Geology Rocks (1)

In Amber On The Mountain, Anna comes to live on the Mountain where Amber lives because her father is constructing a new road. We've used this as a springboard into a study of rocks. I ordered a Geology Rocks kit from JCS, and then M took over from there.

Today’s lesson: How to use a nutcracker to break open a geode.

Actually, the tool used is obviously not a nutcracker, but a soil pipe cutter—a tool used in construction to quickly cut clay or cast iron pipe. I became aware of its alternate use through an exhaustive search of geodes on EBAY. Once I got the method down, the boys helped pull down the lever and crack open several geodes. Most oven the geodes were solid (no open crystal cavity), but there were a few beautiful exceptions. My favorite was a nice peppered quartz specimen. We were all very excited about this find, but be careful when handling as the crystals are very sharp.

Amber On The Mountain

In Amber On The Mountain, written by Tony Johnston, we learned that you can do almost anything you fix your mind to. This book is gorgeously illustrated with oil paintings by Robert Duncan. And the details of the paintings enhance the concept of passage of time. Learning to read and write didn't happen overnight. Rather spring turned into fall, and then the snow came. With the passing of time...Amber learned to read and to write.

This book is full of figurative language. The kids favorite simile from AOTM is "Her tongue curled to her upper lip in concentration, like a lizard stalking a bug." Every night they watch Beckie stalk her crickets with CONCENTRATION. This was a very vivid word picture for them.

Amber lives in a log cabin. We've been playing with Lincoln Logs, and talking about the differences and similarities with our house.

Amber gives Anna a clay mule. We've been sculpting with clay.

And we started looking at Geodes this weekend, but they've earned their own post.