Daily Archives: March 11, 2012

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Home Project: Herb Garden Box

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Today was such a beautiful day.  We spent nearly the entire morning and most of the afternoon outside with the boys playing, cleaning out Bonnie, and organizing the garage and pole barn.  And then, as we were scoping out our land, we came across a bonanza.  Underneath a bunch of brush, Israel spotted what looked like a raised garden box.  Upon further inspection, we discovered that he was right!

While Israel worked on other things, the boys and I tackled the garden box.  At the same time, we tried to get a head start on our worm farm.  (This will be another post.)  As we cut and removed more and more brush, we uncovered a bunch of tomato cages that were hidden in there!   

Finally, we got enough dirt out of the box to where the two boys and I were able to lift it out and then drag it closer to the house.  I found some left-over white paint and brushes in the basement and we decided to give it some new life.  They loved this part the most.

Here is the final product!  It took Manu, Micah, and me a total of about 2 hours from start to finish.  Thankfully Ty napped the entire time. 


Later in the evening, Israel helped me transport this closer to our house and we decided it will soon be transformed into a raised herb garden – if we can get our seeds to grow, that is…haha!    

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Science Experiment Week

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Last week at the Ramos School for Boys, we spent school time doing science experiments from a science kit that we bought for Manu’s birthday.  We suspended our normal school routine to focus on science and more specifically how to conduct experiments to learn more about the amazing handiwork of God. 

We completed a series of 9 experiments throughout this week that dealt mainly with color, light, and dissolving/absorption.  The boys learned how to gather materials, read through procedures, make proper hypotheses, gather data, then come up with conclusions.  They were so excited to be scientists this past week.  I must add, I was very impressed with their work.

Here were some of their hypotheses:

Micah: 
“If we put a color tab in hot and cold water, then they will dissolve the same.”
“If we add 2 ml of red water and 2 ml of blue water, then the water will turn blue.”
“If we put the tabs inside the water, then it will turn into a rainbow.”
“If we add liquid soap to the soymilk, then there will be BIG bubbles.”

Manu: 
“If we add 4 ml of yellow water with 2 ml of blue water, then it will turn yellow again.”
“If we try the 24 color mixing challenge, then we can do it!”
“If put a color tab in hot water and cold water, then the one in the hot water will not dissolve.”
“If we put the 3 color tabs (primary colors) in the soymilk, then they will dissolve and turn it brown.”

So, as you can see, we did a lot of learning and there were plenty of surprises with the experiments. 


Our main materials


Dissolving color tabs in water and watching them fizz!


Mixing 2ml of 2 primary colors and making 4ml of secondary colors!


Mixing secondary colors together to make brown.


24 Color Mixing Challenge!


Growing colorful soft-watery crystals.


After an hour and a half, they grew nearly 10 times their size!


Observing through their magnifiers.


After a few days, we waited for all of the water to evaporate from the crystals and they shrunk back to original size, but they stayed colorful!


Learning how heat affects the rate of dissolving. 


Dissolving the color tabs in room temp soymilk and then seeing what happens when liquid soap is introduced. 
They loved the reaction that took place!  (Daddy was the most excited about this one.)


My students who now think God is even more amazing than before. 

This would make our Science Experiment Week a smashing success.