Chapter 5-Toms First Train Ride

Chapter Summary-
The Edison's arrive at the train station. Unable to contain his excitement, Tom races and begins to ask the engineer, Mr. Benjamin, many questions. Mr Benjamin likes the young boy's energy, and says Tom may ride in the engine with him for a few miles. Mr. and Mrs. Edison agree and Tom is Joyous. His ride with the Engineer goes quickly, and Tom learns all about how a steam engine works. When he is back with his family, Tom relates his experiences to them and the rest of trip to Detroit goes by quickly.

What we will cover in this chapter-
Science -Water and ground Pollution
Language arts- Writing
Math- Addition
Art- Painting with primary colors


Science- (water Pollution)
We did 2 hands on experiments about water pollution. We also watched a video of the affects of changing climate on Antarctica.

The first experiment was simple. We used materials around the house to learn about pollution within our interconnected waterways. We used and egg carton, water, food coloring and flax seeds. We talked about about how water ways are all connected to each other- creeks run into river, then into lakes and oceans. We put the flack seeds and food coloring  into one of the egg cups and watched how it slowly spread into the other cups. This taught the kids that if you throw trash into a creek or river it doesn't just get that waterway dirty. The water caries the trash to other places like oceans and it will eventually spread into the ground.

The next experiment the kids learned you can't undo water pollution.  We used a bucket of clean water, trash from around the house, vegetable oil to represent toxic oil spills, tongs and a sponge. First the kids took turns adding trash to the water. When the water looked polluted enough the kids had to use their tongs and sponge to remove the trash. After awhile they removed all the big items but soon realized they were unable to remove all the pollutants from the water.

Math- (Addition)
Lily and Aj completed 2 addition worksheets. The worksheets  had a train theme.

Art-(Primary Colors, Acrylic Painting)
The kids used only the 3 primary colors and white to make their paintings. They were asked to paint pictures about nature and how to help stop pollution.

Language Arts- Writing
Thomas Edison rode the train for the first time in this chapter. The kids had to write about something they remembered doing for the first time.

Thank for reading Chapter 5!