The Brightness of the Stars

Laura did a simple experiment today on how the brightness of the stars is affected by their size.  Taking a flashlight and some aluminum foil, we first made a small hole in the foil and held it approximately eight inches above the paper.  With the lights off, though my flash was really bright in this picture, Laura drew the circle of light.  Then, we made the hole larger and repeated the process.  Finally, with three holes and three circles drawn, Laura was able to make the conclusion that the larger stars shine brighter.  Of course, she already knew this.  She liked the experiment anyway. 

Laura wrote out her findings and drew a picture of the experiment.  We put the results into her science notebook.  So far, she is really enjoying this new science.  She likes the more hands on approach.  We are using Heart Of Dakota science lessons from Preparing Hearts for His Glory.  This year she totally understands it all so much better than last year.  I think she is getting a lot more out of it than the workbooks we had been using for the last few months. 

The Heart of Dakota science combined with nature reading and the nature journals we are keeping has sparked Laura's interest again in science and learning.  She is excited to do stuff like this.