Joy School: Unit 6: Library and Magic

Earlier we went to the Library for Book Babies and Hailey picked out a book to go along with Joy School. She found "Waiting for Baby" which is a very cute book about a little boy waiting for his mommy to have his baby sister. At the end, the dad tells him his sister came in the middle of the night and that he can go see her at the hospital. Hailey won't be able to come to the hospital to see Hannah due to the H1N1 flu. (No visitors at the hospital under 18 years old.) This reality hit me hard while reading the book and made me sad.

Anyways, to start Joy School and to finish lesson 3, we read the book.

Now, we spent the rest of the time doing the last lesson of this unit. First, I needed to do magic tricks. I had a hard time figuring out the magic tricks that they supplied me with, so I went to the dollar store and got 3 magic sets. I only did two "tricks" which Hailey liked.
Then we made baking powder biscuits to amaze the kids when the rise in the oven all by themselves. Hailey loves to cook.

Then while it baked, we played with soap suds. I mixed equal parts water and liquid dish soap but it never got as stiff as the lesson described just really foamy. So, I check the book again, to realize that the water needed to be hot. Oh well, Hailey still had fun playing with it.

After that, I sent Hailey on a treasure hunt. The first clue told to her look behind the door where we dry our clothes. Hailey wouldn't look on the door, she just looked further into the dryer. At this point, Chloe came and joined Hailey with the treasure hunt.

The dryer took her to the coat closet, then the stairs, then the bath tub.

The bath tub said to look for the treasure under 8 pillows. However, since Hailey helped me make the bed this morning she didn't want to mess up the pillows, so Chloe gladly helped.

In the treasure box was princess fruit snacks.

We ended Joy School with fruit snacks and the biscuits. Also, they were supposed to take turns helping me make butter but the jar was too heavy for Hailey.

I thought making butter was pretty cool. All it takes is whipping cream (by the half and half) at room temperature and 20 minutes of shaking. The hardest part was separating the butter from the buttermilk. Then it needs a lot of salt.

Joy School: Unit 6: Experiments

This lesson had a lot of activities to it. The main point of the lesson is to ask questions and be amazed with the different experiments.


First we made jello. Today was early release for Chloe so she decided to join us. They mixed the lemon jello powder with the boiling water.
Early I froze 1c. of water with blue food coloring, so they were able to mix blue ice with yellow jello. They thought green jello was pretty cool.

Then we read "When the Wind Stops" by Charlotte Zolotow.

Following that we played 20 questions so the kids could figure out what was in my box. This was too hard for them, even with Chloe there. The objects I had was a marshmallow and a purple mitten. They did ask good questions but it was still hard to get them to near it down to figure out the object.

Now we started the experiments which had interesting results.

First I had 1c. of sugar in the jar and added 1T of baking soda (it was only supposed to be 1 tsp but when I went to double check it my eyes went to the experiment below it which had 1T). Then I added 1c of vinegar which kept bubbling over. The kids were amazed by this. However, the cool thing about this experiment was supposed to be the reaction when 6 mothballs were added. The mothballs were supposed to dance, which if they did, we shouldn't see it through the bubbles. I'm not sure how I could have done with better except changing the baking soda amount.
The next experiment was adding food coloring to water and see it slowly mix together.

Then, in a different cup, we mixed water and sugar to discover what happened with the sugar.

Another one we did was about mixing colors together. Hailey punctured a hole in the Styrofoam egg carton, so purple started to leak everywhere. The mess come up but our hands were dyed for a couple of days. I guess around Easter, I'll see if there are any plastic egg cartons.

Then they got to do discoveries with magnets.

And with what floats.

There were a few experiments that I didn't do but still it was a full lesson (especially with the spills and needing to clean up.) At the end of this lesson, normally Joy School would be doing the Valentine's Day party.

Now, I try to look ahead and be prepare for the whole week at a time. So, I looked at the next lesson and it was all about going to the library for a field trip. The library activity is to get the kids interested in the books and to learn how to find answers to their questions. However, we go to story time twice a week (on Tuesday for Book Babies and on Thursdays for 3-5 year olds). Also, Robert sleeps during Joy School so we can't leave the house.

To adjust for that and still do the lesson, we did the question mark craft today and will go to the library tomorrow for Book Babies and Hailey can pick out a book she wants then.

So, here are there necklaces that pieced together to remind them that questions are good.

Joy School: Unit 6: Good Noticer

We started the second part unit 6 which is The Joy of Interest and Curiosity. The first lesson was pretty short.


We started with Joy Boy (a puppet) being curious about what we are going to learn today. So, we talked about what being curious means. Next time I do this lesson, I will read a Curious George Book. Hailey is into Curious George right now and pronounces it "Kissing George".


Then we read a little story about "Maisey and Daisey". The story is found in the Joy School story books (there's two volumes and I own both) and it is written in the lesson with flannel board pictures to go with it. The interesting thing is that the book talks about two birds and the lesson talks about two squirrels. Of course, there's a song that goes with it too that we learned.


Then we went outside to observe nature. (This was supposed to be a field trip or neighborhood walk that took us 25 minutes.) Hailey has been noticing that the season changed and the leaves are different colors. So, while we were outside observing we talked about the signs of Autumn. (Hailey thinks Fall is a type of weather so for the season I need to call it Autumn).

We brought three leaves back inside with us so we could compare and contrast them. Lately, Hailey has been putting my medicine (3 pills) in order of biggest to smallest and loves to count and state what color they are. So, comparing three leaves that are different sizes and colors were just up her alley.

We ended the lesson with a Good Noticer badge which she proudly wore the rest of the day.

**Side Note- This lesson is supposed to be done close to Valentine's Day. So, at the end of this lesson we were supposed to talk about the upcoming party. Since this had nothing to do with the topic of the day, it was easy to take out.