The sad news is my computer crashed and I lost all my pictures. The good news is that super smart computer people are working hard on recovering the pictures. I don’t even have the words to describe what they are doing, where they are getting pictures from or what they are transferring the pictures to–that is how bad I am with technology. And so dear friends, forgive me for using some pictures that were not taken at the time we finished this unit.

Our water study began as a carry over from our Octopus study. My little guy had memories of his brothers studying Water in Kindergarten and he came ready with opinions and ideas of what he wanted to do.

First up? Playing with water and studying its flow and learning about gravity. Once upon his Dad (and I on occasion) worked in rural Honduras installing gravity fed water systems. We pulled out the old scrapbook and looked at pictures of the water tank and discussed how the pipes were laid and how the system worked to bring water all the way down the mountain to the village homes. We headed outside and turned on the hose and aimed the water down the drive. We took note of where the rivulets and streams formed and then we put things in the water’s path and watched the streams diverge and move around our obstacles. This used to be one of our favorites things to do at the creek near our home when we lived in Pennsylvania.

I also had to promise him a game of “Pooh sticks” for our upcoming visit to North Carolina. It was the first thing we did when we got to our favorite bridge. If you are unfamiliar with “pooh sticks” please run to your local library and grab a copy of AA Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” and investigate. It is such fun and a great way to study stream flow and currents!

Next we looked at  A Drop of Water by Walter Wick. I love the photos in this book. We went on to study the three states of matter in our kitchen. We let an ice cube melt into a pan and then we set the pan on the stove and watched the water evaporate. I held a piece of aluminum over it to gather some of the moisture and then we froze the collected water into a wee little cube.

Of course this unit calls for field trips! We stopped by a local river to observe the water and its ecosystem. We managed to find a pond and made similar observation. Last but not least, we went to the seaside to enjoy the water. It was a great day.

I made a few trays for him that week using river stones from the dollar store. I included a pitcher of blue tinted water and he had fun making different land form inside his tray. I would introduce various safari toobs and he would play with the corresponding animals. I also used a pack of instant snow and we played with some arctic animals.

He spent the last two days of his study reading lots and lots of fun library books from our book basket and trying out some experiments with one of his brother’s science books. They did half a dozen water experiments that day and made an enormous mess. But they learned so much together, through trail and error and teamwork. It was worth the mess!