Weekly Wrap UP 1-15-16

We have been keeping busy and getting back  into our routine which always takes a little adjustment for the kids and I.  Coop classes have resumed along with all the kids extra curricular activities!

Both kids have earned A's in all their classes so far this year. While over the Christmas break I started to plan out our History lesson (both kids still work together on this area) and plan out science for MarioFan.  Firedrake is doing HS biology with her DAD.

I decided that I wanted to continue working towards the end of the Industrial revolution and continue with another important issue that was brewing during this era, Women's rights.  While it started in the 1830's it wasn't fully amended into the constitution until 1920.  We have been working on the Industrial revolution and the changes in city living for several months.  After this we will go back in time to concentrate on the way of life for the settlers and the eradication of the plains Indians.  Then we will learn about WWI again (we touched on this several years ago)

Here are just a few of the books we will be reading over this next few weeks.  We will also be watching the movie Suffragette and Iron Jaw Angels. In addition to learning why women wanted to vote we will be looking at the reasons many (including other women) opposed this view.

For MarioFan's science lesson he seems to have an interest in engineering so I thought he might like to work on learning more about bridges!    I am still waiting on a few resources that I have ordered to come in.

Here are some of the resources we will be looking at for the next few months.

In order to introduce the topic to MarioFan I had hime build a few bridges and a look at why they may have failed succeeded.  We haven't done any reading yet so he will discover the answers to why some of these models worked and why others did not work very soon.  This was just my way of introducing the topic and sparking the interest! And as you can see by his face his was very interested in this process!

We used an envelop and placed it over 2 toilet paper roll and added pennies to see how many it would take to make the bridge collapse,  by the 5th penny the bridge was already compromised and by the 10th penny it collapsed completely

Next we took five envelops and stacked them together and did the same thing.  by the 34th penny the bridge was compromised and by the 44th penny the bridged collapsed!

Next we designed this bridge and went to work to see if it was any more sturdier than the earlier bridges.

And it was!  It held all the pennies we had which was 122 pennies with no noticeable changes in the bridge.

Next we took a single envelop and folded it to make a channel and placed it on top of the columns 

We added all 122 pennies and it held up:)

Lastly we tried the arch bridge and it managed to make it work with about 60 pennies.  This one should have done better so I chalk it up to building error (mine)  We will be taking a closer look at Bridge arches very soon

Over the next week we will be discussing what made some of our bridges work and why they may have failed!  We will also be learning the parts of bridges and discussing forces, tensions and other vocabulary words relating to bridge engineering.  If you know of any resources and want to share please link them below:)