a mesmerizing read!

Hi there! What does your weekend look like?  We have received over 8 inches of rain since Thursday, and it is showing no signs of letting up.  We have played approximately seven thousand games of Candy Land, and I think we will be stuck in the house this weekend playing seven thousand more!  

I am becoming a major fan girl of Mara Rockliff and for good reason.  Her picture books are just fascinating!  Rockliff has a knack for finding historical stories that I have never heard of and that seem to have been forgotten by time.  This is the story of how Benjamin Franklin uses the scientific method to debunk a charismatic Parisian doctor, Dr. Mesmer.  

When Ben Franklin traveled to Paris to ask the King and Queen to give America financial support during the Revolutionary War, he met Dr. Mesmer, a man who claimed to have the power of mind control and the ability to cure any illness.  Dr. Mesmer (he is where the word "mesmerize" comes from) would set his patient in a trance, and by the time he was done with them, the patient was utterly convinced that he had cured them even though he hadn't really done a thing. 

Once Franklin observed his practices, he was able to deduce that Dr. Mesmer wasn't actually curing his patients at all.  This led to the concepts of the Placebo affect and the practice of testing new medical developments with "blind" studies.  The story walks the reader through every step of the scientific method and how Franklin used it.  This would be a great way to teach the scientific method to elementary age kids because it's really showing them how the process works instead of just telling them.  

Have a great weekend, and whatever you have planned, make sure to take some time to read a good book! 

fun with simple machines! wheels at work by bernie zubrowski and roy doty

My third grader is at home for a school holiday, and we decided to do a project together from this book, Wheels at Work.  We found this at our local library, and it has some really interesting yet doable science projects centered around building simple machines.  We chose the pulley project.  

If you would like to have fun with pulleys right along with us, here is the way to set up the experiment.  We used a 2x4 board that we had laying around and positioned it across the backs of two dining chairs.  We went to the hardware store and bought clothesline pulleys in several different sizes along with rope.  Make sure that the rope is the right size for fitting into the pulley grooves. You will also need a weight of some kind for the pulley to pull up and down.  The book suggests filling a milk carton with sand.  It was trash day, and all of our milk jugs had already gone out with the recycling.  We used a small beach bucket instead.  Yes that means that the sand can and will spill out.  See below.  I just vacuumed it up later. 

The book has several different set ups for the pulley so that we could see not only the many ways a pulley can work but also which set ups were more efficient at pulling the weight.  Here are the different ways to set up the pulley. 

While we constructed each pulley, we talked about force and how pulleys help us lift heavy objects.  When we lift a bucket of sand on with our hands, the hand is providing all of the force to lift the bucket.  When we employ pulleys, lifting is easier because the force is divided among the hand, the pulley, and the board.  My kiddo really enjoyed this simple project, and once he got the hang of how the pulley worked, he was inspired to try to think up his own arrangements and see if they worked.  I liked the project because it was relatively easy to set up, the book instructions were simple and clear, and the material was age-appropriate enough that he could do the project with a small amount of help from me.  I love projects where he can really take the reigns and feel confident.  Try it out! recommended age: 8-12

what do animals do in winter?

Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft and Richard G. Van Gelder with pictures by Helen K. Davie will answer any questions young readers have about what wild creatures do during the coldest season of the year.  Some creatures, like birds and butterflies, migrate to warmer climates while others, like bats and woodchucks, hibernate until the snow thaws.  Some animals like foxes and rabbits must find food throughout the season when food is scarce.  

The lively pictures and diagrams aid in the reader's understanding of the informative text, so that even the smallest of biologists can learn about the hardest season for animal survival.  The authors were really thoughtful in their writing making the information easy enough for preschoolers to appreciate yet informative enough for older kids to be interested as well.  There are also tips for how we can help wildlife find food during winter.