It's that time of year again! We started our Sunflower Project today, where the kids plant giant sunflowers from seed and chart their growth week by week through the spring and summer in a journal. The last time we did this was 2 years ago, and my daughter was only 3, which is how old my son is now. My, how time flies! (Check it out! Sunflower Project 2010) This year each of the kids have their own tray and their own journals, which I just stapled together with quartered construction paper. The fun begins! We also did this adorable flower part craft I found on Pinterest. It fit in perfectly with our science book on seeds and plant parts, and I had all the materials on hand, just a coffee filter, muffin cup with raisins for the seeds, a straw for the stem, paper for the leaves and shredded paper for the roots. Simple and so cute! Another short tie-in we enjoyed today was reading Dr. Seuss' The Lorax again with some quick coloring pages. We did activities from The Homeschool Share's Lorax Unit last month on Dr. Seuss' birthday for the opening day of the new movie, The Lorax, which we went to see in the theater with friends. It was a cute movie. The unit study is definitely worth the download, plus it is free, which is always a bonus! This is a good way to incorporate some activism into your studies and give the kids reason to care about planting things and carrying on the cycles of growth. We touched on this some last year as well, with our Earth Day activities with our homeschool group where we planted trees and visited the recycling center. (Earth Day Tree Plant Post) "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not." -The Lorax We've been discussing and comparing different types of seeds for several weeks now, as we examine pumpkin seeds, pea pods, flower seeds, etc. and of course, what would a study on seeds be without Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed book? :) It is a favorite in our house. Here's a great set of activities to go with it! The Tiny Seed Activities and also great ideas at Tiny Seed Math Activities for K-1.
Our homeschool group had a fabulous field trip to the Impression 5 Science Center last week. They have a special Magic School Bus Weather exhibit that was a huge hit with my kids, along with their other great exhibits and areas, like the water room, nature, body systems and the light room where the kids could freeze their shadows. We spent the entire day-- it was filled with fun, hands-on education. They also lined up some workshops for our group on the 5 senses, magnets, and static electricity. It was definitely worth the trip, there was a ton of stuff for every age to explore together. Two very big thumbs up!
^laughing out loud. e, I love you so much. excellent.
We've spent the last month exploring archaeology as we start our Story of the World history studies. It's a topic my mom has always loved (see their fun treasure history hunts in my post Treasure Hunting, Archaeology and Unearthing Fun Discoveries for more ideas and links). Along with library books and fun kits that we shared with friends where the kids dug out dinosaur skeletons (a separate day at a friend's house) and crystals from plaster bricks, we also had a really fun "Archaeology Dig Day" with friends in the backyard. I dug out an area of the yard where we will be expanding our veggie garden next year, and pre-buried coins, paperclips, giant dog bones, dinosaur skeletons, another store-bought brick to excavate, toys, etc. and the kids sifted, shoveled, strained, and raked through to find it all. It took them hours to do, complete with hats and dinosaur chicken nuggets to snack on. What fun!! Here, too, is an episode of Magic School Bus on Archaeology and how it tells the story of life in the past. And here's a link to a kids archaeology magazine called, Dig! Here is a really fun They Might be Giants song and video called, "I Am a Paleontologist." I also just got in the mail an awesome kid's Bible study book I ordered from Answers in Genesis, called, "Digging up the Past." They study chapters of Genesis through the adventures of junior archaeologists, it fits in so perfectly with what we're doing and the Egypt studies we'll be continuing through September. I love when things fall into place like that. Next month, we'll be visiting the Indianapolis Children's Museum where they have an Egypt exhibit and an awesome archaeology exhibit created by National Geographic just for kids! It's sure to be one of the best field trips ever. SO EXCITED!!
While my kids aren't winning their wish of getting a pet seahorse, ("thanks", library book!) we have just finished up a super fun little study on seahorses after a few things fell into place nudging us in that direction. For instance, on our trip at the nature center the kids came across a family of seahorse skeletons, then later that day we returned home to find that Seahorses were the cover feature of this month's issue of my daughter's "Your Big Backyard" magazine. So, off our adventure began!
Beach in a bottle: Inspired by some craft shells I found at Hobby Lobby, we created our own little beach in a bottle, and it's become a game as well. We filled small bottles with colored sand and shells, (fun all in itself for the kids with spoons and funnels) adding one tiny seahorse. Now the kids can rotate the bottle and search through the sand to find the seahorse mixed with the shells. Library books (Eric Carle has a fantastic Mister Seahorse book!! And, here is a ridiculously adorable Popcorn Seahorse Craft to go with it that I found on another blog.) We also of course enjoyed reading her magazine about Seahorses, which included this awesome song my kids love:
Pretty Little Seahorse By Jennifer Bove (Sung to the tune of "I've been working on the railroad") I'm a pretty little seahorse Living in the sea. I like to hang out in the sea grass With my tail curled under me. I wait for tiny snacks to float by, But I cannot bite or chew. So I use my snout just like a long straw To slurp up all my food!
Along with including this in our circle and song time, I also found this great video with another seahorse song, called "The Horseshoe Crab & The Seahorse" by Brent Holmes.
We practiced writing and spelling "Seahorse" and reviewed compound words (side note: with conflicting uses in library books, videos and websites, I actually had to double check whether "Sea Horse" was a compound word or not. It turns out it is considered proper English as both "seahorse" and "sea horse"). We also used this as an opportunity to explore and review the difference between See and Sea. Here is an awesome phonics video on homophones, including sea and see.
For some hands-on science and math projects, I took various facts and turned them into visual examples. Seahorses can range in size from a grain of rice, to as big as a hammer, so we compared and contrasted that. To demonstrate what slllllloooow swimmers seahorses really are, we took the fast fact that it takes a seahorse 90 seconds to swim 12 inches of water and applied that. I cut a sponge into the shape of a seahorse and filled a clear 9x13 inch dish with water. We set a timer for just over 90 seconds and had the kids swim the seahorse sponge from one end to the other. They couldn't believe how slow they had to move it, it was extremely difficult not to reach the other side until the timer went off! It really brought a seemingly dull stat on seahorses alive into a relative lesson. We watched National Geographic's Really Wild Animals of the Ocean video, which featured seahorses in a fun way and showed the daddy seahorse giving birth. And found this fantastic, free Seahorse Counting Game where the kids count and set free seahorses for a mermaid on the computer. This was an especially great find for my mermaid-loving daughter. It's been a fun week of seahorse adventure!
Inspired by watching the last shuttle launch over the weekend, we stocked up on library books and planned space travel activities to do with friends at the park. The best books we picked up were What Do Astronauts Do, by Carmen Bredeson, World Book's Human Space Exploration and Exploring the Solar System; A History with 22 Activities, by Mary Kay Carson. A lot of activities in the latter were a little on the bland side, except they did give a recipe for creating your own comet with kitchen ingredients, which we tried. In addition to making our meteorite, we dressed the kids up like little astronauts with tin-foil space suits and sponge space shoes. We made foam-paper-cup rockets and enjoyed launching a real rocket model that shot up over 500 feet in the sky and parachuted down. The kids had a blast, especially mixing up the comet/dry-ice concoction and yelling their countdown before chasing down the rocket after it started it's descent back to earth.
Kitchen Comet Recipe: *(Please remember dry ice is dangerous and adult supervision is extremely required so the kids don't touch it! Only handle with protective gloves)
2-3 pounds dry ice 3 plastic trash bags Protective gloves Old towel Hammer Large plastic mixing bowl 2 cups water 2 tablespoons dirt (or more) Ammonia-based window cleaner 2 tablespoons honey or syrup Large mixing spoon Shallow pan
Directions: Keep the dry-ice well wrapped in a freezer or cooler filled with water ice. Make a two-layered bag with 2 of the trash bags and carefully move the dry ice into it, fold it over and set it back in the cooler. Cover with a towel and crush the ice with a hammer until you have about 2 cups of well-crushed dry ice. Line the mixing bowl with the third bag, mix all the ingredients in and stir until well mixed. Mix in the dry-ice. It will be slushy at first but keep stirring until it's nearly frozen solid. Wrap the bag around and shape the comet like a snowball through the bag. When ready, place it carefully out of the bag and onto the shallow pan. Enjoy watching it sublimate and steam just like a real comet in outer space!
