Nathan -- week 2

Labor Day means a "break" from school, but not really. Nathan and David built a pulley! It was pretty neat. First couple of designs didn't work. It was about the 4th or 5th attempt they figured out how to lift a 53 lbs. weight using only about 13 lbs. of force. Pretty neat!



So, that brings me to today (Tuesday, Sept 7). It's Micah's bday, and to celebrate, we all decided to get sick! Yes, even my little Bday Boy!! It's sad, but luckily, it's all just varying degrees of sinus congestion. At least no one is throwing up. So for school today, we watched more SciQ, Bill Nye, and then Nathan went to play computer games (I think he helped Ian play a Kindergarten game....and not sure what happened after that).

A neat thing happened when I was making snack today. We decided to have popcorn ("my favorite treat....POPCORN, it's what I like to eat"....Oh sorry, I digress!). I was using Yiskah's whirley pop popper, and Nathan comes out of no where and says, "Mom! You're using a simple machine! There are 2 gears on the popper!"

It's neat, because now he sees simple machines everywhere. I vaguely remember learning about them in school. I could probably point out the different types, but only the obvious ones, like a screw (duh), inclined plane, and gears. But Nathan really gets this stuff. We were at my cousin's house for our family reunion, and there was a swing-set in the back yard. On the swing was this swing/see-saw thing, and Nathan says, "It's a lever, mom. See, there's the fulcrum, and the (whatever) and (whatever)." See, I told you I have no clue what any of this is!! He notices every pulley, ever lever, every....SIMPLE MACHINE!!