E.N.C. Butterfly House

The E.N.C. butterfly house is open now!! We went there and I got some nice photos! Here they are:

~Post & Photos By Micayla~

Mini Michealangelo

TMI News

My friends and I made a news channel! It is called TMI News - (TMI stands for ' Too Much Information ' News Channel). Please post a comment if you have a suggestion for our next week of TMI News!

Here it is! Enjoy!

TMI News from Micayla Stone on Vimeo.

~Posted By Micayla~

May 2011

Nate the Scientist

Nate has been wanting to do science experiments a lot lately so we dusted off some of our favorite books and science kits. Here are a couple of simple ones you can do at home too:

Defying gravity...

From the book Explorabook - A Kids' Science Museum in a Book by John Cassidy

For this experiment you need:

A drinking glass, a magnet, a bit of strong tape, and about a foot of thread.

Set the magnet on the glass. Tie the thread to the clip and stick it to the magnet. Tape the thread to the table and begin pulling the thread gradually through the tape until you've pulled the clip off the magnet.

Oxygen, air pressure, and gravity...

From Science on a Shoestring by Herb Strongin

Materials you need:

Glass bowl or plastic shoebox, goggles, wide mouth clear glass, water, and a candle

Fill your container with about 2cm of water and put a candle in the center. Light the candle and take your clear glass and lower it until it touches the water. Observe what happens to the flame and the water.

A few other favorite resources:

Science in a Nutshell kits

these books:

And

Scientific American on-line science experiments you can do easily at home.

Lavender Farm

We went to the Keys Creek Lavender Farm! Here are some great things that we learned there:

In this picture you see a yellow lavender plant. They actually did not plant that yellow lavender plant, it happened on accident, by not going through the full planting process of the lavender plant. It occurs when there is cross-pollination.

They have to go through a long planting process, before they even put the plant into the ground. First, they have to cut a full stem/flower from a lavender bush, then put it into a water solution. Next, when it grows a bit in that water solution they put it into another one, but bigger. Then they do it again, and this time it grows roots and then they put it into the ground.

Here is are some baby lavender plants that they sell there.

Here is our tour guide showing us how they make lavender oil.

Here is a sign that shows the process of making essential oils. First you take the whole lavender stalk and pack it tightly into the big tub-like thing (the yellow part). They have to use lots of lavender stalks to make a small amount of essential oils. It takes 350 pounds of lavender to make about 32 ounces of oil!

As you can see in this photo, our tour guide was showing us the fields of lavender and explaining different kinds of lavender plants.

They have 2 dozen types of lavender at their farm. Here are a few of the types that they have: English Lavender, French Lavender, Angustifolia Lavender, and many more!

They have a lavender labyrinth that we walked through! It was really cool!

Here is a fun fact about lavender:

Did you know that lavender plants only need about 4 gallons of water per week?

We had a great time at the Keys Creek Lavender Farm!

~Posted By Micayla~

Homeschool Is Cool

In 2007 Micayla and I entered a video contest called "Why Homeschool Is Cool". Our Uncle T helped us edit the videos, put music to them, voiceover and everything! It was quite a project. But, the files got misplaced over the years and the videos taken down from youtube. The videos were a mess. However we still had the original footage, so now four years later I've recompiled the videos. Enjoy!

My video:

Why Homeschool is Cool (C) from Carly Stone on Vimeo.

Micayla's video:

Why Homeschool is Cool (M) from Carly Stone on Vimeo.

written by Carly