Penny Cleaning Science

I have a hard time doing science with the boys. It's not one of my favorite subjects and sometimes takes too much planning to do. But I when I do plan something out, the boys love it. For this project I had William get six dirty and dark pennies. I had them gather around the table and gave them a paper towel and told them to see if they could make them clean. When nothing happened, I put a little soap and water and told them to try again with the towel, same results. I then had them sprinkle some salt on the pennies and using an eye dropper drop a little vinegar on each penny. We did this to both sides then wiped the pennies off with a dry paper towel.

Some pennies needed more salt on them while we rubbed them dry but this was the result. Bright shiny pennies!!

Disclaimer: These three were Matthew/Samuel's pennies. William's pennies never became shiny. Though they got lighter they didn't look like this, much to his disappointment. We tried the process over with the same pennies and me helping him with the same result. What we guess is that the pennies he selected are copper since they were the older pennies and thus won't change color. So not only did we talk about chemical changes, we also talked about how different metals react with the same ingredients.

Matthew's birthday

On Matthew's birthday not only did he turn four but he also had his last speech lesson. Amy has been coming once a week since mid January and after talking with her about how Matthew has improved we decided that this was a good time to stop. He is using full sentences and his words have become much clearer. There is an option for us to have him reevaluated in six months but I'm hoping we won't need to. We just need to keep practicing with him and encouraging him to articulate more.

 

For his birthday dinner, Matthew requested waffles with strawberries, blueberries and whipped topping. I swear someone told him what to say since this is more of a "William meal". 

Anyway we all enjoyed it.

Matthew stats: 

-95% for weight, 91% for height

- He's in the tattle tale stage. Likes to boss his brothers around and tell us what they are/aren't doing.

- Can dress himself though socks and shoes still give him problems at times.

- Most kids want mom when they are sick. Not Matthew. He whines for Daddy and will only snuggle him when he's not feeling well. 

- Still adores his little brother and has no sense of personal space when they're together.

 - Still the sweetest little boy around!

We Love you Matthew!!

Cereal Art

I love it when I can combine learning skills with fun time. For art time I wrote each boys' name on their color paper and had them glue cereal over the letters. I wanted them to learn name/letter recognition and practice their fine motor skills. They had lots of fun doing this craft. William and Matthew needed little supervision while Samuel made it to the letter M before he lost interest. And yes the hard part was keeping little fingers from eating the "learning material." 

The finished product. I poured too much cereal out so for lunch the boys had dry cereal with fruit. They enjoyed the whole experience.

February wrap up

 February was a short month but filled with activities. Our Disneyland trip ended at the start of the month but the boys still talk about it. They really enjoyed it. Once we got back Eric returned to school and the boys and I got back to our craziness. 

We celebrated Chinese New Year in our Chinese outfits. The boys love dressing up in them. The morning that they put them on I heard William tell his brothers "now we can do fung fu since we're dressed in Chinese clothes!" which they promptly did.

On a cloudy day I had the boys do some coloring. I broke out the packing paper and let the boys have at it. It was interesting watching them color. Matthew colors just up and down as does Samuel. But Samuel fills the whole space where Matthew does one small area. Matthew also likes using lighter colors and Samuel is all about dark and bold.

They had a great time and we left their master pieces up for the rest of the week. 

February also concluded out unit on the body. I didn't do as many big projects as I planned but we learned about the lungs, heart, blood vessels, skin and other things. 

Note to self: Matthew and Samuel were too young to really get into this topic.