Good morning, friends! Happy Monday. I’m excited to share this week’s lesson with y’all: everything you need to know about cars! Well, not everything, but close. 😉 We cover the history of the automobile, how certain car parts work (literally cracking the hood of your car for that part!), and we top it off by making our own little (scrumptious) cars. So buuuuuckle up. Let’s get started!

CARS

Topcis covered: math, history, engineering, culinary crafts

GROUP DISCUSSION

— Get the brain warmed up via math story problems, after sharing with your kids that today you’re learning all about cars. Make up situations that fit your kids’ age. IE, for Claire I’d say, “There were 20 cars in the parking lot. 3 more cars came. How many cars were there altogether?” For Olivia, we kicked it up a notch with problems like, “354 cars were driving on the 5  in San Diego on Saturday. 76 of those cars needed the high patrol’s help somehow. How many cars on the road didn’t need any help?” I love sitting and crunching numbers with the girls, because you all so quickly get into a groove and they usually don’t want to stop! Math is fun. 🙂

Sidenote — I keep meaning to share adaptions of the lesson in case you have toddlers hanging out with you, too, like Emmy. Emmy is always with us during school, but she’ll come and go during the more advanced portions of the lesson, like when we’re doing math, or she’ll hang if I come up with an alternate activity. Making cars out of play-doh was a no-brainer for her and this lesson, so she hung with us and made some cars. Toddlers can soak up more information than you realize, so if there is a concept that you can water down for your toddler, let them hang and just re-explain the material in a super simple way. Like the YouTube videos we watch in our lessons — Emmy gets it (more than I think she does, honestly), and especially especially clicks with the concepts after I re-teach them. Again, their comprehension (and retention!) will surprise you, and including them will help them feel valued and “big.” Win-win. 🙂

— Share that now you’re going to learn about the history of cars: their invention and evolution. Watch the video below for a thorough explanation of both the car’s invention and evolution, although fair warning, the voice-over in in this video is DRY, haha. I recommend you watching it ahead of time, Mama, so that you can grasp the concepts and teach your kids more than the person in the video. In fact, we muted this one on-and-off as I filled the girls in about what was going on. Don’t skip this video, though, since it has some awesome footage of cars in their earliest stages, of cars in old assembly lines, and of cars progressing thorough the ages.

— Follow-up on the above video with this similar video below. Unlike the video above, this one below is NOT dry. My girls were rolling during this one, which was fun. This video also gives you a peek into the next lesson concept, which is how cars work (hint: the engine!)

— How does a car’s engine work? Dive into the engineering portion of the lesson by watching this little video and asking discussion questions afterward, like “Did you guys catch the two ingredients that create an actual explosion in our cars’ engines?” (Gas and air!) Ask your kids what stuck out to them about engines, and then – on to the fun part – pop your car’s hood to take a peek at your engine!

Emmy’s face at our popped-hood… :0 🙂

— Get under the hood! Okay, for this portion of class, I recommend inviting a special guest that knows about cars more than you do to come teach your kids what’s up under the hood. Unless you’re one of those bomb moms that knows car mechanics, of course (I know that you superstars are out there)! Ryan happened to be working from home last week (;) ), so he was our special, very informed guest. You can let your special guest take the reins, but our guest taught the girls where specific car parts are and what they do, such as the engine, the radiator, the dipstick, and the windshield wiper fluid, and then Ryan taught the girls how check the oil. It was awesome. Olivia’s grossed-out face is telling you otherwise in the pics below (she kills me, haha), but cha! Sis was into it. Cars just kind of messy, is all…

— Make model cars out of food! To top off the lesson, hit the kitchen and make your own cars out of whatever food you have on hand. We had a blast with this portion. The girls got to practice prepping food with a “big knife” (I was right there monitoring), and they got super creative…

Olivia made the banana cars, Claire made the celery and orange cars, I made the pepper-tomato car, and Emmy really got wild and made a model remote-control car. 🙂 And then we ate our cars, and threw on “CARS,” the movie, as a fun cherry-on-top.

And with that, class is dismissed!

Thanks again for joining us. We’re doing it, friends!!! We’re making this quarantine thing happen. I’m proud of you for showing up for your kids and doing your part to be with them. Who is benefitting more from this happy, fun, productive, home-school time together, honestly? Us or them? I say us. I say, “me.” 🙂

xoxo

Jeni