Homeschooling fun

I'm running high school chemistry lab course for my kids this year, and, long story short, they got to do a tour of the Chemistry Department at Indiana University. It was a marvelous tour, ending with a popular chemistry demonstration:

It was tons of fun, with explosions, fires, and liquid nitrogen. No chemistry demo is complete without liquid nitrogen.

Then, a friend organized a field trip to Limberlost State Historic Park in Geneva, Indiana. I'd never heard of the author Gene Stratton-Porter before moving to Indiana, but we learned that she led a very interesting life. The house we toured was one she'd lived in in the early 1900s. It was beautiful but I think my husband and kids enjoyed the Loblolly Marsh that she used to visit even more. Our guide, Bill, an enthusiastic naturalist, did a nice job and endured the heat with us.

That reminds me, I don't know if my kids know how lucky they are. As homeschoolers, we're able to pick up and go anytime, anywhere. At the tender ages of 14 and 16, they've already been to about 46 of the 50 States, and 4 of the 10 Canadian provinces. We sure do enjoy our driving trips across the continent, but I'm going to keep reminding them that they're lucky, lucky kids. in so many ways.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Looking back

At the beginning of the year, which feels like yesterday but is actually about 352 days ago, I had publicly declared that I'd complete 6 sewing projects and 6 knitting projects this year. Was I too ambitious? I may never know because true to form, I stopped keeping track half way through the year and don't remember what I completed. Why is it that I can never keep good records? For some reason, people think I'm organized. I don't know why because I certainly never try to give that impression of me.

Of the things I do remember, here's a run-down of the sewing projects. I started off with the fleece jacket with the Darth Vader pattern fabric. Turns out it's a tad too small for either of my boys and they've not worn it even once. So, I'll be giving that away. I sewed 2 gift bags for my sister to use with her soaps, started sewing a laundry bag that I never finished, and hemmed several pairs of pants for hubby and my FIL.

For knitting, I made a pair of socks for me, a pair of baby socks for hubby's cousin's baby, am almost finished with another pair of socks for me, and am almost done with the third panel of a rug that I'm knitting with yarn I won from Robin's Rurification blog. Here are 2 of the panels, done (each panel measures about 1' x 3.5').

So, not exactly 12 projects total completed for the year (unless I completed other things that I can't remember...which is very possible), and I know I could do better, but why beat myself up for not doing it all?

Besides, what's more important is that I baked a lot too. Lots of loaves of bread

and cookies and kuchens

 and stollen

and more!

Also important was that I home-schooled the rugrats. Here is Son2 in his science group (I've blurred the faces of the other people in the photo for privacy reasons). I'm very grateful to my friend THS (to the left) who lead this co-op. I merely had to clean up our house before and after. :)

The chemistry lab I have to run by myself (materials courtesy of Meg who kept everything so well organized!). Son2 is doing it with Son1 so I won't have to repeat it again in a couple of years. I already have to redo the biology and physics labs with Son2 when the time comes. Sooo looking forward to that. ;P

In between the above listed things, I did some writing too, mostly thanks to the whip-cracking efforts of my critique group gang leader, Russell James (who has a terrific novel out that you can win on Goodreads.com).

Did you have resolutions this year? Did you keep up with them?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Chemistry - it's what life is about

Chemistry is on my mind a lot lately since I'm running a high school chem lab course for my kids (using the Prentice Hall text by Wilbraham, Staley, Matta, and Waterman and the accompanying Small Scale Chemistry Labs manual that I bought from my friend Meg (Get In, Hang On), to whom I'm forever grateful for her guidance).

To go with the course, we're also watching the excellent High School Chemistry series with Frank Cardulla as the instructor from The Great Courses.

I actually meant to post this during National Chemistry Week, which I thought was in November. I totally missed it because, this year, NCW was back in October. Go figure.

I never liked chemistry much when I took it in high school and university, but now, re-learning it with my kids, I discovered that I love it!  Homschooling is so cool that way. On my own, I never would have re-learned chemistry and found out just how much I enjoy it.

And in case you think chemistry is dry and dull, here are a couple of really funny chemistry jokes:

Water versus....

and a version of the sulfuric acid joke from a commenter on this site: http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1663/07/05/

Sir John Minnes was a chemist…Sir John is no more.

For what he thought was H20…
Was H2SO4…

Heh heh...morbid but funny.

So if you hated chemistry when you were growing up, I highly recommend you re-learn it! You may be pleasantly surprised.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams