A Week with Physics for the Grammar Stage: Day 1

Physics for the Grammar Stage was a natural choice for us this year.

We were scheduled to do physics with our four-year cycle and I’ve written the program, so it was a no-brainer.

In the past, we’ve used the five-days-a-week schedule, but halfway through last year we switched to using the two-days-a-week schedule and have stuck with it for this year as well.

I wanted to share with you all what it was like to use one of our grammar stage programs.

A Week with Physics for the Grammar Stage ~ Day 1

Here’s what our Day one routine looks like:

Reading Assignment

We are in Week 4 of the Matter Unit from Physics for the Grammar Stage, so we read pgs. 20-21 entitled “How Liquids Behave” from the Usborne Science Encyclopedia.  I then asked our daughter to write me a two to three sentences about what she had learned from the section.  Here’s what she wrote…

Water is a bunch of molecules.  Water has like a skin, so dust can land on it without sinking.

We corrected a few spelling mistakes once she was done.  Usually, I’ll let her narration stay unedited unless the mistakes are glaring, such as misspelled words or capitalization and punctuation errors.  This can lead to some interesting narrations, but I figure one day she’ll go back and read them and laugh at how far she’s come!

The Experiment

While princess is writing out her narration, I’m looking over the experiment book to make sure I have the supplies.  Yes, I’m one of those moms, but my cabinets are well stocked with science supplies, so I’m usually okay.

I gather the supplies and set them on the table for her along with the experiment book open to the page we are using.  We do all our experiments on our kitchen table because there’s just more room than on our counters or on her desk.

Once, she’s finished writing she comes over and reads the directions for the experiment. Then we get started, well really I watch while she does the experiment.

This particular day, we were doing the “Float an Egg” experiment from Physics Experiments for Children.  She put an egg in water, which sank to the bottom.  We were then told to add salt, stir and watch what happened.  Well she did all that and nothing happened, so I knew that we needed to add more salt to get the egg to float.

We also determined that it would be much easier to mix in the salt without the egg.  1/2 cup of salt later, our egg finally stood up all on its own, appearing to float in the water.  I read the explanation to our daughter and we talked a bit about density, which she is somewhat familiar with because we studied chemistry last year.

It was time for me to start making lunch, so I told her to go ahead and fill in her experiment sheet without me.  She’s been doing this off and on for the last six months, so she knows what to do.  Here’s a look at her experiment:

Her egg standing up in the salt water

The schedule also said that we were to define density and surface tension, but honestly, our daughter had had enough writing for today, so we’ll do those on Thursday.  See, even I tweak my own plans!  On Thursday, I’ll share what our Day 2 routine looks like.

Total Time: 35 minutes

Don’t miss a post from this series!

• A Week With Physics for the Grammar Stage: Day 1 (this post)
• A Week With Physics for the Grammar Stage: Day 2
• A Week With Physics for the Grammar Stage: Wrap-up