Volcano Week

This past week was volcano week at our house. We took a break from our regular kindergarten curriculum to learn about Josiah's current interest- volcanoes! We celebrated All Saints day on Monday and began "Volcano Week" on Tuesday. Daddy had the day off to vote (woohoo!) so after voting we went to the library as a family, and Daddy taught Josiah how to look up a book on the catalog. They selected a supply of books as well as a National Geographic DVD about volcanoes. We came home, and Daddy read a couple books and explained what volcanoes are and how they work. Then we all went into the kitchen and created our own volcano!

First we put a small cup with baking soda under a funnel and taped it steady to a large platter. Then Josiah and Daddy used clay to form a volcano...

Josiah and his volcano! Very exciting.

We dyed vinegar red with food coloring and let him pour it in the volcano (with Mommy's help the first time around) to watch it erupt.

This was the 3rd or 4th time making it erupt. He loved it and kept saying, "I wanna do it again!"

We explained to Josiah that the vinegar and baking soda react to make a gas and that's what bubbled up over his volcano as "lava". He certainly doens't understand the chemistry of it all yet, but hey, it's a lot of fun!

When they stopped reacting, Daddy said, "I bet if we give it a little shake, it'll make them react again... let's try it!"

...Sure enough, he was right.

 Daddy was just as tickled as Josiah. The smiles on those silly boys faces are just the best! The volcano is "erupting" in this picture too.

We spent the next few days reading more about volcanoes, learning about the earth's tectonic plates and the other things they impact (the making of mountains, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc) as well as making a volcano mini-book...

drawing and labeling our own volcano,

                   (check out that writing!! I am so proud of him!)
...and completing volcano themed handwriting and math pages. I (sneakily) starting teaching him about addition as well, in order to "decode" a hidden message...

I know, you didn't see that one coming, did you? ;o)
We used counting blocks as math manipulatives to make beginning addition easy-peasy. Like his Daddy he seems totally unfazed and rather enjoys mathematics. Yeahhhh definitely doesn't get that from his Mother!

All in all we had a fun and rather relaxing week of school.
Hope you enjoyed our memories from Volcano week!