weekly wrap up 3/25/16 -- high school biology

FireDrake has been steadily working on her Biology text, we are using EO Wilson free iBooks.  My husband has really been the force behind this and is doing an amazing teaching job with Firedrake.  Such as providing Firedrake with the homework questions and the exams.  I have been more responsible in helping Firedrake complete the experiments in the book but we are finding some of them to be very long, tedious (many take several days to complete) and have very mixed results.  So as I have done in the past with Science I am starting to research on the web and find other experiments that relate to the topic and do them instead.   We will occasionally use the books experiments but will be expanding outside the book as necessary.  Some may disagree with me or think the things I choose are too simple, but I think the point of science is to be fun and get kids to think and retain information.  My daughter is not a huge science fan her brain prefers more creative pursuits so I need to find a balance to keep her engaged:)!

Firedrake worked on making a poster to help her remember the mitosis process

Next we did the Oreo cookie mitosis project which I found on the web and completed the worksheets.  We used cake pens and sprinkles to represent various stages.    we added this to her biology lab notebook and the best part was eating them when she was done:)

I thought I would show you how we are keeping track of Firedrake's labs for high school biology since that is a requirement for us. All her labs are documented with the results.

It is a suggested recommendation that we keep a lab book and document all science lab for high school credit

Here we put pictures of Firedrake completed the experiments along with written notes

At the end of many lab we have her answer additional questions regarding the labs and the results. 

So far this process seems to be working out for us.  Some lab only require a single page or two for notes and questions others are much longer but everything can be found inside this notebook.  We plan to use it for both Biology level I and II.

At coop a parent brought in their pet parrot for the kids to see.  It was a well behaved bird and sang lots of songs for the kids:)

My husband surprised me with a trip to San Antonio where I will be meeting up with an old friend for 4 whole days!  He will be staying home with the kids.  So I will have wonderful pictures of all the places I go to to show you next week!    My friend and I chose San Antonio as we both love history and neither have been there so we will be doing lots of adult field trips to Spanish missions in the areas.