A Homeschool Lesson at the Breakfast Table

With Sneaky’s summer arrival our homeschool plans for this fall are still up in the air. I love working with my kids. I love witnessing their “ah ha” moments and finding new things that interest them. It breaks my heart a little to think we may be taking a break from it all for a while, but I’m trying to cherish every bit of it until then.

It’s hard to pinpoint a favorite homeschool subject. When it comes to going through our subjects we give language arts and math the most time. I couldn’t stand history growing up, but as I’m reading and teaching I love learning about all the things I’d long forgotten. Science is another one of my favorite homeschool subjects but sadly it’s also one I tend to neglect the most.

I love S.T.E.M. topics (science, technology, engineering and math). Sometimes we’ll take a week and crack open a bunch of science experiments and see how much we can learn about different topics: From space to the human body, magnets and more.

This week we spent some time learning about Rube Goldberg machines. You know, those complicated contraptions that are linked together and create a domino effect to complete a simple task, such a pouring a bowl of cereal.

General Mills sent us six different newly released Rube Goldberg themed cereal boxes to help bring some education and fun to our breakfast table. Lil’ J lined them up and picked a couple projects to try (actually she wants to try all of them, but these are the two she’s build so far).

She learned how to make a pulley and inclined planes. And now she can more easily spot machines that work that way in the real world.

Here’s a little video of how she put them together!

It’s a simple project that you can work on together for some fun bonding time and learning. Then enjoy some breakfast for dinner!

If you create your own General Mills Cereal box machine make sure you snap a picture because you can use it to enter for a chance to win a $20,000 college scholarship for someone in your family! You can find out more at www.RubeCerealMachine.com.