...in public school. This was not in any way a bad day. It was wonderful. Even on our horrible days of home schooling, I wouldn't trade them.
Here is a wonderful day of home school.
After reading about the city of Pompeii being buried under a volcano, we made our own volcano. My small kiddos had not ever done this activity before today. We read about how this volcano erupted on August 24, 79 a.d. The city was modern and vibrant. They were actually getting ready for their elections. About 1 pm the volcano started spewing and sputtering. It shot lava up 12 miles into the air and with the pressure of the gases in the mountain, it stayed in the air like a mushroom for hours. During this time, people just went on with their lives. We read about how one man even took a nap. When the volcano finally started to weaken, the ash fell on the city at a rate of about 6" per hour. The whole city was soon covered in hot, molten ash. The city stayed buried for 1500 years.
We then headed outside to make our volcano with baking soda and vinegar. It was a hit. They loved it. We did it over and over until we ran out of baking soda and vinegar.
This whole story and activity spurred lots of conversation about volcanos. We looked on the internet and found pictures of the Mount Saint Helen's eruption in 1980. We found some really great pictures and video on YouTube. The kids then wanted to know where in the world were volcanoes. So Jordan and Jackson got on the internet to find locations of volcanoes worldwide and then reported back to Lane and Karis what they learned. On our world map, they marked a few places.
A few minutes later, I found Lane and Karis looking at science books about volcanoes. We then drew pictures of the city of Pompeii with a red cloud in the shape of a mushroom.
None of this was pre-planned. I don't think I could have planned it any better than it turned out. We really had fun and hopefully learned a little along the way.
1 comment:
How cool is that. I want to blow up something now!
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