Printable Spanish Flashcards: Spanish Solar System Flashcards

June 29, 2017 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

If you’re teaching students to speak Spanish, these Spanish solar system flashcards are excellent for reviewing the planets of the solar system and working on Spanish vocabulary!

Since there’s an English set included, these are also good for ESL students who are practicing a new language.

Spanish Solar System Learning Cards for Kids

Along with solar system vocabulary cards, this set also features labeling cards and solar system name labels in both languages.

English and Spanish Solar System Labeling Cards

Read on to see how to get your copy of these printable Spanish flashcards and how you can use them to work on Spanish language skills with the kids!

Enjoyed these?

Don’t miss our All About the Solar System printable pack, which features a lesson about the members of the solar system, a solar system diagram activity, a word jumble, and more!

These English and Spanish solar system learning cards are a fun way to learn about space in both languages!

Printable Spanish Flashcards: Spanish Solar System Flashcards

To use these Spanish solar system flashcards, you’ll need the following: (Affiliate links are used below. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

This product includes four sets of flashcards:

One set of solar system flashcards with pictures and Spanish names (color and blackline)
One set of solar system flashcards with pictures and English names (color and blackline)
Two sets of labeling cards with pictures of each planet or star (color and blackline)
Two sets of solar system labels (in English and Spanish)

Spanish and English Solar System Coloring Cards

A pronunciation guide is also included. So you’ll have no trouble saying the Spanish names correctly!

There is also a teaching script and a set of instructions for use inside.

English and Spanish Solar System Vocabulary Cards

The English and Spanish vocabulary cards are designed to be printed two-sided.

Using Spanish Language Solar System Learning Cards

So, if you want to practice memorizing the names in each language, you can read the Spanish names on one side of the cards and then English names on the other.

How to Use the Spanish Solar System Flashcards with Students

This set of Spanish language solar system learning cards includes names for all eight planets.

Pluto is also included, if you want to talk about it as a dwarf planet. And there are cards for the sun, moon, and the word “star” as well.

Use the pronunciation guide to introduce each planet or star to students and have them repeat the names after you.

If you like, you can print the blackline version of the cards and let students color them before using them in the lesson.

Labeling Members of the Solar System Activity

Once the class has mastered the names of each body, try the labeling activity. Students can match up the printed labels with the right cards at centers.

Spanish Solar System Labeling Activity for Kids

Or – you can laminate the included blank labels and let kids write the names for themselves with dry erase markers.

Printable Solar System Learning Cards in Spanish

Print the vocabulary cards two-sided and place them on a ring at early science centers.

Students can challenge themselves to remember the names in either language and then check their own answers!

Get a closer look at this resource in the video below!

Scroll down to get your copy of our Spanish Solar System Flashcards!

Check out these other solar system learning ideas!

This fun coffee solar eclipse craft is a wonderful outer space activity for kids!

Ready to teach the kids about space? This printable solar system science unit study is perfect for exploring the members of our solar system!

Printable Spanish Solar System Flashcards for Kids

To get your set of our Spanish Solar System Flashcards, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store or check them out below!

25 Insect Activities for Kids

October 10, 2016 by Selena Robinson 11 Comments

Kids just love learning about insects! Maybe it’s because they’re so small. Or because they make grown adults (like myself) flee in terror. Either way, bugs are a super popular topic for learning in our family.

If you have budding entomologists in your home, they’ll love these insect activities for kids! There are printables, hands-on experiments, crafts, and games for kids of all ages who want to find out more about these amazing, creepy-crawly creatures!

For more buggy fun, try these cool picture books about bugs for kids to read!

25 Insect Activities for Kids

1. Bug Printables Pack – Look! We’re Learning!

2. Insect Sensory Bin – Stir the Wonder

3. Melting Insect Sensory Painting – Crayon Box Chronicles

4. Insect Small World – Childhood 101

5. Draw the Missing Half Insect Printables – Adventure in a Box

6. Insect Play Dough Prints – Learning 4 Kids

7. Insects Unit Study – Gift of Curiosity

8. Insect Emergent Readers – The Measured Mom

9. Montessori-Inspired Insect Unit – Living Montessori Now

10. Insect Nature Study Printables – Homeschool Creations

11. Insect Investigation Worksheet – Kitchen Counter Chronicles

12. DIY Insect Memory Game – Kids Activities Blog

13. Insect Hotel Activity – Teach Beside Me

14. Picture Books about Bugs – Look! We’re Learning!

15. Insect Counting Cards – Pre-K Pages

16. Build an Insect Activity – Handmade Kids Art

17. Insect Movement Game – Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

18. Insect Do a Dot Printables – Housing a Forest

19. Insect Lab Nature Investigation – Inner Child Fun

20. Indoor Bug Hunt – No Time for Flashcards

21. Melting Insects in Ice Activity – Learning 4 Kids

22. Learning about Insect Body Parts – Gift of Curiosity

23. Bugs in a Jar Math Game – The Measured Mom

24. Insect Alphabet Matching Game – Pre-K Pages

25. Ladybug Learning Activity Pack – Look! We’re Learning!

Don’t miss these other fun bug-themed activities!

Find more ideas for teaching kids about animals on my It’s Science Pinterest board!

This post is part of the 31 Days of ABCs series! Read on to see other great posts!

After taking a break last year due to the arrival of Baby #3, we are back with one of my favorite series, the 31 Days of ABC! You can look forward to 31 more days of activities, crafts, books, apps, and more, all dedicated to teaching young children the alphabet.

I am so happy to be working with an amazing group of kid bloggers, who will be sharing their amazing ideas with us in the coming days. And this year for the first year we are also adding a giveaway, so be sure to scroll to the end and enter for a chance to win!

So join us as we jump, skip, hop, and read our way through the alphabet this October!

31 Days of ABC

Teaching the ABCs – October 1

All Done Monkey: Creating a Preschool Letter of the Week Curriculum

A – October 2

Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails: Apple Scented Glitter Glue and Apple Craft

B – October 3

Witty Hoots: How to Make Fabulous Button Bookmarks

C – October 4

Preschool Powol Packets: Construction Truck Preschool Action Rhyme

D – October 5

ArtsyCraftsyMom: Printable Dinosaur Alphabet Sequencing Puzzle

E – October 6

Preschool Powol Packets: Elephant Art Project and Thailand Lesson

F – October 7

Spanglish Monkey: Spanish-English ABC Flashcards

G – October 8

Royal Baloo: Simple Ghost Painting Project

H – October 9

Peakle Pie

I – October 10

Look! We’re Learning!

J – October 11

All Done Monkey

K – October 12

Preschool Powol Packets

L – October 13

Raising a Trilingual Child

M – October 14

Creative World of Varya

N – October 15

Peakle Pie

O – October 16

For the Love of Spanish

P – October 17

Little Hiccups

Q – October 18

All Done Monkey

R – October 19

Sugar, Spice & Glitter

S – October 20

Crafty Mama in ME

T – October 21

Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes

U – October 22

Witty Hoots

V – October 23

Creative World of Varya

W – October 24

X – October 25

All Done Monkey

Y – October 26

Our Daily Craft

Z – October 27

123’s – October 28

Hispanic Mama

Prewriting – October 29

Sugar Aunts

Books, Songs, & Apps – October 30

The Jenny Evolution

Alphabet Clip Cards – October 31

The Kindergarten ConnectionFind more great resources in 31 Days of ABCs 2013 and 2014!

Interactive Homeschool Science with Scanorama Books!

September 20, 2016 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

I cannot tell you how much my boys love learning about animals. They get so excited when they get a chance to see animals up close or even just to read about them. A lot of it has to do with their fascination with the Wild Kratts, which is just fine with me!

In particular, my sons love studying animal predators. As typical boys, they love learning about big, strong animals that eat other animals. So I was psyched to get to try the Scanorama series from Silver Dolphin Books! One of the books is called Deadly Predators, which I just knew would be a huge hit with my kids. And they ended up loving it even more than I thought!

See why the Scanorama series is so popular with kids (even kids who don’t love to read) and enter to win one of your own below!

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.

How Do Scanorama Interactive Homeschool Science Books Work?

If you’re kind of puzzled about the name “Scanorama”, I get it. At first, I wondered what it was all about too. Here’s the simple explanation:

Titles in the Scanorama series let kids scan over images of animals and get an X-ray view of their skeletons. Did I mention I have typical boys? They were truly wowed by that feature, as you’ll see later on.

Oh – and see that book about dinosaurs peeking out from behind the Deadly Predators book? Read on for something awesome involving that one. 😉

There are three different titles in the Scanorama series available from Silver Dolphin Books:

Scanorama: Deadly Predators
Scanorama: Dinosaurs
Scanorama: Amazing Animals

We got a look at the first two. Take a look at the Scanorama series in action below. (This page is from the Deadly Predators book.)

See how kids can “scan” over the image and investigate how the animal’s skeleton contributes to its prowess? That’s just super, duper neat.

Plus, there is a LOT of information in each book about the kinds of animals covered. The Deadly Predators book contains sections about several types of predators, including scorpions, reptiles, big cats, sea mammals, and more.

Oh, and fair warning: There is a section about spiders, which contains vivid, full-color pictures of spiders. (Just so you don’t do like I did and drop the book in sheer terror when you come to that part.)

Learning about Big Cats with Scanorama Homeschool Science Books

When I handed the Scanorama series book Deadly Predators over to my boys, they had a short conference about which section of the book they wanted to cover first.

And, as I expected, they reached a unanimous decision: Big Cats. So big cats it is!

In the section, they got to examine five different big cats. And, since they’re already huge fans of wildlife, they knew some of the information. But, they were impressed at how long each animal was. I don’t think they had realized just how long a tiger can be before!

When they discovered the “scan” picture of the tiger, they truly came to life!

I had to keep telling them, “No. Wait. Let your brother have a turn.” and “You just did it. Let him try!” and “Okay, okay, everyone will get a chance.” I literally had two boys fighting over a book. That is an actual first in our household.

Even our preschooler wanted to get in on the fun!

Then we watched a short video about big cats. The boys really enjoyed it, as you can see.

Actually, they were laughing at the way the lady in the video says “jaguar”, but they were still learning something, I swear!

Finally, we took a look at the different kinds of prey each big cat eats.

And the boys did a quick matching activity using the diagram in the Deadly Predators book.

Finito! And we had all that fun just from one section of one book in the Scanorama series! Be sure to stop by and browse all three book titles and pick up one your kids will get excited about too!

Want one of these books for your family? Enter to win the Scanorama book of your choice from Silver Dolphin! TEN WINNERS will receive one of the three Scanorama books: Deadly Predators, Dinosaurs, or Amazing Animals! To enter, just use the Giveaway Tools widget below! (Books will be shipped to US or Canadian addresses only.)

Entry -Form

To learn more about the awesome books available from Silver Dolphin, follow the company on social media:

Now – for ANOTHER giveaway! 😉

Remember that Scanorama book about dinosaurs I mentioned earlier?

It’s just as awesome as the one about predators!

Right down to the scan-and-see-inside-the-creatures feature!

If you have kids that are dino-crazy, they’re sure to love this book!

So I’m giving it away to one of my readers! To enter the giveaway, stop by the Look! We’re Learning! Facebook page at 8:12 p.m. EST tonight! It’s the easiest contest in the world to enter, I promise. 🙂 Full rules will be posted and the giveaway will be open for a week, so you have plenty of time to enter and win!

Learning How to Use a Microscope in Middle School with Real Science-4-Kids

August 30, 2016 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

My new middle schooler has always been interested in science. She loves examining nature and conducting basic experiments. One thing we had yet to introduce her to, though, was the microscope.

When I took college biology last year, I had my very first experience with a light microscope and it was awesome. So I was excited to show her how to use it as well.

But I wasn’t quite sure how to teach her microscope basics. After all, my college textbook was a little too advanced. I still wanted her to have a chance to learn it without me hovering somewhere nearby.

Enter Real Science-4-Kids! This homeschool science program for grade 6 offers plenty of hands-on biology lessons and experiments!

Read on to see how we used Real Science-4-Kids to teach our child how to use a microscope in middle school!

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.

What’s Included in the Real Science-4-Kids Grade 6 Curriculum?

Real Science-4-Kids offers its science program, Exploring the Building Blocks of Science, in several grades, including grade 6.

The Grade 6 program includes the following materials:

Need a higher grade level? Exploring the Building Blocks of Science Book 7 will be released just in time for the new school year!

Initially, I didn’t think that I would need all three books. But as I examined them, I was extremely impressed at how clearly everything is written and how thorough (but not overwhelming) the program is.

The teacher’s manual is a sort of guideline for which lessons and resources to use and when. The student textbook is written directly to the student, so I was able to give the book to my daughter and let her read the lessons, define the terms, and follow the instructions herself. It’s a really great way to reinforce independent learning at this level.

The laboratory notebook is for students to write down and draw their observations as they conduct the experiments in the book. After all, the goal here is to raise scientists. 🙂

Want to learn more about Real Science-4-Kids? Listen to the program author, Dr. Keller, explain more about how the program works!

Learning How to Use a Light Microscope

Okay. Microscope time!

Ours is the My First Lab Ultimate Digital Microscope, which is monocular. But if you’d like a binocular model, the OMAX Binocular Compound Microscope looks pretty good as well. The student textbook contains a nice summary of the features to look for when choosing a good light microscope.

Unit 7 in the program deals with microscope basics. I assigned section 7.1 through 7.3 as reading. Then we started working with our microscope.

As you can see, my child was basically waiting for me to shut up so she could get her hands on the microscope.

To help her identify the parts of the device, we grabbed a few Post-Its and wrote the name of each part (corresponding to the diagram in the textbook) and then labeled them.

After that, it was easy peasy to fill in the diagram in the textbook!

As part of the science lesson, we looked at various biological samples under the microscope, including pencil markings and blood. Since we already had prepared microscope slides with a sample of frog blood, we didn’t have to prepare them, which saved time. But if you want to make your own slides, you’ll need to pick up some blank slides to get started.

First, we wrote down letters in pencil and examined them at 4x magnification and 10x magnification. Tigger wrote down her observations afterward and surprised to see how different the markings appeared at a higher magnification.

Next, it was time to examine a drop of blood under the microscope. This was really, really neat. At 4x magnification, we could see a pink mass with circles inside (the individual blood cells).

As we increased the magnification to 100x, though, we could see even more detail, including colors inside the individual blood cells. Following the experiment instructions, Tigger drew pictures of how the sample changed as the magnification increased.

I basically had to tear her away from the microscope afterward.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive (and affordable) grade 6 science curriculum, stop by and visit Real Science-4-Kids to pick up the Grade 6 Science bundle today! And science isn’t the only subject offered by Gravitas Publications! Visit the homepage to browse all of the company’s homeschooling helps!

Want to score this program for 30 percent off? Click the image below to get a discount on your science purchase through September 30! Or visit my referral link to get your savings! (Once you buy, you can also sign up to get your own referral link and get rewarded when your friends buy the program!)

Learn more about Real Science-4-Kids and Gravitas Publications by following the company on social media!

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

Simple Early Solar System Unit for Kids

July 8, 2016 by Selena Robinson 6 Comments

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. Like pretty much every kid in the 80s.

We’re from Florida originally and I really, really, really wanted to go to space camp.

But, alas, it never happened. I did ride one of those anti-gravity swings at Church Street Station in Orlando, though. Not quite the same somehow.

Outer space is still a fun early learning theme for kids, so I thought I’d put together a few resources for learning the solar system.

There are videos, books, and activities below that make learning about the solar system even more fun!

You can use some or all of these solar system unit resources to introduce your students to our neighbor planets.

If you like this unit, take a look at our Spanish and English Solar System Learning Cards too!

Learn about outer space with this fun solar system unit for early grades!

Learning the Solar System for Kids

Watch the following YouTube video and discuss the following questions with your class:

(Note: The last two minutes of this video includes a hypothesis that states the solar system will cease to exist in 500 million years, which might frighten some students. Giving you a heads-up in case you want to skip it. None of the questions below are about that part of the video.)

How old do scientists think the solar system is? Answer: 4.5 billion years old
How often does the solar system circle the galactic center? Answer: Once every 250 million years
Name the four terrestrial planets in our solar system: Answer: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
Name the four gas giants in our solar system: Answer: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Why does Mercury experience large temperature fluctuations? Answer: Because a Mercury year is shorter than a Mercury day.
How hot does temperature get on Venus? Answer: Up to 497 degrees Celsius
Why is Earth able to sustain life? Answer: Because temperatures are moderate enough to retain a water supply.
Name the largest mountain on Mars: Answer: Olympus Mons (It’s also the largest mountain on any planet in the solar system.)
What two gases comprise most of Jupiter? Answer: Hydrogen and Helium
How many moons does Saturn have? Answer: 62
What makes Uranus unique? Answer: Its axis of rotation is tilted sideways.
How long is a Neptune year? Answer: 164 Earth years
How much of the solar system’s mass is made up by the sun? Answer: 99.86%
Where is Pluto located? Answer: In the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the solar system

Solar System Outer Space Binoculars Craft

Make a simple solar system craft with this outer space binoculars activity!

Little learners can use them to “stargaze” on their own!

Supplies: (Affiliate links are listed below. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

Wrap the tissue paper around each toilet paper roll. Use scissors to cut off the excess.

Stick glue circles onto the side of one of the toilet rolls. Press the other roll onto it to stick them together.

Let students decorate the tubes with the outer space stickers.

Cut the elastic cord and thread it inside both of the paper rolls.

Tie the ends of the cord around the rubber necklace to make a lanyard.

All done!

Solar System Flashcards for Kids

Teach your students about each member of the solar system, including the sun, moon, and stars, with these printable solar system flashcards!

Solar System Flashcards for Early Learners

These cards feature colorful illustrations and vocabulary words for early learners to memorize the planets in our solar system.

A full blackline version is included too.

How to Use Solar System Flashcards with Kids

Best of all – you can get these solar system printables for free!

Click the image or the link below to have these solar system flashcards sent directly to your inbox! You’ll also get our weekly newsletter – coming this Sunday!

Click here to get your printable resource

>>> Solar System Flashcards <<<

25 Books about the Solar System:

There are so many great picture books about the solar system for kids to read. Many of them have beautiful illustrations and, sometimes, even pictures from space.

I’ve put together a list of 25 selections that are excellent for early grades.

Take a look at the collection below!

25 Awesome Books about the Solar System

Solar System Crafts and Activities for Kids:

Try some of these hands-on ways to learn about the solar system for kids!

Solar System Edible Playdough – Look! We’re Learning!
10 Fun Children’s Books about Space – Crafty Mama in ME
Children’s Astronaut Books – The Jenny Evolution
Solar System Coloring Pages – Look! We’re Learning!
Melted Bead Planet Mobile – Schooling a Monkey
Stargazing Apps for Kids – iGameMom
Coffee Filter Solar Eclipse Craft – Look! We’re Learning!
Space sensory salt tray activities – The Usual Mayhem
How to Spot Meteors When Camping – FrogMom

I hope you love using this simple solar system unit with your students! If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know in the comments!

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!

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

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!


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!

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!