FUN VIDEOS and pics of science!

The only reportable events from yesterday are the Mentos Experiment and the fact that we were given a pop up camper trailer. It sleeps 8 and has a fridge, stove, sink….. The man is a friend of my husband and was thinking of asking $100 for it but decided to just give it to us. He said his family got more than their money’s worth out of it and hopefully we will get lots of fun, too.

MENTOS:


Gavin-
SODA BOYS & MENTOS

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Manuel-


Today we watched a few videos of the Metnos Experiment and read an explanation. So now we know ways to make our Mentos Experiment better. We will try it with diet coke and Mentos nd also try it with salt. I think I will assign the boys the task of figuring out how to implant a delayed trigger (like on the videos- whish are AWESOME and linked at the end of this blog)

And Manuel was singing a Tobymac http://www.tobymac.com/ song. He only knows 2 lines and slurs the third line all together. It’s funny because he only speaks Spanish (he does know a handful of English) and he has no idea what he’s saying. He sings “Shake it---Don’t break it….” the next line is “took your momma 9 months to make it”- but he can’t quite say that line.
He calls the Tobymac my “CD Muy rapido”


Soksey brought a bird to us. I guess he thought we were hungry. I really wish he’d eat what he kills

Ki got a 95 on his spelling test. I told him to study his words, he did, said he was done studying. I asked if he was sure, he said yes and told me to ask him his words. So I did. He spelled them all except for one. I gave it to him again and he got it correct. I figured he spelled them for me out loud and it counted as his spelling test. He missed 1 out of 10- then corrected it and got it right- so I gave him 5 points for it. Told me had a 95%. Later I had him spell a few words with his feet; using his foot to ‘draw’ the letters on the ground. I think I’ll add that activity to his spelling routine- It will be good for his SID.


After that, Ki made French Toast. He made the batter and made his French Toast, then the other boys cooked theirs. Ki helped Manuel with his.

Connor finished book 5 from Cat Warriors.
CatWarriors Barnes&Nobles




His reading has gotten so much better. He’s been able to read since he was 4 or 5 (it’s hard to tell exactly with autistic kids). He was always able to read on grade level. but he was very, very slow and had very poor retention and comprehension. I changed his Language Art program around _I stuck him with a reading program that was 2 grade levels lower than his reading level- but on his comprehension level. It is a Silver Burdett book and workbook-Going Places) and I added lots of things like doing puppet shows, dioramas, drawing book covers, etc… for each of the short stories. And now he just ZOOMS through books on his reading level with great comprehension. He thought he couldn’t read this book 5 on the 3 weeks you get from the library- so he bought the book. He read it in 6 days.

Ki has started reading ‘real books’- no longer those 10 words a page kindergarten readers. He wants to read the Cat Warrior books, too. He reads the titles (this book is called ‘The darkest Hour’) but he can’t read much more. He has read a couple other books that are about 3rd grade and he reads a passage here and there or bigger books.

This is why I don’t force my dyslexic kids to read 30 minutes a day of books that are a bit too hard. I do not push at all. I let Ki read simple Dick and Jane type books over and over and over and over and let him progress when he was ready and wanted to. same with Gavin). and it happens. One day (towards the end of 4th grade, they just decide they are now ready to go very simple Kindergarten pre-readers to reading on level AND the WANT to.. They are excited to read, they have the desire. I know they wouldn’t have the reading desire if I was continually pushing them to read before they were ready.

Today was spelling tests and math tests and Science Experiments. For Math tests- well, lately I have the older two doing Saxon- but JUST the examples and practice problems for that chapter (and make up 3 of their own problems), so I decided on Fridays they will do the Problem Set at the end of the last chapter they did.

I’ll grade them later- we’ll see if this works.

We did more science fun today. Last night I put a little water in one of the 2Liter bottles and topped it with a balloon.

I put it in the freezer overnight. We took it out this morning. The bottle was sucked in on the sides and the balloon shrivled. it's hard to tell with the small picture- but the ballon and bottle are both shriveled.

Then we put it in a pan of water and watched the balloon fill with air as the hot water melted the ice in the bottle.

a little more air into theballoon


enough to make it stand upright!


a little more air.....


It's getting quite full now...


The balloon at it's max. Though I think it would have gottenbigger once the water IN theballoon boiled.

At the end the bottle itself was swollen with air so I turned off the stove. I didn’t want it to explode.
Not sure if you can tell, but the upper portion of the bottle is expanded and fat with air. It was bulging quite a bit.

Then we did the Ghost in a Bottle trick…. Here is a poor video. You can’t see the coin hop- but it does. You can hear it.


It does tiny hops as the ghost is trying to escape. Freeze a glass cola bottle (we used IBC) then take it out the next day, put a drop or two of water on the rim. Put a coin on it. As the air warms and tries to get out, it pushes the coin.

URLS for cool Mentos videos!
MENTOS & COKE

MENTOS & COKE Holiday


MENTOS & COKE Dominos


DON’T Do this one at home- but neat to watch- MENTOS ROCKET