Weekly Wrap UP 12/08/17 -- Genetics and roadside geology

This week in science we have been concentrating on learning about Genetics. We first learned about Gregor Mendel.

This is a pretty good book that gives an overview of Mendel's life.

Next we learned about Probability and punnet's squares  We did several simple activities from our science books  

We did a very simple Punnet square using coins.

 Then we looked at Genotype and Phenotype in our science book.  I found several activities on the web to use to further explain and understand the difference.

I several activities on the web to help emphasize  this concept.

The first was to use skittles and easter eggs 

recording our results 

next we used the skittles to make our own Punnet square's 

MarioFan found this a hard concept to understand so we did several more activities to help cement his knowledge.

I found this on the web (I believe it was free) 

Using coins to determine which allele the baby will get from the Mother and Father monster.

Then drawing our Mother, Father and baby monsters based on our results.

I think MarioFan has a pretty good understanding of it now.  We are now exploring codomince allele's and doing a lot more reading on DNA and RNA.  

This week in art we are learning about George Seurat.   We completed two projects are learning about about this artist using books and the Meet the Master program.

Seurat was not a prolific artist..he only had 7 large scale projects and fewer than 50 smaller paintings.  Many impressionist were not happy he was part of their movement as they felt he didn't fit in with their more random view of art.  Seurat studied color theory and used what he learned in his art.

The boys used sandpaper to help create the many dots of a art project and work on learning how mixing coloring work and can add highlights or lowlights to a project.  

Finished work for the first project which is from Meet the Masters program.

The next project we did I found on my own after searching the web and we had the boys use paints and q-tips to create a picture.  I was surprised to discover the boys enjoyed this project.  I honestly thought they would hate it.  But it does have a relaxing quality about it:)

I always do a sample so I better understand the technique and can explain the process for the boys.

My friend thought it was a cool art project that she decided to join in the work as well:)

Boys finished art work.  I thought they both did a pretty good job on this technique and we all have a much better appreciation of how hard this style of painting is.

In Literature the boys are working on poetry with our Lightening literature program.

While the boys loved reading the poems and finding the rhyming words.  Their writing assignment was to write a limerick, a haiku and a 4 stanza poem using a rhyming pattern.  MarioFan found this quite challenging and needed lots of help.

Firedrake has been working with her Dad on geosciences and this week we took a small tour of our area for roadside geology lab work

We live near several road cuts that we were able to explore.  Most of the rocks in our area are sandstone, limestone or shale

Visually identifying the type of rocks

Using a rock hammer to scratch the rock to determine their hardness

Using an magnifying glass to examine the rocks and determine their makeup

Using Hydrochloric acid on the rock to see the reaction

MarioFan joined in and found some shale

and had fun turning sandstone into sand:)

A busy week in a nutshell:)