solar system

Vocab: shadow, star, solar system, orbit
(Additional C vocab for scout pin: planet, star, solar system, galaxy, the Milky Way, black hole, red giant, white dwarf, comet, meteor, moon, asteroid, star map, and universe)

C Cub Scout Award Astronomy requirements here.

April – 7. Forces
- forces on different objects: use simple machines (for scout award: lever, pulley, wheel-and-axle, wedge, inclined plane, and screw)
- magnets

Vocab: machine, magnet, attract, repel, force

May – 8. Plants
- plant seeds: diagram plants
- ways animals use plants poster

Vocab: stem, roots, flower, fruit, seed, pollen

June – 9. Water & Weather
- water plus: salt, sugar, sand, oil
- helicopter spinners
- make poster water cycle
- set up weather station for one week

Vocab: water, air, gas, weather, wind (Additional vocab for C’s scout pin: humidity, precipitation, temperature, tornado, hurricane.)

C Cub Scout Award weather award requirements.

July – 10. Caring for our Planet
- caring for our space: make poster of ways to care for our space and do service project*
- create poster of food chain
- create poster/report on endangered species

C Cub Scout Wildlife Conservation requirements.

* Field trip ideas.

All from C’s camera but with some help shooting from Mom & Dad. We bought a family pass to the zoo last November because it wasn’t much more than the cost of us attending ONCE. We were waiting for spring to go again, though we lost our spring to my bedrest. It’s so hot now that we waited for a day with rain in the forecast and headed up when Kit got home. It’s about a 30 minute drive and was nice and overcast with a breeze so it wasn’t too hot. We all had hats, bottles of ice water and lots of sunblock. It takes about an hour to walk this entire zoo (with rest stops for Mom) and we literally had the place to ourselves. It was a nice afternoon!

The zookeepers:

The wild animals:

Other animals, not as cute but the baby zebra and baby kangaroo in the pouch were fun:

DFW on a budget link from friend to explore later!

More summer specific activities in our area.

Today we dropped Moira off to play with her cousin and my sister got the rest of us in as guests into the science museum. The kids had a blast, I think the dinosaur dig and the water park area were the two biggest hits.

Archway made from used plastic bottles, good reminder to use stainless steel water bottles!

C under the Da Vinci flying man:

Kit took Christopher & Moira to the Apple store for a field trip and a laptop repair mission (which, much to my delight, was covered by my extended warranty and my laptop looks lovely and new just in time to pass it to C when Kit buys his new laptop and I inherit his.) The kids learned how to create songs in Garage Band and we’ll post what they made. They also got cute t-shirts (even Kit got one.)

Our local homeschool board has been posting a ton of new field trip ideas (astronaut center, California Pizza Kitchen, etc) and I’m happy we could take advantage of one despite me being on bedrest. We knew we needed a trip for this repair so fun for the kids while Kit took care of business.

(Side note, Kit’s ordered his new “company” iPad.)

Pictures from the coordinator:

Kit said Mo wasn’t enjoying taking turns so he took her to her own computer after this.

Class Schedule

To explore – here.

I subscribe to several local homeschool groups and get a daily digest of the emails sent. Today this site came through and reminded me of why I join these groups – I learn about local resources I wouldn’t have discovered on my own!
Astronaut Training Center in DFW.

This is an annual event I guess??

Christopher’s been interested in starting a marble collection and my Mom mentioned there is a marble factory not far from here. Today we visited Moon Marble Company and watched a marble being made by hand! Then the kids picked out a marble tube, they had two different size tubes you could fill and then a shooter to fit into the cap. They chose the smaller size (more marbles) and had so much fun. We let the older three do it, not Emiline since it did advise it not for kids under 3 and I don’t quite trust her to keep hers away from the baby yet.

They had to stick their hands into the mouth of this big carved guy sitting on a barrel to pull out their shooter but the smaller ones they picked from jars, like candy jars. They had so many amazing marbles and the place was huge, filled with all sorts of old fashioned games and marble related things. Kit will be posting pictures soon…

The tour was free and the marble tube was $3.50 for 21 marbles. So much fun!!

Mo & C picking out their marbles:

Here’s the big scary guy you had to stick your hand into his mouth to get your shooter & Bennett eyeing all the cool games: