Composting

Our neighbor, Vickie, has some old composting bins in the backyard. This week, we created one big new composting pile on the back of our driveway made out of the contents of the old composting bins, and new straw, manure, rotting plants, and ash. My Mom went to a class about composting at Steiner College. There she learned about the different layers, what order they should be put in, what they all do, and how it affects the plants. Right now, the composting pile is about a foot to a foot and a half high and is about seven feet in length. We are waiting to get a giant thermometer that we can stick in the pile to see how hot it is getting.
Once it reaches 130 degrees Fahrenheit, then we know that the pile is working. Once the compost pile goes through different stages, it begins to cool down. Once that happens we have to turn the pile, which means to turn it inside out. We repeat that until the pile is complete decomposed. Once finished, we will use the soil for our garden.

I got to cut up pumpkins with a hoe.

We added all of the plants from our green cans and the old composting bins to the compost pile.

The first layer was made out of straw, and the second from manure.

This is me trying to get the old compost bins open.

These are the holes I made with the pickaxe trying to get the bolt out.

Explorit Science Center

A couple of days ago we went to the Explorit Science Center in Davis. They had a new exhibit about communication, featuring Morse code, army flag and hand signals, different languages, and two cans with a string attached. There were also a couple of books for sign language, and a set of stamps for the different hand signals. On a piece of paper, I made a compass rose with a couple of the stamps. On the part with Morse code, there was a chart with all the letters and numbers, Morse telegraph keys, fiber optics, and a small light on either side of the station.

In the regular exhibit area, the downstairs room, there was a new metal sandbox that sloped down and had water running down from a shower head all the way to the bottom of the basin, where it was recycled through the pump back to the top. There were pipes of different sizes and small plastic trees for decoration. You could use the pipes to make tunnels through sand mounds. Joey and I took out all of the pipes and trees and made a meandering river. It wound almost all the way to the bottom, accelerating at the deeper and steeper parts of the river. As a result of changing the depth in one area and increasing height in the other area or decreasing depth caused a change in the velocity of the running water. Once it was done, we added trees to make it look more real.

Great Harvest Bread Company

On Wednesday we went on a tour, like the one last week at Chili's. We went to the Great Harvest Bread Company. We got to go in the back to see how they make the bread, grind the grain, and bake the bread.

The owner also showed us how the seeds grow into sprouts and we each got a handful of dough to shape and bake.

At the end we got to ask questions. We all got a slice from a loaf of a cinnamon white chocolate bread for each question we asked.

My Science Book

My science book is just like my S.S. book, only for science. The only other differences are that my science book is spiral-bound and is blue instead of red.

My last couple pages were about 5 of the body systems and light. My first one was about DNA.

The systems that I covered in "The Body Systems" are the nervous system, skeletal system, circulatory system, digestive system, and the respiratory system.

My favorite one is the page about light because of how I set it up where the writing is on the sun's rays.

Our Plants

Over the past couple months we have been growing multiple plants. We went to a bulb clinic to learn how to plant bulbs. We planted hyacinths, tulips, daffodils, and some pansies to put on top. The daffodils have already grown and the tulips are starting to bloom. The hyacinths started growing right under the daffodils and pansies so we couldn't see them!

Here are some pictures of our bulbs then and now:




Before the bulbs we were growing some grass and sunflowers. The sunflower got eaten and the grass got really big. We took out the grass to start another project, but the roots had taken over the entire planter. We bought some new soil and planted some watermelons, basil, parsley, and cilantro. We did it only a couple days ago, so they haven't sprouted yet.This is a picture of the planter right now, all the other seeds are underground.

Oct-Tetra and our Botany Books

This week we folded special paper into tetrahedrons and octahedrons. What you do is you fold the special paper on the fold lines and then connect the flaps that are on the sides with paper clips. To make an octahedron, you have to fold two pieces and then attach them together. For the tetrahedron, it comes in one piece. We connected an octahedron and a tetrahedron to form an Octet-truss. It looks like this: We can connect a lot of the octahedron and tetrahedrons (or octas and tetras) to form bigger things, like a giant tetra or a pyramid.

This week we did a bulb observation for our bulbs that we planted a couple months ago. They are finally starting to grow! We planted tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths, and some pansies to put on top. My daffodil is getting really big. It is about 7 in. tall. I think it's gotten so big because I planted the pansies unevenly, and it's in the spot where there is the biggest space between all the plants. So, we are doing a bulb observation and then drawing a picture of the bulb in my Botany book every two weeks.