IMPROMPTU SCIENCE FUN-links for stuff

I awoke in the middle of the night with the most excruciating head pain. I went to bed with a headache and couldn’t find the Excedrin and didn’t want to use my last Fioricet, so Ii took Motrin- which does next to nothing usually. So I awoke with what felt like my head being split apart with hatches. It was too painful to even cry or get up to get that fioricet.

So I awoke with a headache and will have one all day. I should probably see if I can get a refill on my fioricet. And maybe taking my innopran daily like I am supposed to, will help.

Connor was awake at 4AM (thanks to Soksey biting him) and did his reading then. I need to make a daily list for him to check off again. He likes that. So does Ki.

We started with Story of the World. We are reading about the Romans and the Punic Wars. Tomorrow we will be back in the Indus Valley, I think.

Then we read out of Jesus Freaks. Ki likes that book. They all do, but Ki is the reason I bought the book.

After those two books my throat hurt. I made tea.

I gave quick instructions for Brain Gym. I told them what to do for Criss-Crosses. Connor was in charge of Body Scales (my invention- not a real Brain Gym). I gave quick instructions for Elephant 8s. Gavin choose a body part for a few more Body Part Lazy 8s. Ki was in charge of Hook-Ups.

Then it was Spelling. It is activity day for Ki. He choose to do Crayon Rubbings for his words. The last few weeks he has been copying his words down incorrectly, so we had to fix a few.

Gavin, Connor and I went over their base word list and added all the other forms to make sure they had them all. Then they quizzed each other, because it took Ki FOREVER to do his Crayon Rubbings. His brain plays between each word I think.

When Ki was done he did some Brain Gym before math. He has trouble remembering his multiplication facts, so he plays a Beat the Clock game on the Leap Pad. He said 10 was too many, so he did 5 today. Then he did 4 problems in his Froggy Fractions.

I did a lesson on Polynomials with Gavin and Connor. Kids that want to grow up to robotic engineers need to have sharp math skills.

Gavin really enjoys the book I gave him to read. He’s been reading it through the entire day.

Connor gota gift in the mail from Grammy and Pappy. A big GEOMAG kit. 166 pieces! enjoyed playing with that. Ki, too. Connor lined up the connectors by color. The red and yellow lines were longer than the blue and green lines. So he counted a short line and counted the extra in the long line He still likes to sort, line up and count things. The boys get their engineer gene from their dad. I bet it’s a monogenetic thing.

Connor made a second worry doll to go with his Ninja Worry doll. They fight each other. The 2 dolls. The Bop-It…Bop-It GOOD! Some one sang a section of Whip-It…Whip It Good. and now every verb gets turned into the Whip It song….Bop It-Bop it Good. Fix it- Fix it Good. Eat it- Eat it good. Stop It-Stop it Good.

Guess what- pipe cleaners are magnetic and you can add them to GEOMAG creations! And the GEOMAG structures are more stable if you add the rods with correctly directed polarity. He made pyramids that seem to spin endlessly. They were cool.

I reminded G&C to spend some time on their DNA research so they read a bit and visited a website about a developing embryo- with videos and everything.

Ki and I read more about the people/culture of Central America. Ki watched animation about how the Panama canal works with equalizing the water kevel in chambers. This triggered an idea for a Science experiment.
A clear glad 4 C measuring cup
2 small disposable water bottle. The first with a hole slightly below the midpoint & filled with water. (plug with finger whole transferring). Place the filled water bottle (no lid) into the glass measuring cup. The water stops coming out when the bottle and measuring cup ate even. Next we did it with a water bottle that had a hole very low down, so the water level in the glass covered the hole almost right away and it continued to leak water until the levels were the same. We them dumped ALL the water into the glass and help the water bottle in the glass. The water went from the glass and filled up the water bottle until the levels were even, even when the hole was below the water level. It was fun.

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

Aspergers-Therapy-games-school

Tuesday May 1, 2007

It’s almost National STAR WARS day!!!!

Once again, the boys took to digging their underground house before breakfast. School didn’t start until after 10. well, the ‘in class sitting down’ type of school. It is good that they were digging before school. The physical work is good for them The brain needs the body to work. Learning is more complete when both there is physical activity, too.

We started with Brain Gym and drinking water. Manuel was able to do the criss-crosses much better this week! Connor is just an annoying little goof. He ended up doing extra Brain Gym because he was just playing around and being so silly.

Then we went over Spanish/English words and phrases. The boys enjoy quizzing each other. My boys say a word in Spanish and Manuel says it in English- and he says an English word to them and they have to say it in Spanish. Manuel is much more wiling to try English words for my kids- then for me. I guess it’s less embarrassing to mess up with other kids than with a ‘teacher’.

We didn’t do spelling today. We did story writing. While Manuel read with his foot propped up, I did a little lesson on time sequence in story writing. I told them what it means to tell a story in sequence of events. Starting with the first thing that happened and moving on…. to the end. First I told a little story- part of it. I said something like”
The alarm sounded early in the morning. With my eyes still closed, I rolled over and turned it off. I took a deep breath then opened my eyes. I went to brush my teeth and hair. Then I got dressed.
I then asked the boys questions about what happened first and next and last. Connor didn’t do well. He just sat there. He couldn’t figure out what happned first and next. Kids with Asperger’s often have trouble with time sequence and with his bothers jumping into to answer he just sat back. So I directed some questions to him. Just for him and was detailed and tried to lay things out in for him. He did better that way.

Then I gave the boys a list of out of order sentences for the next part of the story. They had to put them in order. Then they had to write 5 more sentences to finish the story.
Here are the sentences they had to put in order:
I followed the drops into the kitchen.

In front of the fridge I found a bone.

As I stepped into the hall, I noticed drops of blood.

I picked up Soksey.

Soksey was eating a chipmunk by the door that leads to the garage.

Ki wrote 3 sentences (I told him he only had to write two or 3). He made them out of order for ME to figure out.

He had”
 I put Soksey outside. ( Ipit sokey ot siid)
 blood fell on my shirt (blod fal on my shrt)
 Soksey brought a bird in. (Soksey brot a bord in)

Connor wrote:
“Soksey had 79, 258,010,236,547,721 chipmunks. It took me 79, 258,010,236,547,721 seconds to count them. Soksey was very happy. The lanet exploded. Then Soksey was sad! Soksey was sadder than me because he lost 79, 258,010,236,547,721 chipmunks.”

He gave himself a HUGE RED A+

Gavin wrote:
“But he didn’t like it when I picked him up, so he bit me on the hand. I yelled and dropped him. He finished eating the chipmunk. Then I closed the door and locked him outside, but before I could close the cat door, he came inside. He ran under the bed and took a nap. I made breakfast and woke the boys. They ate breakfast and we started school. Soksey woke up and tore up the school books. We did a little work on blank papers. We made lunch and ate it.”

Then it was time for Manuel’s therapy and the boys did their reading while I took care of Manuel. After that I wrote a list of schoolwork for the boys and took Manuel to Taco Bell for doing such a good job with his therapy this past week or so.

I really enjoy spending time with Manuel. He opens up and tries hard to learn English and also to explain and teach me Spanish when we are one-on-one. After taco Bell we went to a School Supply Store. They had one of those 9 tile puzzles with a split picture on each side and you have to match the tiles…. B-Dazzle Puzzles
He loved it. He would get it almost done and the last 2 or 3 wouldn’t match up and he laugh about how easy it looks but it’s really very difficult. The he’d rearrange them and laugh when the birds had 2 heads… picture is link to website. bdazzle-



I finished my purchase and we stopped by the dollar store in search of index cards, to no avail. So we went to the little coffee shop to do sit and do his schoolwork. They had one of those triangles pieces of wood with the pegs that you hop over each other and try to get one peg left. I taught him that he really enjoyed it. He played it over and over and over. He got one left a few times and would say “YO GANA!” We worked in his Ingles in 10 minutos a dia book. We read outloud back and forth and he wrote things out.Then we did math. I couldn’t get him away from the peg game… I told him if hw could win again (one peg left) he’d not have to do his math today…LOL. He had 3 left…


so I used the pegs to demonstrate the math concept. having groups og 4 or 6 pegs, tmaking equal groups, taking one of the groups away, etc... He couldn’t get it for awhile. I finally was able to make him understand the problems. They were problems like:

½ X 6 = 6 - ?

he didn’t understand ½. I went over and over it, with pictures, and using the pegs showing that ½ is the same as 3/6 (and 2/4 and 4/8…) Finally we stumbles upon the word medio… and I finally got him to understand…medio de sais = the same as 6-3…. He finally caught on. He was getting confused my the word HALF.
He is great with math as long as there is only an equation on ONE side. So we are really exercising his brain here. Teaching different ways to see things. I wrote out a few more problems and he did great.
½ x 10= 10-? ½ x 6= 6-? ½ x 50=50-?........ etc.. I think I had 7 for him.
So I moved onto ¼ x 4 = 1 out of the group of 4 pegs…. same with 1/3 x 3 =1 of group of 3 pegs… THEN we went to 1/3 x 6 =2 (if you double the 3(6)- you double the answer of 1 (2). so he was able to get the answer to ½ x 12 = ? just by seeing to double the answer again.

We finished. He played the peg game again and won. And then said that because he won, he doesn’t have to math tomorrow…LOL. We’ll see….

Ki didn’t have his work done, but I knew he wouldn’t. I sat him in my lap and we worked on it together and he did well.

Manuel rested with his leg elevated (it is still swollen) and watched Star Wars 2.

Connor was asleep when I got home. and still coughing. I bet his antibiotics aren’t working… I’ll have to take him back to check in a day or two (he has one more pill left) And I think he has impetigo. He is a face picker.. a scab picker.. he used to have open sores all over his face until he was 4 or 5. He doesn’t scab well, so wounds stay open for a week often…. anyway, he finally got out of the face picking habit….. until he had chicken pox two months ago… now he has open scratches on his face again and can’t keep his hands off….. just another autism issue…

THAT’S IT from me today! it’s TACO TUESDAY here!