school: magma toothpaste

We've had a busy several weeks so home school has been a little truncated. That's the beauty of home school! But I've been feeling a little blah about it. So when I saw a science project I could do with relative ease, we went for it. Because that always makes me feel like I'm doing a good job. 

We just learned about the three layers of the Earth and how sometimes, hot magma breaks through weaker sections of the mantle and forms volcanoes. The project idea was to use toothpaste to push up through dirt to show how magma pushes through the Earth's crust. 

I sent Noah out to get some sand (all the dirt is frozen) and used up what very little toothpaste we had in a travel size tube. You can't hardly see it here but the kids thought it was pretty cool. And it was a good way for them to "see" what we were talking about.

The green is the toothpaste. There was more of a mound than there appears to be here. 

Evie, meanwhile, has been entertaining herself when she's done with her little workbook, by writing "words." She didn't know any letters at the beginning of the year so I think this means she's making progress. She kept wanting me to read her words, but like Curious George making up nonsensical words out of random letters, I told her I cannot read them. She was persistent though and kept asking me to read them and I kept telling her I couldn't. When I told Terry about this, he clued me in to why she wants me to read her words. Because daddy did and it was really funny. Mommy fail.