Fatal Error

Today's Crime Scene comes to you courtesy of RIMA, who sent me a CD Rom Murder Mystery ("Fatal Error" click to see) ! I printed copies, replicated the crime scene in our house, then called our CSI friends to come investigate! THANKS RIMA!!

THIS IS WHAT ADORNED THE FRONT OF MY HOUSE TODAY. The passing cars all slowed down. The lady walking her dog walked quickly. The foreign gardener who came to mow the lawn across the street didn't even seem to notice.

This the Senior CSI Detective briefing the Junior Detectives as to crime scene they were about to process and some procedures that would be needed.
(notice the totally AWESOME OUTFIT I am rockin'! I planned this baby! My CSI/Science outfit! The Crime Scene Headband, the DNA double-helix earrings, the lab coat, the rubber gloves, and the multi-color safety goggles! I went ALL out on this one!! I wonder if I qualify as SASSY CLASSY in this?)

The team of Junior detectives crossing the tape to the crime scene:

The victim, Rich Webster, top computer program designer, found dead in his Think Tank where he & his team of Computer Geniuses were working on his latest project. If you look closely, you can see the ligature marks on his neck.

Hmmmm. a glove for the right hand.

Analyzing the Evidence:

A few things required the fuming hoods for exposing latent fingerprints:

Then they read through some lab reports, the suspect profiles, and the interrogations of day 1.......

OH MY! I can't believe it....

"I can. I knew all along the rat was up to no good."

and a picture for the art fancy side ........

(it is fun to do homeschool science days!)

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No School Today

Why was there no school today? Because my husband told the boys it is House Cleaning Day instead. This means 2 things:1. The kitchen will finally get cleaned.2. So much for the Anthropology Lab I had planned.


...it may also mean that I am a bad housekeeper, but we're going with; "I'm good at preparing them to take care of themselves"
Ki is till painting. He seems to really be enjoying his nice paint set from Grammy.

I took pictures yesterday, with the good lens even, but forgot to post them on my blog. See, I forgot to put the memory card in my camera....It's a good thing I did not commit to that Picture Every Day for the whole year-thing.


I took some today though:

This was taken at my acupuncture appointment:



Here is ME, taking a picture of myself in the reflection of the Drive-Through Speaker at Taco Bell:

Here is the ice in Connor's water@ Arby's

Here is a neat plant outside@ Arby's

Take A Guess.....??


Another plant/bush at Arby'sI like the blurry cars on the street.



This was on my rose tree in my front yard:


So was this:

I tried a Brussel Sprout today. They had a cooking demonstration at the Farmers Market. They were sauteing brussell sprouts with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. They smelled so yummy.
I sank my teeth into the little gem of olfactory goodness. It hit my taste buds. My stomach instantly revolted, spasming my stomach muscles. It took every thing in me to not SPEW said brussel sprout across the market stand into someone's hair.
I'll stick with carrots.
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Bones fer me Hearties!!

ARRrrr! It be a Piratey Day on the quarter deck, so don't be caught asleep at the helm! Time to leave yer landlubbin-ways marooned. Pillage the galley and Splice the mainbrace!

Why be it a Piratey Day? because I am getting mentally ready to play PIRATE FLUXX!! This game is not yet at your local game stores, but as a Demo Rabbit I can teach you how to play before the game hits the shelves so you will be ready to play the very day it comes out!

And because it is fun to have a Piratey Day. So Learn to Talk like a Pirate and join the fun!

***************** SCHOOL UPDATE ************

Now for the latest on the homeschool front; as that is what some of you come here to read.

Today we learned about bones. More specifically, how a forensic anthropologist can approximate the height of a victim. This involved math. and more than just 1 step. here is the formula for the Fibula:

MALE FEMALE

(bone length X 2.44)+78.36) (bone length X 2.71)+65.26

Humerus:

Male Female

(bone length 2.99)+72.42 (bone length X 3.22)+61.32

That is in centimeters. To convert to inches- divide by 2.54.

To get feet, divide that by 12.

The first problem was just 1 bone, they found male &female height. Ki did not have to convert to inches.

The next problem had 2 bones found during a house construction. They were given the length of each bone (one a fibula, one a humerus). Then they were given information about 4 missing people. They had to find the height for both male and female for each bone, convert to inches, convert to feet, compare to the case files of the missing people to make a match.

Not once did Ki complain about doing math. For those of you that know anything about Ki & math, you know what a HUGE FEAT that is!!! HUGE I tell you!!

(if you want to do some on your own, the length of the humerus was 40cm. The Fibula was 35cm. These formulas are acurate within 4cm)

The missing people are:

Ryan Wegner 6'3"

Rob Graber 5'11"

Cheryl Harth 5'3"

Cindy Moll 5'10"

find the male & female height for both bones.

YESTERDAY was another math success!

The Lab yesterday was determining angle of impact for blood drops.

They had to measure the width and the length of the blood drops (in millimeters)

Then they had todivide width by length, then check a Trigonomic Ratio chart that gave the angle.

So a blood spatter drop that measures 16cm by 24 cm= 0.6667

check th chart and see that a 41 degree angle is .6561 and a 42 degree angle is 6691.

Our answer is closer to the 42 degree angle- that would be the answer.

They had 8 samples to figure. G&C were done when Ki was on #3. He got to #6 and I told him he could stop there,but he wanted to finish. He did a good job and didn't complain about the math.

Maybe forensic math is the key to Ki's math success.

(the book I have been using for these CSI lessons is: CSI Expert (lessons for kids grades 5-8)

PAST Forensic Posts for this month:

** Pics of making our own Fingerprint powder and using it: CLICK HERE

** Click to see our "real Crime Scene Processing" CLICK HERE

** Check Out Pictures from our Cake Mystery and Shoe Impression by clickingHERE (shoes, foam, & cake).

** Our Tool Mark Analysis Activity -> CLICK HERE

** Blood Forensics --> CLICK HERE

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Candles & Water Drops

Another Lazy School Morning. this means I am tired,so I email a few things to the boys, to keep them occupied until I wake up enough to lead school in person.
I have not fully recovered from the other night's lack of sleep.

Connor turned 16 on Tuesday. He is so fun & goofy. And not that tall/big. And easy-going. So when people ask him if he turned 13 or 14, he's used to it. I think a lot of people expect "teens" to act like...well, "teens". He doesn't. (which is a great thing in my books)

Somebody, anybody, give that kid a haircut!!

I enjoyed taking some pictures outside yesterday, but was disappointed to not have the NEW LENS with me. So Brian left it home today.

I am posting some of yesterday's NON-NEW-LENS pictures, for your enjoyment:

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LazyDazy School Days!

We all slept in today. Not a lot, though. I emailed the boys with a few things to do for school. I was still tired from Tuesday and didn't want to have lead anything until a little later.

I sent them this:

Play this online puzzle game: http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-puzzle.html

play this interactive quiz a couple times: http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/unitedstates.html

Then I decided to advantage of my laziness by having them measure the blood drops on various surfaces.. that we did Monday and I did not clean-up. So they could see the difference between freshly dropped blood and blood that had been there a couple days.

After that they kinda did nothing much followed their interests for their activities. Connor charged his new video camera and got a Memory Card for it. He also played on the computer. Gavin played on the computer. Ki worked on Lightwave, Then, Ki and I worked on making masks.

He thought he might like to paint a mask, so he got his paint kit he got for his Birthday, from Grammy. He rearranged them all so they were in order of color.
Then he decided to try out all his brushes and mix paints instead of painting his mask.

After a very looooong, drawn out lunch, I had the boys work on some Forensics. They dropped blood from different heights to compare the spatter. (we are using fake blood, for those who are new to reading my blog).

Then we talked about how to find the angle of impact for blood spatter. They measured some pictures of blood spatter and did the math, check the charts and found their angle of impact. Then we talked about how that info can be used in forensics.

If the blood spatter is only a few inches off the ground (on the wall), the victim was shot in the head,and the blood spatter has a 90 angle of impact, we can deduce the victim was laying on the ground when he was shot by someone at the same level as his head (not standing shooting downwards).

** Pics of making our own Fingerprint powder and using it: CLICK HERE

** Click to see our "real Crime Scene Processing" CLICK HERE

** Check Out Pictures from our Cake Mystery and Shoe Impression by clickingHERE (shoes, foam, & cake).

** Our Tool Mark Analysis Activity -> CLICK HERE

I have decided that part of the reason I homeschool is because I am lazy. I do not want have to follow a schedule and want to sleep-in and worry about schooling when I'm ready. I like being lazy. It is a good kind of lazy, though. I know so, because Lazy Mom writes wonderful posts about the benefits of being a lazy parent. If you are not too lazy to, you should stop by and read her take on Lazy Moms. <-- CLICK

Then I looked at a frog egg under the microscope. It was neat. So defining shape yet, but it wiggles.

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Bloody Monday

I love Science Fundays. But I always ALWAYS feel so unproductive, inefficient, incomplete afterwards.I always have SO MUCH I want to do, teach, experience and it seems we never ever have the time to do all the great things or go as in depth as I want. I feel I have just never taught enough, I have let everyone (esp the moms) down, that it's not a good educational use of 2 hours. I need a whole DAY!! maybe two!

Yet, moms still bring their kids, my kids love it, and there seems to be some learning I guess.

** Pics of making our own Fingerprint powder and using it: CLICK HERE

** Click to see our "real Crime Scene Processing" CLICK HERE

** Check Out Pictures from our Cake Mystery and Shoe Impression by clickingHERE (shoes, foam, & cake).

** Our Tool Mark Analysis Activity -> CLICK HERE

Anyway- today's Forensic Science Theme was blood. (we learned a bit about blood, but didn't get into the forensic as much as I wanted)

LAB #1

Make Fake blood

We started with Corn Syrup and red food coloring.

Then we talked about different things to add to change the consistency and transparency to make it look real.

I used info/ingredients ideas from THIS FAKE BLOOD website. Check it out! Make Your own fake blood!! It's GREAT!!

Each boy's blood was a little different. While making it, they'd ask "is this right? Does it look like it's supposed to?" I told them, this is their blood and they need to add the different ingredient to make it how THEY like it and how they think blood looks. (so Connor asked if he can make his green like alien blood)

After that we cleaned up-- a bit. Then talked about some terms. I love scientific words. I love how you can tell what a words means even if you don't know it, if you know what the different root words that make it mean.

For those playing along at home:

1. hematology: from the Greek αἷμα haima "blood" and 'ology'= The Study Of

2. Cytology: rom Greek κύτος, kytos, "a hollow container", and 'ology'= The Study Of

3. Leukocytes: "leuco-" being Greek for white, CYTES- from cyto- which we just learned.

- also Leukemia.

4. Erythroctyes: from Greek erythros for "red" and the CYTES

5. Blood plasma: The liquid part of the blood that carries the cells. *Gavin said "if we were in a river, we'd represent the blood cells and the river that carried us would be like the plasma

6. Blood Platelets: the substance in the blood cells that cause it to clot.

-- hemaphilia- we already knew that the 'philia' means 'love'. 'hema' we learned today. (blood). People with this disorder do not have enough clotting ability and bleed/briuse too much/easily, with out forming scabs, etc

7. Phlebotomy: PHLEB from the greek meaning vein. 'tomy' from the greek tomia- "to cut'. It was a term for BLOOD LETTING- which we discussed.

-- related word ANATOMY. from Gk. anatomia, from anatome "dissection," from ana- "up" & Tomia- Cutting Up.

8. Agglutinate: from the greek gluten,meaning 'glue', glutenate-meaning 'to glue'. It is therm used for the clumping of the red blood cells in our Blood Typing Test

--related words GLUTEN (they recognized that word from Gluten Free Foods they see at Trader Joe's,

** be careful, if calling someone 'glutenous' because they have nature of glue/behave like glue, do not accidentally tell they are gluttonous (tendency to overeat way too much)

~ one of my favorite sites: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php ~

After that we washed our hands and got out the Eldoncards for blood typing.

We talked a bit about how to dispose of our needles (anything with blood). I have a COOL RED BIO-HAZARD/Sharps container for just this purpose!!!

(what does it say about me that I am giddy with excitement to have my very own red plastic bio-hazard material disposal container??)

We read the instructions (outloud and on their own). 3 of us went through with pricking ourselves. (2 decided to wait until they accidentally get cut and then will get their cards out.)

we talked a bit about the the different blood types and the antigens that make the. Got out magnifying glasses to get a better look at the agglutinated blood.

Then we went outside with knives and our blood to try to make blood drips from a knife (walking) at different heights. to compare shape/angle, etc. but with the wind and the fact that our fake blood was a bit too thick it wasn;t working. So I gave up.

I changed to a different lab I had. Comparing blood drops made on different surfaces.

I had the following surfaces:

1. Carpet Square (I used an old bath rug- the ones you have in front of the tub to step on after a bath/shower)
2. ceramic tile
3. glass (from a picture fame we never used yet)
4. cardboard
5. cloth/fabric
6. sponge

When dropped onto a non-porous surface a blood drop remains round with smooth edges.

When dropped on a porous surface the drop will have jagged edges. the more pourous, the more spear-out & jagged.

They dropped blood onto the different surfaces and then drew pictures of what it looked like. (they used the magnifying glass for this one, too).

(below) on glass. non-porous. nice round & smooth-->

(below) Cardboard- see the edges started to break & jag from the porousness of the cardboard?


(below)- and, of course, a sponge is very porous- lots of spreading of the blood drop

I had 2 other labs and a few more things about blood to talk about. But we had to end it there as C&K had auditions to attend.

I did send home a worksheet/lab with Landon and my boys will do it tomorrow. I want to do the newspaper one again. I will have to do it inside I guess. [probably in the garage]

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