Why Being Fat is a Good Thing...

About three days into our summer vacation, Hub came to me with the complaint he was bored. I knew I needed to find something that could hold the interest of both older boys (finishing K and 2nd), but wouldn't throw us off track if we didn't get much done. Enter SCIENCE!!

I know lots of homeschool moms swear by their favorite science curriculum, but I honestly haven't found anything I could stick with. Last year, a woman blessed me with over 100 used elementary school textbooks! Some of you would tell me I'm "selling out" and now doing "school at home", but for us, especially for our esteemed principal (love you, honey!!), this is the style that we need.

We dove into a Harcourt Science book the second week of June and are thrilled with what we found! The first unit was on plants and the boys did some great rubbings, as well as helped me in the garden (I'm so sneaky!!). That was, of course, PBD (pre-blog days) so it never occurred to me to take pictures...

This week, we are studying animals. Our lesson today was on mammals and after all the giggling about live birth and breastfeeding was finished, we focused on the purpose of fur. Or for humans, FAT!

Here's a quick experiment that you can use in any argument- a child that doesn't want his coat in the snow, your Weight Watchers nazi the week after Christmas... you get the picture!!

Method- Take two metal cans (we used Mason jars- hey! I homeschool- it's what we have!) and wrap one of them in cotton batting, a towel- any thick fabric to symbolize fur or fat. Fill them with almost boiling water and record the temperature of each. Record each temperature reading every ten minutes for the next thirty.

Here's the Investigation chart we made:

1. Temperature at start for Naked can _____ Furry can_____
2. Temperature after ten minutes for Naked can_____ Furry can_____
3. Temperature after twenty minutes for Naked can_____ Furry can_____
4. Temperature after thirty minutes for Naked can_____ Furry can_____

Hub came up with his own hypothesis: "I believe that the naked one will cool off first"

Sure enuff... At the end of the thirty minutes, the "fat" can held it's temperature better- only dropping 33 degrees, compared to the 64 degrees that the naked one lost.

THEREFORE, fat is NOT a bad thing:-) In support of science, I'm off to eat some ice cream-