Perks to Homeschooling Include - Black Ice Day!

There are many reasons to love homeschooling. One of the best ones, however, include schooling at our pace. That means we can do school every day if we choose. Holidays, weekends, or at night - it is all of our choosing. On the flip side, we can also take days off when we feel like it. And today is one of those days! 

Ice in the desert

We live in west Texas. Literally in the middle of desert land, surrounded by oil fields. When we first looked at the house we decided to buy last year, we asked how often it rains. Because during that trip, it rained overnight and some areas we drove through were completely flooded! Mainly in the nearby town, but still. Our realtor said they typically only get rain twice a year. That the humidity and precipitation levels were incredibly low. Fast forward and that seems to have changed since we moved here. We keep hearing the locals talking about how strange the weather has been. We are glad they are getting more rain here. Even glad to have the light dusting of snow. But we could do without the black ice. 

This morning, 3/4 kids woke early enough to see their dad off to work. He spent about 20-30 minutes scraping chunks of ice off the windows of the SUV while trying not to slide on the driveway and even the dirt along the driveway. (We don't have much grass in the yards.) Yes, the dirt had a layer of ice covering it! 

Lessons on ice and freezing 

My kids started talking about the ice. And the lessons shifted to how it affects things and daily life. We decided to test out a couple experiments. We had tried to freeze balloons that had water with food coloring in them last night.

Each of us, including myself and my husband, chose a balloon. We added the colors we wanted with food coloring. Then I filled each one to make about a golf ball sized ice ball. I told them to pick a spot, any spot, under the back porch and leave their balloon there overnight. Some were right next to the backdoor (she said it was too cold to go further out). Others were in the middle of the porch. And still others were closer to the end of the porch. Here is what we learned from that. First off, this porch is covered and holds the heat radiating from our well-insulated home very well! The ones that were closer to the house did not freeze! Despite temperatures dropping well below freezing, there was small chunks of ice inside water for those right next to the house. In the middle, the balloons had more ice, but weren't completely iced. And those nearest the end of the porch were more solid, but still not 100% frozen. We moved the ice balloons and are waiting to see if they freeze during the day as we haven't had the sun to warm things much. 

The other experiment did not work. We took scalding water and tried to throw it to the wind. It didn't freeze instantly. So we know it isn't cold enough to freeze water in mid air. 

Then came the lesson on black ice. This will be a lesson the kids hold onto for life. Pretty sure. We noticed that the covered inner part of the porch protected the concrete from getting iced. However, as I stepped close to the edge, there was ice. So I started telling them about how black ice works. I showed them by running my foot over a couple areas. Then I showed them the tree and we listened to it creaking and cracking from the thick, white ice that covered it completely. 

I moved over to stand closer to the end. However, I made the mistake of stepping on black ice with one foot and not having enough grip with the other to steady myself. My legs flew forward and I went backwards. My older two kids started freaking out. One asked if she should get dad, but he had already left. The son grabbed my arm and attempted to pull me up. I was in the middle of the ice patch so I slid again trying to get up. Thankfully, he managed to give me enough of a boost that I made it up and could hobble back into the house. 

Freedom in our learning

Which brings us to the Black Ice Day off from school! Mom is laid up in bed. Dad had to turn around and come home as the roads were so bad with black ice that even with his Colorado driving skills couldn't help him. We are going to do fun lessons that don't require too much effort. Like watching Jaws and discussing views on sharks then and now. Then building concepts in Minecraft. And if I'm lucky, maybe my kids will attend cooking class with dad today... 

This is homeschool! This is freedom! This is great for a broken down mom.