We finally started CPO Physical, Earth, and Space Science today. It is a bit early to give an opinion of the curriculum, but it looks good and the first day went swimmingly. It started off by going through an investigations section. This is basically a lab where you explore the current topic. The first lab had them exploring different types of measurements because they will be using these measurements throughout the curriculum. Singapore Math has done a great job introducing and teaching units of measurement thus far so there were no surprises today. They had 5 competitions to complete. They had to estimate their results in each competition and keep track of their results and the winning results and then do a little math to compare their scores to the winning scores.
The first competition involved throwing a straw like a javelin. We used a pencil since we only had a twirly straw on hand. We measured the distance the pencil was thrown to determine the winner.
The second competition was one involving volume. They had 10 seconds in which to move as much water from one container to another container using a small cup. We measured the volume of the water each child moved in 10 seconds. Little girl also had to participate in each game.
The third competition measured mass. They were supposed to grab a handful of pebbles and weigh them to see whose handful had the most mass. Pebbles aren’t exactly abundant here in the wintertime so we used Legos. They have a big container of Legos and I used a postal scale to measure the grams of each handful. They were within 2 grams of each other.
The fourth competition was a leg stretch. We measured in centimeters how far each child’s legs could step to the side.
The last competition was a measurement of time. Each child had to hop on one foot for 5 meters. The fastest time was the winner. The book said to do 10 meters, but we didn’t have that much room in the house and it is not outside weather.
CPO labs can have equipment that is expensive. For this lab we were able to adapt a few items to have what we needed to complete the tasks and still achieve understanding of the concepts. The boys enjoyed the first lesson. All of our competitions ended up taking about an hour and 15 minutes. My oldest will be completing textbook and worksheet assignments related to the concept while my younger son will be sitting down on the couch listening to living books related to measurement.
