Newton's First Law of Motion: This law describes inertia, which means a body will stay at rest or continue at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced net force.

Example of the inertia of an object at rest: You can remove a paper from beneath a standing clothes pin and the pin will fall into the container beneath it.

Discover for Yourself:Place an index card over the mouth of a heavy drinking glass or jar. Stand a clothespin on top of the card so that it is centered over the glass. Quickly and forcefully thump the card straight forward with your finger. You want only to hit the card and you want the card to move in a horizontal direction.

Results: The clothespin falls straight into the glass about half of the time; the other half of the time it flips over landing upside down in the glass.

Why? Your finger applies force to the card, moving it forward. The card quickly moves out from under the clothespin and the pin falls straight down due to the pull of gravity. If you do not hit the card straight forward and/or it is not hit with enough force, the cards pulls the bottom of the pin forward and gravity pulls the top of the [pin down, causing the pin to flip before it lands.

For more informatin about inertia, see NEWTON'S FIRST LAW OF MOTION: INERTIA

For more ideas about inertia and other fun physics investigations, see Janice VanCleave's Physics for Every Kid

Sunflowers are a sign of summer. But, astronomers can tell you the exact day and even the moment that summer officially begins. This moment in time is called summer solstice .

In 2009, in the Northern Hemisphere, summer solstice is on June 21 at 1:45 EDT (eastern daylight time).

While this is called the longest day of each year, it is only about one minute longer than the previous day. Actually summer solstice marks the point when daylight length begins to decrease.

Day length preceding the summer solstice increases. Day length following the summer solstice decreases until December 21 (first day of winter), when it starts to increase again. In the Southern Hemisphere, these dates are reversed, with summer starting in December and Winter in June.

For information about why the amount of daylight changes during the year, see SUMMER SOLSTICE.

For more information about the movements of the Earth, including rotation and revolution, and how they affect seasons, see Janice VanCleave's Geography for Every Kid.

Geography is a branch of science that encompasses all aspects of the earth's physical features and inhabitants. It is the study of almost anything about the earth–the distribution of its people, animals, and plants; land, sea, and air features; weather conditions–the list goes on. The difference between the study of geography and other sciences is that geography examines its subjects from a perspective of where they are located and what relatinship they have with the things around them. Other sciences tend to focus on subjects individually.

• Building new spelling words with the letter tiles

• Dictating phonogram sounds and writing the phonograms

• Practicing "rule breakers" by writing in big letters with the pointer finger in the air and on the desktop.

Here are two enjoyable ways that activate kinesthetic learning pathways to bring spelling practice to life:

• Use tactile surfaces for practicing phonograms and "rule breaker" words. Excellent surfaces include sand in a shoebox lid, a sheet of very fine sandpaper, fabrics like burlap, velvet and corduroy, rice poured into a baking pan, a plush carpet square, and even snow.

• Place squishy substances into a sealed plastic baggie. This creates a no-mess surface. The student then uses her finger to “write” through the bag. Some of the best substances include shaving cream, pudding, liquid soap or glue.

Tactile ways to practice spelling don’t have to be costly, complicated or messy. In fact, you probably already have some of these items around your house already.
So go ahead. Have fun with spelling – it's worth it!

Here are some specific techniques to correct spelling mistakes both during the lesson and at other times.

Correcting spelling mistakes during the lesson

• Ask the student to read exactly what he wrote and to do so slowly. Often, the student will see his own error and be able to fix it.
• Look at the cause of the spelling mistake. Does the student pronounce the word incorrectly? Is he unclear on a particular concept or rule? Do you need to re-teach something? Did he segment the word correctly?
• If you need to review a phonogram or a rule, do it now.
• Have the student spell the word again, first with the letter tiles and then on paper.

Correcting spelling mistakes outside of the spelling lesson

• Only hold your student responsible for writing the word correctly if it includes concepts she has already learned.
• If the word (or words with a similar pattern) has been taught, ask the student to segment the word.
• As he segments the word, he should write down the letter or letters for each sound.
• If your student asks how to spell a word she hasn’t learned, tell her how to spell it.

Avoid inventive spelling

Whether you are in a lesson or not, avoid inventive spelling. Inventive spelling reinforces incorrect spelling that will have to be corrected later on in the student’s education. In addition, students need to be able to recognize incorrect spelling in their own writing, and rewrite the word correctly.

Photo: BookMomma

The Magic Treehouse series is a winner! Each book takes the sibling team of Jack and Annie on a new magic adventure, helping out their pals Merlin and Morgan Le Fay and learning about something new. The books are educational, entertaining, well-written and will apeal to a large range of ages, whether read aloud or read alone. Some books adress a particular period of histroy, some deal with familiar legends, while in others, Jack and Annie are learning about endangered, scary or mythical animals.

It has been so much fun to discover what my daughter is learning through these books. Frequently during history class she'll mention that she remembers something or someone that we're reading about from her Magic Treehouse Books.

Are All Bugs Insects?

Many people refer to any tiny creepy crawler as bugs (including spiders). Not to get too technical, but there is a special kind of insect that is a bug. And not all creepy crawlers are insects. In fact, a spider is not an insect.

So what is an insect?

You can use the 3 + 3 rule for identifying insects. This means they have three body parts and three pairs of legs.

The three body parts are:

• Head
• Thorax
• Abdomen

The three pairs of legs are connected to the thorax.

JUST FOR FUN

Make a model of an insect.

• If you have a small group, use index cards. For large groups, fold a sheet of card stock in half twice. When it is unfolded, you have four equal size sections. Print or type the word "Insect" on the card.
• Then draw three circles in a vertical line, decreasing in size from top to bottom. The circles represent the three body parts.
• Use pipe cleaners for the six legs. These are to be glued to the second circle (thorax).
• Cut wings from construction paper and glue these to the second circle. Note: Not all insects have wings. Some have one pair of wings and some have two pairs of wings. Insect legs and wings are all attached to its thorax (second body part).
• Use different sizes of colored puff balls to represent the three body parts. Glue these to the circles. FYI: Cotton balls do not work well. The cotton balls pull apart.
• Insects that have wings have them attached to the middle (thorax) body part.

You can find more information about insects in Janice VanCleave books:

Spectacular Science Projects about Insects and Spiders

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

14

Timestamp: 2009-06-05 18:53:08 UTC

Congrats HopiQ!

You don't have to lose your temper to get testy with your kids.  In fact, getting testy can be a good thing.  It's actually a great study tactic.  Have your student design a test that covers content material, and you will help him or her build comprehension skills in addition to study skills.

Most tests are designed to assess student knowledge of important concepts.  One part of comprehension is the ability to pick out and recall important concepts.  We have a match made in heaven for nurturing study skills!  Challenge your student to create questions about ten to twenty important ideas from the text (and an answer key), then check his or her work by taking the test yourself.  You will quickly see if the questions cover main ideas and important concepts or simply require regurgitation of trivia.

If you find your student needs help and guidance to distinguish the important from the unimportant, there are several strategies you can try. 

• Create your own version of the test and discuss the similarities and differences.  
• Try co-authoring a test and take turns justifying the inclusion of each question.  
• Use the topic sentences of each paragraph as a guide, rewording them to create questions.  
• Look for bullet points, diagrams, vocabulary words, and lists because these items will show their importance by being highlighted in the text.  
• Compare the homemade tests to those provided by the publishing company to help students create increasingly accurate versions.

Photo by carlaarena

Photographs with red-eyed subjects are becoming a thing of the past because cameras are flashing twice. What causes red eye? How can a double flash prevent it?

The pupils in your eyes are really holes covered with see-through skin.  Objects appear red in color because they reflect red light. The back of your eye reflects red light because it has many blood vessels.

When you are photographed, the light from the camera's flash enters the eye through your pupil and some of the light bounces back toward the camera. Your eyes look red in a photo when your pupils are dilated (enlarged). With a larger opening, more light enters the eye and more red light is bounced off the back of the eye.

When the camera flashes, the light entering your eye causes your pupil to involuntarily contract. This means that the pupil opening gets smaller. But the speed of light is faster than is your eyes' response, and the red light that bounces off the back of your eye exits your eye before the pupils can contract. If the camera flashes twice, the first flash causes the pupil to contract. With the pupil opening being small, only a small amount of light from the second flash enters the eye. There is still some red light reflected to the camera but rarely enough to result in "red eye."

Discover for Yourself

The pupil in your eye gets smaller in bright light and larger in the dark. Here's how to see light change the size of your pupil:

* Sit in a brightly lit room or sit outside in the sunshine. Caution: Never look directly at the sun because it can permanently damage your eyes.

* Close one eye and leave the other eye open. 

* Cup one hand over the closed eye or use an eye patch.

* After 2 to 3 minutes,  look at the pupil of the open eye in the mirror.

* Then, open the  closed eye and quickly look at its pupil in the mirror.

The pupil of the eye that remained open will be smaller than the pupil of the eye that was closed (covered).

At night when light hits the eyes of animals they do not look red. Instead they seem to glow. To find out why this happens, see EYES: GLOWING.

For more information about your eyes, see Janice VanCleave's Human Body for Every Kid.

Pajama School is the autobiographical journey of Natalie Wickham, a homeschool graduate who chronicles her journey through honest, vivid, and candid stories.

While chronicling her journey, Wickham provides a strong message that God's plan for her family far surpassed what her parents could ever have planned for their children. As she willingly tells all, Wickham discloses the reality of her educational experience and its relationship to the many challenges she faced growing up.

She illustrates how God took her classmates (her sisters) and transformed their relationship into that of best friends. She expresses the highs and lows of switching churches, finding a curriculum, living with an ailing grandmother, living with a sister with a disability, mending relationships with family members (including her father), and surviving terrible tragedy.

And as she tells her stories of being homeschooled, she seems to be expressing thanks to her mother, father, and sisters who made her journey more complete.

One of my favorite passages in the book is this:

"That's what the world of homeschooling is like. It stretches far beyond the boundaries of a single family, a community, or one local church. It is comprised of all sorts of people, from varied backgrounds and different walks of life, but who are united in a common goal – to take seriously the upbringing of their children and provide them with the best education possible. That will mean different things for different people. But that's the beauty of homeschooling. Stereotyped as we may be, no two homeschool families are exactly alike. A peek into any homeschool will quickly reveal that. But still, there persists a familial bond of sorts as we are brought together as part of a bigger community for events such as these." (p.57)

Wickham's book is entertaining, but more importantly, it is a ministry. As she expresses in her own words, "Homeschooling has prepared me for a life of learning, because one of the most valuable things I've learned is that true education is not limited to the walls of a classroom. True education takes place every day as I learn from the expertise and experience of those whom God has placed in my life. This understanding is what has helped me learn and grow, even through the difficult life lessons that God has allowed me to experience." (p.204)

Pajama School is a delightful book that I would recommend to anyone, not just a homeschooler.

And I'm thrilled to announce that Blissfully Domestic has a copy of Pajama School to giveaway!

To enter:

• Leave a comment. That's it!
• For an additional entry, Tweet about this contest. Your tweet must link to this post and you must return here and leave a second comment that you tweeted.
• You must leave a valid email so that we can contact you if you win.
• A winner will be randomly selected on Friday, June 5th at Noon (EST).