Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit

We have just started a unit on plants. To get us started, we grew bean seeds in the windowsill inside of wet paper towels in baggies. The boys made observations each day for ten days. Here's what we saw:

We were able to grow it from a simple seed to a plant with roots, stem, and leaves.













Part two of this project is planting the seeds in soil. We'll keep you posted.

Aquiary

Yesterday, we went here to the Loudoun County Aquiary. Follow the link to learn more. We learned a lot about how our water sanitation facility works, how much water people use, what kinds of household chemicals should not go down our drains, and how valuable water is around the world. Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Here, the boys are guessing how much water it takes to do everyday tasks such as flushing a toilet, taking a shower, watering your yard. Once they guessed, they were able to press a button in the sink and the correct amount of gallons would light up on the shower door. Very cool.





At this exhibit, the boys learned how
valuable it is to have a clean water source and readily available water. They are trying to lift these buckets filled with water, which are commonly carried for miles by children all around the world. As you can see, they found it quite difficult and were thankful for faucets in their house to get clean, fresh water.

Where Have You Been?

Wow. It's been a long time since our last post. If you are still reading this, thanks for standing by. Here's what we have been up to the last couple of months:

Evan's hypothesizing Nicholas' hypotheses'
Light! We learned about light, including what makes something transparent, translucent, or opaque. We performed a light experiment with various objects. Both boys only had one wrong hypotheses. They thought that red paper would be opaque. In fact, we learned it is translucent, as are many different colored construction papers.

D.C. with family! Uncle Pat and Aunt Michelle came to visit. Jon took the day off work, and we enjoyed some first views of cherry blossoms. We also did the monument loop, which we always enjoy, especially when it's 65 and sunny.
Michelle and Pat