Science Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Look! We're Learning!

3 Tips for Exploring a Nature Trail with Kids

May 6, 2016 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

As a bookworm, I haven’t been much of an outdoor mom. But my kids absolutely love the outdoors! So I’ve been making an effort to get them outside more often.

Which means I was psyched to join the A-Z of Outdoor Activities series! And for today’s entry (Letter E), I’m sharing 3 Tips for Exploring a Nature Trail with Kids! If you’re ready to hit the trail with your littles, see how we made it fun!

3 Tips for Exploring a Nature Trail with Kids

Let them set the pace.

Nothing makes a child hate something more than being made to do it on a timetable. I know, I’ve tried and failed at that with my kids.

When you get outside, everyone should be able to relax and feel at ease. And that means letting the kids set the tempo.

On our trail hike, the kids started off slowly…

…and then picked it up quickly afterward. I just told them to stay within eyesight, which they did (for the most part).

Stop and examine nature.

The whole point of a nature trail is to see nature, right? So, be sure to look out for interesting sights as you go. Don’t just focus on finishing the trail.

We came across this rotten tree trunk, which had become home to a spider web and lots of creepy crawlies. It was gross, but also kind of neat?

But it was mostly gross. 🙂

Have a goal in mind.

If your kids tend to lose interest in things quickly, you can keep them going along the trail by setting an endpoint as a goal to reach.

My kids needed the extra incentive of seeing something special at the end of the trail, so we chose a route that ended in a small waterfall. All the way down the trail, they kept saying that they were excited to see the falls.

And when we got there, they wanted to stay and just watch it for a while.

Seeing how the water “fell” and then formed a stream was pretty neat for them too.

They’ve talked about this experience almost non-stop since we left. And we’ve already made plans to visit the trail again! This was definitely a win for our family.

Want more ideas for having outdoor fun with your kids? Check out my Outdoor Play Ideas board on Pinterest!

This post is part of the A-Z of Outdoor Activities series from Crafty Kids at Home! Follow along to see all of the awesome outdoor activities shared this month!

10 Kids’ Picture Books about Bugs

April 19, 2016 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Bugs are super popular with kids, especially during the warm months when we start to see more ants, bees, and other creepy critters around more often. Personally, I’m not a fan. But my boys (in particular) think they’re super cool!

So, I’ve worked up the nerve to start putting together a bug unit study. And part of that unit is reading some great picture books about bugs!

Here are ten kids’ books about bugs that are awesome for showing kids different kinds of insects and helping them learn about how they live and co-exist along with us.

10 Kids’ Picture Books about Bugs

If you try one of these, let me know which one is your favorite! And if I missed a great bug book, tell me your pick in the comments!

For more buggy fun, check out these posts!

And get more ideas for science learning from my It’s Science board on Pinterest!

Free Bug Printables Pack

March 29, 2016 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

Happy spring everyone! I love this time of year! The warmer weather, the longer days, the brighter skies – it’s all great stuff! It’s just the BUGS that bother me.

I really dislike bugs. When I was a child, I was deathly afraid of almost everything that had more than four legs. (Except potato bugs. They’re adorable.)

But I’ve been learning to love bugs along with my kids, who think they’re awesome. So I thought I’d share a brand new homeschool printable: A free Bug Printables Pack for all of you!

Read on to get your copy! And don’t miss our fun list of kids’ activities about insects!

Free Bug Printables Pack

This free Bug Printables Pack has over 25 pages of insect-themed fun!

To use this pack, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

Printer (with ink)
Printer paper
Scissors
Laminator (if you want to reuse the flashcards in the future)

The pack includes:

A set of bug flashcards (labeled and blank)
Bug identification pages with color pictures and traceable names
And insect coloring pages

And it’s totally free!

Scroll down to get your free Bug Printables Pack!

Don’t miss these other spring activities for kids!

Check out even more spring fun on my Spring Activities for Kids board on Pinterest!

To get your copy of our free Bug Printables Pack, click the image or the link below to download it!

>> Free Bug Printables Pack <<

Hands-On Learning about Taste Buds

February 11, 2016 by Selena Robinson 9 Comments

Studying the human body is always a fun unit with kids. And one of the basic concepts is the five senses, right? But it turns out that every time I cover this unit, I learn something new. This time it was about how our taste buds work.

Now I’m probably exposing myself as an ignoramus, but I really never thought much about taste buds. Not what they did, not what specific tastes they detect, and certainly not where they were located. But I know a lot more about them now and so do my kids!

Check out our hands-on learning about taste buds, including a fun paper craft that you can recreate with your little ones!

Learning about Taste Buds

What really got me started on this activity was reading the Sesame Street book My First Book About the Five Senses with the kids.

This is going to be really pathetic, but I didn’t know that there are different taste buds on different parts of our tongues!

See? The taste buds at the back of the tongue are for bitter tastes, while sour and salty taste buds are located on the left and right sides. The tip of the tongue is where the sweet taste buds are located. Neat!

So I created a similar “tongue” on pink construction paper with taste bud “zones”.

Pretty close, right?

After we read the book, I handed Roo the paper tongue and some torn pages from a magazine so he could find pictures of food and glue them in the correct taste bud “zones”.

Any time there’s a chance to use scissors, he’s raring to go.

See that image of coffee on the table? Roo didn’t know where to put that picture on the paper tongue. After all, he’d never tasted coffee.

Time to do a taste test and find out!

He was super excited to taste a grown-up drink. But afterward, he came to the instant conclusion that…

Black coffee definitely belongs in the “bitter” zone.

So, he finished finding pictures and gluing them in the right places.

And while he worked, I read about taste buds with Piglet. As you can see, she had a pretty good time.

And Roo is all done! Coffee and onion are in the “bitter” section, pickles and grapefruit are in the “sour” section, salted nuts and chips are in the “salty” section, and a brownie and a clementine make up the “sweet” zone.

A tad bigger than the tongues in our mouths, but you get the idea.

We really enjoyed this project and Roo was so proud of his work that he ran out into the living room to show the rest of the family.

For more hands-on science fun, follow my It’s Science board on Pinterest!

And don’t miss the other fun human body learning activities this week from the Early Elementary Blogging Team!

STEM Respiratory System Investigation Asthma versus Healthy from Life Over C’s

What’s Inside Your Blood – An Edible Model from Preschool Powol Packets

Human Body Printables for Kids from Living Life and Learning

Telling the Time – Body Clock from Rainy Day Mum

Human Body Games for Kidsfrom The Natural Homeschool

5 Senses Unit from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Bones from Sugar Aunts

Human Body Math from Planet Smarty Pants

Parts of the Eye Painting from Still Playing School

Simple Heat Conduction Experiment with Air is Not Oxygen!

February 11, 2016 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

How many of you parents are extremely comfortable with teaching science? And I mean extremely comfortable.

If you’re not, you’re not alone! I’m not much of a science buff myself. I got good grades in it as a kid, but I haven’t really ever been interested in it. (Except for astronomy. Astronomy is awesome.)

So when it comes to teaching science, I find it hard to get a good grasp of the concepts so I can teach them to my kids. And that’s why I was thrilled to get a chance to review a great science book and try some of the activities, including a simple heat conduction experiment!

Read on to see why I loved this book and to see one of the included hands-on activities!

Disclosure: I received this product in exchange for this post and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review.

Science Concepts for the Non-Scientific Parent

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not super comfortable with science. And what’s worse – I’ve forgotten most of what I did learn in school. Fortunately, I’ve recently gotten a copy of the book Air Is Not Oxygen: Essential Science You Should Have Learned … But Probably Didn’t! and I have to say: It. Is. Incredible.

It’s a thorough overview of several scientific concepts, including light, heat, animal behaviors, and more. So it’s a good introduction or re-introduction to the same things you and I learned in school.

I had so many “Ohhhhh!” moments reading this book. For example, when Dr. Morelan talks about heat, he explains that you can generate heat through physical or chemical reactions. And for a physical reaction example, he tells you to rub your hands together (warming them) and then wave them in the air (cooling them).

Now did you ever think of that as friction or an example of how heat is generated? I didn’t!

And the book is written in a witty, conversational manner that just makes sense. I actually found my husband reading it later. That’s how good it is.

Simple Heat Conduction Experiment

After I read the section about how heat is generated with the kids, we tried one of the experiments in the book to observe heat conduction in action.

What is heat conduction? It’s how heat travels from one object to another. For example, when you touch something made of metal, it feels cold, right? Know why?

Because the metal is sucking the heat out of your body! For real! Just another thing I learned from Air is Not Oxygen. (Seriously, buy it now. You’ll be glad you did.)

It turns out that metal is an excellent heat conductor. And to test that statement, the book recommends experimenting by comparing to two other materials to see which one conducts heat the best. We took butter and spread it onto a plastic spoon, a metal spoon, and a pencil.

Then we stood all three up in a glass and added hot water.

Like so.

And slowly but surely, the butter on the metal spoon began to soften.

We watched with bated breath…

Until it finally melted!

The butter on the pencil softened, but the butter on the plastic stayed fairly firm.

Yep. There’s no doubt that metal is the best conductor of the three. Science works!

This whole experiment took about half an hour. And most of that was spent in the observation phase. It was a really simple science experiment and a great way to “see” science in action.

And I finally understand what heat conduction is!

To brush up on science concepts and give your kids a chance to try a fun and simple heat conduction experiment, get your copy of Air is Not Oxygen from Amazon!

For more science fun, check out my It’s Science board on Pinterest!

And you can get even more ideas for teaching all kinds of homeschooling subjects, including science, in the book “The Big Book of Homeschool Ideas” from iHomeschool Network!

The Big Book of Homeschool Ideas by iHomeschool Network

Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals Sorting Activity

October 15, 2015 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

We’re joining up with the 2nd Grade Blogging Team again this week to share a fun and easy way to learn about nocturnal animals: a Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals Sorting Activity!

I remember learning about nocturnal animals when I was a kid, but we didn’t talk much about diurnal animals (at least not using the term “diurnal”). So in case this term is fairly new to you as a parent, “diurnal” simply means that they are active during the day like you and me!

Most kids love to learn about animals and mine are no exception. So when we were starting to learn about these kinds of animals, I wanted to find a way to make a simple, hands-on activity they’d love to do.

Read on to see how to get your copy of this Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals printable activity! And, for more fun with science, don’t miss our All About the Solar System unit!

Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals Sorting Activity

This activity is super, duper easy. You’ll only need the following supplies: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

Color printer with ink
Printer Paper
Scissors
Laminator (if you want to make a set that lasts)

It contains flashcards (pictures and labels) of 16 animals: 8 are nocturnal and 8 are diurnal. Some of the animals in the product include:

Hawk
Gorilla
Bee
Raccoon
Elephant
Possum
Butterfly
Dog
And 8 more!

At the back are four sorting sheets for kids to separate the nocturnal animals from the diurnal animals. Plus, there’s an answer key included!

A full set of instructions is also provided.

By the way, if you want to use this for a one-time learning Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals Sorting activity, you can skip the laminating and just use glue to have kids cut and paste the animals on the correct mat.

Scroll down to get your copy of our printable Nocturnal and Diurnal Animal Sorting Activity!

Kids’ Books about Nocturnal Animals:

Read more about nocturnal animals with these books for kids!

1. Daylight Starlight Wildlife by Wendell Minor

2. Where are the Night Animals? by Mary Ann Fraser

3. Moonlight Animals by Elizabeth Golding

4. Night Animals by Gianna Marino

Resources about Nocturnal Animals:

Learn more about these animals with these helpful websites!

1. The Great Nocturnal Hat Hunt Game – PBS Kids

2. Nocturnal Animals from Around the World – World Wildlife Fund

3. Seek and Find Nocturnal Animals Game – Sheppard Software

4. Nocturnal Animals Lapbook – Homeschool Share

Get more ideas for teaching science on my It’s Science Pinterest board!

And don’t miss these other posts!

To get your copy of our Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals Sorting Activity, click the image or the link below to visit our Store!

>>>Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals Sorting Activity<<<

Be sure to check out all of the great Nocturnal Animal Posts from the 2nd Grade Blogging Team!

Bat Science Experiments: Echolocation Activities from Preschool Powol Packets

Creating Growing Patterns with Nocturnal Animals from Life Over C’s

Nocturnal Animal Report: Hedgehogs from Crafty Kids at Home

Bats in a Cave Sight Word Game from Creative Family Fun

Nocturnal Animals Writing Tray and Word List from Lemon Lime Adventures

STEM for Homeschoolers: Learning about Atoms Activities

October 1, 2015 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

Tigger is a huge science fan. HUGE. For me, though, science is so abstract that it can be difficult for me to get into teaching it in our homeschool.

Thanks to a great kids’ book that I got the chance to review, though, I was able to teach my kids (even my toddler) about electrons and atoms! After we read the book, we did a few learning about atoms activities to help the kids retain what they learned. And so far, it’s working!

Check out some of the hands-on ways we learned about atoms recently!

Disclosure: I received this book in exchange for this review and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review.

STEM Learning about Atoms

To begin our study of atoms, we read the book Eddie the Electron by Melissa Rooney from Amberjack Publishing.

As you can see, the book is well illustrated and funny, so it’s perfect for kids! Especially kids who want to be entertained all the time (like mine). 🙂

Eddie “speaks” directly to readers about where he lives (on a helium atom), what he does (rotates around the nucleus), and how his atom behaves (it’s a noble gas). There are so many advanced scientific concepts that are casually introduced in the book that it’s full of information for kids in several grade levels!

After we read the book together, the kids studied the pictures to get a visual idea of how electrons orbit around atoms.

What I loved about Eddie the Electron was how engaging the story was. The kids were so interested in the story, especially Eddie’s frustration with Erwin, his fellow electron, that they didn’t even realize we were discussing a fairly advanced topic.

Science is probably my least favorite subject to teach, because it’s hard for me to get a good grasp on some of the concepts, especially those that cannot be observed with the naked eye (such as the atom). But reading Eddie the Electron helped me a lot, because it made the atomic theory relatable enough for me to understand and teach to my kids!

For Melissa Rooney, the author of the book, making science relatable was the goal. Several years after earning her Ph.D. in Chemistry, Melissa Rooney decided she did not want to be a career chemist. As she has always loved and collected children’s books, Melissa decided to utilize her Ph.D. and write her own children’s book, which transformed into Eddie the Electron.

Melissa has said, “I am confident that, by presenting these scientific concepts to children at an early age, Eddie would increase the likelihood that they would be comfortable and interested in such ‘complicated’ ideas.”

To learn more about Melissa, visit her website: http://www.melissarooneywriting.com/ or read more about her collegiate career here.

After we read the book, we pulled out an anchor chart about the atom, which described more about atoms work, including other parts such as neutrons, protons, and quarks.

For Tigger, I added a bit of reading in her science book about atoms, including the history of scientists who were interested in researching atomic theory.

STEM Learning about Atoms Activities

Then it was time to get hands-on! The kids started by drawing diagrams of atoms and electrons in motion.

Here’s Pooh’s. Positive protons in the center and negative electrons orbiting around the nucleus.

Once we got a grasp on how atoms and electrons worked, we decided to form our own atoms out of modeling clay. We used similar colors to those in Eddie the Electron, so it’d be easy for the kids to identify each part as they formed it.

And here’s Eddie and Erwin orbiting around the nucleus of their helium atom!

Piglet even got in on the fun by making her atom and electrons out of pom-poms and toothpicks. 🙂

If you’re looking for a fun and easy way to introduce kids to STEM concepts such as atoms, Eddie the Electron is a great resource for children! Pick up a copy of the book to make science fun and hands-on!

Through October 31, 2015, get 10 percent off all the books from Amberjack Publishing, including Eddie the Electron, with the promo code homeschool10. (Purchases must be made from Amberjack Publishing’s website in order to qualify for the discount.)

To see more of the great educational resources available from Amberjack Publishing, keep up with the company on social media!

Dinosaur Printable Pack

September 10, 2015 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

Since my kids went to public school for a few months last year, this is actually our first day of homeschooling in ten months!

As you can imagine, it’s probably going to take us a while to get back into the “groove” of learning at home. Today should be interesting! 🙂

Our very first unit this year is dinosaurs. (My boys are already excited for it.) So I thought I’d share a new freebie today: A Dinosaur Printable Pack!

Dinosaur Printable Pack

Everyone knows about T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Pteranodon, and Velociraptor by now. (Thanks Jurassic Park!) But there are a host of other dinosaurs that aren’t talked about as often.

Paleontologists are finding new fossil types quite often these days, so there are a lot of other dinosaur species to study! This pack includes tracing sheets, coloring pages, and flashcards for eight lesser-known dinosaurs, including:

Apatosaurus
Baryonyx
Iguanodon
Maiasaura
Parasaurolophus
Saltasaurus
Spinosaurus
and Torosaurus!

Whew! Try saying those three times fast! By the way, DinoDictionary is an awesome resource for learning how to say these and other dinosaur species names.

Scroll down to get your copy of our free Dinosaur Fun Printable Pack!

Don’t miss these other animal learning ideas!

And see more fun printable resources for students on my Homeschool Printables Pinterest board!

To get a copy of our free Dinosaur Printable Pack, click the image or the link below to download it!

>>> Dinosaur Fun Printable Pack <<<

Simple Science Experiments: Colorful Celery

September 4, 2015 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

Do your kids love to perform science experiments? A really easy one is to make colorful celery! If you’re looking for some simple science experiments, you can’t get much easier than this one!

I am slowly learning to appreciate science. For years, I shied away from it, because it seemed too technical and abstract. But when I was taking biology a couple of years ago in college, I had to do several experiments at home and document my results. That’s when I started appreciating the value of performing experiments for yourself. And my kids love them!

Check out how you can easily learn about plants by making colorful celery!

Simple Science Experiments: Colorful Celery

We got the idea for this experiment from the book 501 Science Experiments. This is definitely a book that will stay with our family for some years. We’ll never run out of science ideas with this one. 🙂

In fact, we’ve had this book for four or five years and I think we’ve done two of the experiments so far. That’s going to change during this school year, though.

All you need for this experiment is a few stalks of celery (with the ends trimmed), a measuring cup, two glasses, and some food coloring.

Fill each glass half full of water. Then add a good amount of red food coloring to one glass and blue food coloring to the other glass. (Really, you could use any colors you want, but I thought red and blue would show up best.)

Leave the glasses out at room temperature for at least 8 hours.

Come back and take a look! If you look closely, you can see that some of the spots inside the celery have taken on the color of the liquid in each glass.

But the best way to observe the results is to peel back the rounded part of the celery stalk. Just peel a tiny amount off, otherwise you’ll take off too much and miss where the liquid moved up the plant.

See? Just like other plants, celery carries water and nutrients up through the stalk in an attempt to bring food to the leaves at the top. Even when you cut the leaves off, the stalk can still transfer nutrients, including the colored liquid.

When you peel back the top layer, you can actually see how the coloring has traveled. Neat!

What simple science experiments do your kids like? Share them in the comments!

Amazing Hurricane Books for Kids

August 18, 2015 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

It’s hurricane season! And we’ve been talking about hurricanes, tropical storms, and tropical depressions with the kids lately. We even got to review a Hurricane Lapbook a few weeks back.

As part of our hurricane studies, I put together a list of kids’ books about hurricanes that are awesome for introducing this topic to children and explaining it in an interesting way.

Check out our picks below! And if you want even more ways to learn about hurricanes, don’t miss our hurricane unit study!

Amazing Kids’ Books about Hurricanes

1. Eye of the Storm: A Book about Hurricanes by Rick Thomas

2. Hurricane by David Wiesner

3. Hurricanes by Seymour Simon

4. Hooper Finds a Family: A Hurricane Katrina Dog’s Survival Tale by Jane Paley

5. Tornadoes and Hurricanes! by Cy Armour

6. Hurricane! by Celia Godkin

7. Where Albatross Soar: A Beachside Story of Waves and Storms by Bryan Knowles

8. Read about Hurricanes by Sally Morgan

9. Hurricanes! (First Graphics Wild Earth) by Marcie Aboff

10. The Superstorm: Hurricane Sandy by Josh Gregory

11. Hurricanes: Earth’s Mightiest Storms by Patricia Lauber

12. Zane and the Hurricane: A Story of Katrina by Rodman Philbrick

13. Hurricanes by Gail Gibbons

14. Hurricanes Vs. Tornadoes Vs. Typhoons: Wind Systems of the World by Baby Professor

15. Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown

16. Hurricanes! (Hello Reader) by Lorraine J. Hopping

17. Hurricane Watch! (Let’s Read and Find Out Science 2) by Melissa Stewart

18. Storms by Seymour Simon

19. I Wonder Why Hurricanes Have Eyes (and other questions about natural disasters)

20. Hurricanes (Wild Weather) by Jim Mezzanotte

Do you have any go-to books about hurricanes that you’ve read with your kids? Share your picks in the comments!

For more hurricane learning ideas, you might also like:

For more tips to make your kids into readers, check out my Reading for Kids board on Pinterest!

This post is part of The Massive Guide to Homeschool Reading Lists by iHomeschool Network! Click over to read tons of awesome booklists shared by my fellow homeschooling bloggers!

10 Simple Science Printables for Kids

August 1, 2015 by Selena Robinson 15 Comments

We’re going to be focusing more on science during the upcoming school year than we have in the past. Science is NOT one of my favorite subjects to teach. I was a humanities major. 😉

But, thanks to some of the great resources available from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, I’m finding it easier than ever to plan my science lessons this year! Here are 10 of the simple science printables for kids you can find at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, including a complete weather science curriculum!

10 Simple Science Printables for Kids

1. Dinosaur Science Writing Prompts – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

2. Printable Cloud Wheel – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

3. Shark Coloring Pack – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

4. All About Butterflies Pack – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

5. Penguin Friends Pack – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

6. Dolphin Anatomy Lesson Game – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

7. Plant Journal – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

8. Duck Mini-Unit – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

9. Scientific Words Journal – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

10. Weather Detective Science Curriculum – Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

And these are just a few of the printable resources available from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom! If you’d like to get access to all of these printables, plus tons more, you can join the EHM Members Only site for a one-time fee of just $15! Click the image below to learn more!

On a personal note: I want to say that Jill was the first professional blogger to take me under her wing. She gave me tips, support, and encouragement when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. 🙂 It’s a privilege to be able to support her this time around.

This post is part of the Blog Hop for Enchanted Homeschooling Mom – a project to support Jill of EHM during her difficult time! Be sure to stop by to see my fellow bloggers and their roundups of fabulous resources from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom!

Not Back-to-School Picnic Ideas – Stir the Wonder

10 Fun Gross Motor Ideas – 3 Dinosaurs

Sensory Bins – Brain Power Boy

Space Activities – Preschool Powol Packets

Storybook Activities – Growing Book by Book

Spring Crafts for Preschool – Kidz Activities

Around the USA – Trillium Montessori

Disney Themed Crafts – Life with Moore Babies

10 Free Coloring Packs – Sunny Day Family

Disney Printables – In The Playroom

10 Simple Science Printables for Kids – Look! We’re Learning!

Pray Species – Fall Crafts and Activities

Superhero Activity Sheets – Crafts on Sea

Kids Activities to Prepare for a Disney World Trip – Mess for Less

Enchanted Preschool Printables – Itsy Bitsy Fun

Living Montessori Now – Living Montessori Now

Sensory Bins Based on Children’s Books – Mom Inspired Life

Science Ideas to Start the School Year – Capri + 3

Easy Science and Math Ideas with Family Fun Friday!

July 2, 2015 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

Are you trying to keep your kids interested in learning over summer break? Last week’s edition of Family Fun Friday featured some easy science and math ideas for kids that I wanted to spotlight today!

Don’t forget to scroll on down and read this week’s newest parenting, homeschooling, and cooking posts!

$Easy Science and Math Ideas$


Monica created Family Fun Friday and blogs at HappyandBlessedHome.com where she shares free preschool tools and printables, encouraging words for moms, and ideas for having fun together as a family. Follow: Blog / Facebook / Pinterest / Twitter /Google + / Bloglovin’/ Instagram. Monica will feature Family Fun Posts.

Selena is a homeschooling graduate and a veteran homeschooling mom to four super special kids. She blogs at Look! We’re Learning! about unit studies, foreign language, and homeschooling with ADHD. Follow: Blog / Facebook / Pinterest / Instagram / Twitter. Selena will be featuring homeschooling and kids’ crafts.


Herchel enjoys blogging about parenting, organizing, crafting, and having good old-fashioned kid fun her blog Scrggbug Corner. Follow: Blog / Facebook / Pinterest / Twitter /Google +. Herchel will feature organizing and family fun.

Here are my favorite posts for this week!

$Easy Science and Math Ideas$

1. If your kids like simple science experiments, they’ll love this one from Planet Smarty: A 5-minute Molecule Attraction Experiment!

2. Research Parent shares a free printable you can use to explore the Relative Sizes of Planets in our solar system!

3. Kim from Life Over C’s shares how you can Use Beads as Math Manipulatives – perfect for little hands!

4. Shark Week is coming up! Brain Power Boy shares a roundup of fun Shark Activities to do with your kids!

5. Grab a set of free Animal Number Puzzles for Kids from Totschooling!

6. And for another early math printable, stop by Life Over C’s to get your Printable Bird Counting Play Dough Mats!

Were you featured? Grab the Family Fun Friday button below!

Stop by to see what my co-hosts are spotlighting this week!

Bloggers are invited to share their best family-friendly and mom-inspiring posts in the link-up below.

Link guidelines:

Link your post.
Link back to the link party.
Follow your host(s).
Spread the word. Share and pin your favorites.
Mingle! Bloggers love comments.
Grab a button.
If you link up, you permit the hosts of Family Fun Friday to use your pictures/ideas as part of future posts and/or social media.

Family Fun Friday is a growing link-up with over 200 bloggers sharing their posts each week. Each host shares her favorites from the week before, increasing your chances of being featured. Co-hosts will also be pinning their favorites to a community Family Fun Pinterest Board. This link party opens up at around 4 pm EST on Thursdays.

Please be aware that by linking in Family Fun Friday you give our hosts permission to use your images to create a collage for our features. We may also use the collage to promote Family Fun Friday through our individual social media accounts.

This post is part of The Massive Guide to Homeschool Reading Lists by iHomeschool Network! Click over to read tons of awesome booklists shared by my fellow homeschooling bloggers!

STEM for Homeschoolers: Decomposition Lesson Ideas for Kids

September 23, 2014 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

As I mentioned earlier this year, we’ve made a bit of a homeschooling U-turn in our family and started focusing more on STEM subjects and foreign language.

So – we’ll be sharing more science lessons and experiments on the blog, along with resources we find online that we love for learning STEM concepts. Today we’re sharing a recent activity using decomposition lesson ideas for kids!

Decomposition Lesson Ideas for Kids

This was NOT one of our planned lessons. A banana in our fruit bowl began to rot and the kids were fascinated by it. So I decided to let it rot so we could examine decomposition up close.

The amazing thing about kids is that they are fascinated by gross stuff. They wanted to see the rotting banana up close. So we got out a plastic fork and poked around.

That gave us a really close look at the bacteria growing inside the fruit.

Yuck.

That face says it all. But then we learned about the process of decomposition and how amazing it is! First, we watched a clip from Sid the Science Kid showing a lab experiment about decomposition.

All living things decay after dying, which is called decomposition. From plants to people.

Michigan Tech University has a great explanation of what happens during the process of decomposition. Basically, bacteria, fungi, and worms perform the work of decomposition by breaking down living organisms after death. This is a GOOD thing, because the broken down organisms become part of the soil and provide a natural fertilizer so that new things can grow. It’s the ultimate recycling!

To get an even closer look at decomposition, check out this video of a watermelon slowly decomposing over 35 days.

Gross! But also kind of cool, right? For more decomposition lesson ideas, check out these great resources!

Activities about Decomposition:

Books about Decomposition for Kids:

If you enjoyed these decomposition lesson ideas, stop by and see some of our other unit studies!

Plus, follow my It’s Science Pinterest board for more hands-on science fun!

Weird Science Facts for Kids with Ripley’s Reality Shock!

September 5, 2014 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

Do your kids like to learn about weird science facts? Ours do! Especially since they tend to lose interest in a structured science lesson. 🙂

We got the chance to visit Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Orlando, Florida when Tigger was very young, but we haven’t been able to get back since. We did, however, get the opportunity to learn some of Ripley’s signature weird science facts right in our own home!

Keep Reading…

Simple Science Experiments: Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment

March 3, 2014 by Selena Robinson 8 Comments

Winter is coming to an end, but we wanted to sneak in one last winter-themed activity this school year. Tigger is a science fanatic, and she’s always up for an experiment, so it was a great time to learn about condensation and frost. 🙂

I was reading through one of our science workbooks and found this super easy Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment, so we got to work!

Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment

We picked up the workbook Science Projects & Experiments: Grade 2-3 at Target a while back, but I’d totally forgotten about it. (It was recently unearthed during a School Supply Scavenger Hunt.) One of the experiments in the book uses a coffee can, salt, and ice to create frost.

What often puts me off from science experiments is that they often seem to consist of things I don’t have on hand. I just happened to have an empty coffee can, though, so this was perfect!

We put several ice cubes in the can, then added 1/2 cup of salt.

Tigger stirred the ice and salt together, then closed the lid.

The experiment instructions said to observe the can at 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes to observe what would happen. After 10 minutes, I looked at the can and wondered why nothing was happening.

Then I realized that we’d never see anything with the wrapper still on it. Duh, Selena.

This was 20 minutes in. Frost was clearly developing on the outside of the can.

Not only was frost developing, but there were a few drops of water at the base.

After 30 minutes, the entire bottom of the can was frosted over. As the book explained, the ice inside the can made the outside of the can extremely cold. As water vapor in the air touched the can, it immediately condensed and froze, becoming frost. Pretty neat!

Tigger wanted to see what happened to the ice inside the can. We observed that the ice was melting, because of being mixed with the salt – which explains why road crews are always using salt to de-ice roadways!

This was a super quick and simple experiment, but Tigger loved it. So I’ll count that as a homeschooling win. 🙂

How I Teach Science to My Kids with ADHD

January 15, 2014 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.

Happy Wednesday, y’all! We’re back with another look at how we teach our kids with ADHD – this time we’re focusing on the teaching methods we use to cover science.

Unit Studies

If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m basically a fanatic about unit studies. 🙂 We’ve completed several together and we’ve found them to be great ways to help the kids connect science concepts with other subjects. For an example, check out our unit study based on the movie The Aristocats. We managed to include geography, history, art, and biology in that one!

Experiments

Nothing makes active and kinesthetic learners happier than movement and we try to make that a constant in science class. One of the best ways to do this is by simple experiments. And I’ve found out that they don’t have to be outlandish experiments either. Plain old baking soda volcanoes will do just fine…lol.

Nature Study

Whenever it’s possible, we try to take science class outdoors with a Charlotte Mason technique called nature study. As the name implies, you spend time studying science in the nature around your home. The idea of doing nature study was pretty overwhelming to me at first, so I was thrilled to try a simple program called Nature Study Printables for Toddlers and Preschoolers with Pooh and Roo a while back. We simply completed the activities and let the kids record their own observations. It was a big hit!

Interactive Work

This one, I have to say, was all my husband’s idea. When he covers science lessons with the kids that are from a textbook, he literally gets the words off the page by making the diagrams into interactive work. The picture above is one he drew from a diagram of the brain. As he covered the different parts of the brain and their functions, the kids found the matching labels and glued them in place. It was definitely a great way to help them understand the lesson. Just another reason why I’m thankful for a supportive homeschooling spouse!

Field Trips

I would venture to say that our kids’ favorite way to learn science is by going on field trips. We’ve gotten to explore some great places, including aquariums, museums, and nature trails. One of the highlights of last year was a trip we took to Callaway Gardens. The kids got to learn about birds of prey, exotic plants, and butterflies without sitting at a desk!

During a recent trip to Zoo Atlanta, we introduced several other scientific concepts, such as taxonomy, reproduction, and ecosystems. Plus, it made for great family bonding time. 😉

That’s our approach to science! We hope to see you back tomorrow when we talk about history for kids with ADHD!

This post is part of the 2014 Winter Hopscotch hosted by iHomeschool Network! Be sure to stop by and visit our fellow bloggers to learn how they teach science in their families!

Studying Volcanoes!

September 17, 2013 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

This post contains affiliate links, which help to support this site. Thank you!

Good morning everyone! Hope your week is going well! We’re having a blast over here! (Because we just studied volcanoes – get it?)

Last month we decided to set aside a day to learn about Mount Vesuvius, which erupted in August of 79 C.E. We figured that was a great time to talk about volcanoes in general, which Roo has been wanted to learn about for the longest.

First, we did some research about volcanoes themselves – what they are, how they work. There is a great basic post about volcanoes (complete with facts at animations) at Weather Wiz Kids. We read through that together and talked about the types of volcanoes and the basic idea behind plate tectonics. The kids thought it was cool that enormous pieces of land are constantly moving around the earth.

We picked up the Knowledge Box Central Volcano Lapbook from Currclick and reviewed basic volcano vocabulary and the types of volcanic eruptions, including Strombolian and Plinian. Which brings us back to Mount Vesuvius, because we learned that Vesuvius was a Plinian eruption (the most explosive) and that it got its name from the eyewitness account recorded by Pliny the Younger. Very neat.

To show the children just how large the Vesuvius eruption was, we looked at some images taken of the area.

Image c/o: Italy Cruise Shore Tours

What’s really fascinating about this image is that the top of the volcano is missing because it was COMPLETELY BLOWN OFF during the eruption. Wow. Geology.com has a great in-depth article about the Vesuvius eruption, with maps, pictures, and a history of both the 79 C.E. eruption that destroyed Pompeii and the smaller one in 1944.

After that, we wanted to get a better look at these types of eruptions, so we used the HLN Volcanoes Unit Study (also from Currclick) to look at images of eruptions. In this Unit Study, we learned about a couple of other types of eruptions, including fissure eruptions and hydrovolcanic eruptions. The kids thought that the hydrovolcanic eruptions were especially cool, since they the explosion creates steam from the release of lava mixing with water vapor in the air near the water.

(By the way, if you want to see some truly stunning, unforgettable images of volcanic eruptions, you have to check out this photoessay at the Daily Mail. Yes, it’s the Daily Mail, so be careful of the sidebars. But the images are worth a look.)

To get a real-time look at volcanoes, we watched a short video from National Geographic called “Volcano 101”.

Prior to watching this, I had no idea that volcanoes had any beneficial effects outside of forming land. Huh.

Of course, we couldn’t let this unit go by without making our own volcano. (I never got to make one of these in science class, so there was a little of living vicariously through the kids here. I can admit that.) We used the volcano recipe from Science Bob and a play dough recipe originally developed by Mister Rogers to form our volcano.

We mixed the flour and water together for the play dough and then made a hole in the center. We placed an empty prescription medicine bottle in the middle to hold our ingredients. To give it a slightly more authentic look, we added some of our play beach sand around the outside of the play dough.

Time for the ingredients! It’s just baking soda, liquid dish detergent, food coloring, and vinegar. Save the vinegar for last, because as soon as you pour it in….

You get an explosion!

We had so much fun learning about volcanoes together! Have you gotten to discuss volcanoes yet with your kids? How did you go about covering this topic? Let us know in the comments!