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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

5 Fun Winter Crafts for Kids

January 26, 2016 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Is anyone else kind of “over” winter? It seemed like the weather was never going to get cold and then BOOM! we all got hit with a massive winter storm and I was like “Okay, that’s enough cold for now.”

To get back to enjoying the fun of winter, I put together a quick roundup of fun winter crafts for kids that you can do in just a few minutes!

Today is also another Laugh and Learn linky party! Check out our favorite posts from last week and read more great posts from awesome bloggers below!

5 Fun Winter Crafts for Kids

Honestly, crafting is not one of my natural gifts. I’m the type of person that needs step-by-step directions to do most tasks. But these crafts are so easy even a non-crafty person (like myself) can do them in no time!

To get the scoop on how to make these crafts with your kids, stop over at Thinking Outside the Sandbox to get the details!

5 Fun Winter Crafts for Kids – Thinking Outside the Sandbox

Resources to Make Winter Crafts for Kids:

To make winter crafting even easier, try these great resources!

For more winter fun, follow my Winter Activities for Kids board on Pinterest!

Onward to the linky!

This week we have some great links to share with you. We are very excited to bring you another great opportunity to linkup with us!

Welcome to our 67th week of Laugh and Learn – Home & Family Linkup! Laugh and Learn Linkup will be open by 6 am every Tuesday morning.
New: We have decided to expand our linkup to home and family categories! You are still welcome to share homeschooling or parenting posts with us. That will always be part of the #LaughLearnLinkup!

Each and every week, all of the hosts will pick one favorite post to be featured on the next week’s linkup. All of your links will be shared on three blogs.

We are also sharing the top four posts on Pinterest: #LaughLearnLinkup {Featured Favorites}. It’s added exposure for your awesome content!
Reminder: Please share this linkup! You can help us build a great family, home, parenting, and homeschool group.
Laugh and Learn Linkup was created by Tina from Los Gringos Locos. We want to thank her for this opportunity and send her big hug on her new adventure.

Your Fabulous Hosts 😉

Selena

Selena is a writer and a homeschooling mom to four kids, including three with ADHD/SPD. Selena and her husband, Jay, are committed to teaching their children at home and loving every minute of it! You can read about the family’s homeschooling experiences at Look! We’re Learning, written by Selena!
Find Selena at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
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Sarah

Sarah lives in Kentucky, USA, where she and her husband homeschool three children. Sarah writes for and about, families with special needs. She hopes to provide support and encouragement to all special needs parents in the homeschool community. Visit Sarah at Dedicated Homeschooler.
Find Sarah at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest
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Haley

Haley hopes to encourage stay at home moms. She wants to help them learn how to make an extra income, to stretch a budget, to make crafts, and other useful information. Haley always has updates on the kids, and their funny antics. Visit Haley at Haley’s Vintage Finds & Deals.
Find Haley at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
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Stumble Upon

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If you were featured this week, we would love for you to use this badge below. We really appreciate all your hard work, and sharing with us each and every week!

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Most Clicked on Link

Selena’s pick for this week…

Note from Selena:
I love these ideas for making geography fun and hands-on in your homeschool!

Sarah’s pick for this week…

Note from Sarah:
We’ve actual conducted an experiment this year. With bipolar, ADHD, aspergers, and anxiety all in the mix, January is our most difficult month. So this year we just took it off. It’s been nice not feeling guilty about being to tired to get school done. I love Lindsey’s ideas for easing back into the routine.

Haley’s pick for this week…

Note from Haley:
These look amazing and I may even be able to get my kids to eat them!

Thanks to everyone who submitted a post. Please check out the post above by clicking on the image. If you enjoyed these picks as much as we did, please share them also!

Have you joined our Pinterest Board yet?

Follow Tina Ernspiker’s board #LaughLearnLinkup {Featured Favorites} on Pinterest.

Now give us your best posts!

An InLinkz Link-up

Easy Fall Snow Globe Craft for Kids

December 13, 2013 by Selena Robinson 9 Comments

I love fall. I just love it. It’s such a rich season – full of colors and textures and scents. It’s a perfect time of year to go into full-on crafting mode.

Since we had a lot of leaves left from our Fall Leaf Garland, I thought we could make a fall “snow” globe with them. And since I love easy kids’ crafts, it seemed like a quick and fun project to make. See how you can make this easy fall snow globe craft for kids!

If your kids love making this craft, check out some of our other fall learning ideas, including our Leaf Painting Activity, our Coffee Filter Owl Craft, or our Fall Leaves Unit Study!

Easy Fall Snow Globe Craft for Kids

This is a super dee duper craft to make with your kids. Just so you know – I’m all about the super easy here. 🙂

To get started, we just scrunched up a lot of our leaves.

If I ever want my kids to have fun instantly, all I have to do is give them the chance to destroy something. Look at that face! That is pure glee.

All ready!

A quick look at our supplies: crushed leaves, brown paint, a baby food jar, and baby oil.

Did I mention that this is really, really easy?

Paint a few barren trees on the outside of the jar.

If you want, go back and add a few white clouds.

Turn the jar right side up and add the crushed leaf pieces.

Pour in the baby oil.

Screw the lid on top. If you want to add extra hold, you might hot glue the lid on.

Turn the jar upside down and give it a shake!

Ooooohhhh….purty.

This entire activity takes about 20 minutes from start to finish, so it’s a great craft to put together in a hurry.

If you want to add a bit more decoration, you could hot glue a scarecrow figurine to the lid so that the scarecrow would be “caught” in the leaves when you shake the jar. You could also add a bit of glitter for extra sparkle!

Oh – one quick note: If you paint the jar first, give it time to dry before you go on to the other steps. I had to use the very tips of my fingers to finish the rest of the project…lol.

Want to make fall learning fun for your kids? Try these ideas!

If you’d like to check out even more fall crafts and activities, be sure to follow my Fall Activities for Kids board on Pinterest!

And if you want to get awesome educational ideas and resources in your inbox, use the widget below to sign up for our email newsletter!

20 Kid Crafts for Winter

December 12, 2013 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Winter’s fast approaching and it’s a great time to break out some winter crafts for the kids! I’m not in love with winter, but I do love to make cute crafts and that’s usually enough to perk me up out of the winter blues. 🙂 Now that we have a very active preschooler, she always wants to make things with scissors and glue, so crafting is a perfect way to spend some time with her.

I’ve rounded up some of our favorite kid crafts for winter from around the web and I’m sharing them here today! We’ll be trying out a few of these this month and through the season, but I’d love to hear which ones catch your eye as well!

By the way, if you want more winter craft ideas, don’t miss our lists of penguin crafts for kids and snowman crafts for kids!

20 Kid Crafts for Winter:

1. Printable Snowflake Math Factors Craft – Look! We’re Learning!

2. Winter Snowflake Slime – Little Bins for Little Hands

3. Glittery Snowflake Suncatchers – Happiness is Homemade

4. Sensory Blizzard in a Bottle – No Time for Flashcards

5. Snowman Factory – Buggy and Buddy

6. Foam Ball Winter Snowman – Crafty Morning

7. Cardboard Snowflake Printing – The Jenny Evolution

8. Paper Snow Globe Craft – Housing a Forest

9. Snow Puffy Paint – The Imagination Tree

10. Salt Truck Shape Craft – Sugar Aunts

11. Snowy Paper Collage – A Little Pinch of Perfect

12. Paper Polar Bear Craft – Crafty Morning

13. Fine Motor Ice Skates Lacing Craft – I Heart Arts and Crafts

14. Ice Wreath Bird Feeder Craft – Hands On As We Grow

15. Melted Snowman Shape Collage – Mom Inspired Life

16. Winter Necklace Craft – Domestic Mommyhood

17. Q-Tip Painted Snowman Craft

18. Ice Sun Catcher – Kid World Citizen

19. Children Catching Snowflakes Winter Craft – Crafty Morning

20. Winter Playdough Creation Station – No Time for Flashcards

And if you love these, try some of these other fun ideas for kids!

$Paper Snowflake 2nd Grade Math Factors Craft$

Plus, see more winter learning ideas on my Winter Activities for Kids board on Pinterest!

Simple Straw Bead Necklace Craft for Kids

August 30, 2013 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

If your kids are anything like mine, they’re always asking for the necklaces in the 25-cent machine at the grocery store. You know those fake gold necklaces that turn your neck green? Yeah, those.

I got tired of saying “no” over and over again, so I thought we’d come up with a simple jewelry craft that the kids could make and then wear on their own. That’s when we found this simple straw bead necklace craft and it was a perfect alternative! Plus, it didn’t turn their neck green, which was a plus. 🙂

Read on to see how to make these with your kids! And don’t miss my list of super easy preschool crafts you can make in just 10 minutes!

Simple Straw Bead Necklace Craft for Kids

This week, we jumped into the great book The Arts & Crafts Busy Book: 365 Art and Craft Activities to Keep Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy and found a super easy craft for kids of all ages: straw beads! And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

Here’s what you need to make this craft:

We passed out tissue paper to the kids. They chose their own colors. Surprisingly, Roo picked blue as his new “favorite” color. He’s been hung up on red for years.

Then we spread glue over the paper. At first, we used glue sticks and they worked somewhat, but we ended up reinforcing them with liquid glue. So, to save yourself some time, use regular glue in the first place.

After that, you just place the straw at one end of the paper…

and roll it up tightly. We ended up adding a bit more glue to the very end of the paper just to make sure that the ends stayed closed.

Cut the straw into small pieces with a pair of scissors to make stringable beads. Have the kids string the beads onto a length of yarn, tie it around their neck, and you’re done!

Roo adored his necklace. He wore it the rest of the evening.

Pooh fiddled with his most of the day afterward, but he’s asked to wear it everyday since.

Tigger just loved her necklace! Right now, anything even remotely girly is a big hit with her.

Have you tried this straw bead necklace craft? How did it go? Share your experiences in the comments!

Don’t miss these other craft ideas!

Plus, see more crafting fun on my Simple Crafts for Kids Pinterest board!

Simple DIY Pinwheel Craft for Kids

August 16, 2013 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

Windy days are made for pinwheels, am I right? Remember getting a pinwheel at the county fair or the book fair at school (my favorite place ever) and running outside to watch it turn in the wind? As a child, I could stare at a pinwheel turn for hours. They were just mesmerizing.

I had never made a pinwheel myself, so I thought the kids would enjoy learning how to make one as an easy spring craft. Like a lot of our projects, this DIY pinwheel craft is very simple and only requires a couple of supplies. If you like this activity, don’t miss our easy spring toilet roll butterfly craft!

DIY Pinwheel Craft

To make this pinwheel craft, you’ll need the following:

To get started, all you have to do is cut the paper into squares and then make a diagonal cut toward the center on each corner.

Actually, I didn’t even cut the paper into squares. I did the old school thing where you fold the paper in fourths and then tear it. (I know I’m not the only person who does that, am I?)

After you’ve made the diagonal cuts, take each cut and fold the right corner toward the left so that the end lands in the center of the paper.

You don’t want to actually “fold” by making a crease in the paper, because you need the paper to remain curved in order for the air to move through it. So you’re really just pulling the corners toward the middle here.

Once you have all the corners folded toward the center, just hold them down with one hand and then stick the push pin through with the other.

Make sure you catch all the corner ends and don’t stick yourself! I pushed the pin through first and then stuck the end into the pencil eraser.

And we’re done! The kids were so excited to try them out that they sat at the table trying to perfect how to blow across the sails to move them properly for about 20 minutes afterward.

I will say that these are not the most permanent pinwheels you can make, so if your kids get a little rough with them (like ours did), you’ll have to put them back together. But you just have to push the paper corners back down and re-pin. Easy peasy!

If you enjoyed this spring activity, check out our other spring learning ideas!

And get more ideas on my Spring Activities for Kids Pinterest board!

Textured Sponge Painting Preschool Craft

August 9, 2013 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Art is one my favorite subjects to teach in our homeschool lessons. But when you’re starting with young children, I’ve found it best to keep the projects as simple as possible. After all, they’re not quite ready to study post-modernism. 🙂

So we tried this easy textured sponge painting preschool craft with our kids and they absolutely loved it! It was a simple way to study color and painting while giving them a bit of sensory input at the same time.

Read on to see how to do this simple art project with your kids! And if you love this craft, try our list of super easy preschool crafts you can make in 10 minutes!

Textured Sponge Painting Preschool Craft

To do this craft, you’ll need the following:

To set up this craft, we cut a large kitchen sponge into four pieces and handed them out. (This step should be done by an adult.)

Then we added a bit more texture by having the kids crumple up their paper before beginning. We found some super old fingerpaint (I mean, from when Tigger was a toddler) and added a bit of water to thin it out and then it was time to get started!

When we asked Roo if he wanted me to sketch his design for him, he said “I want to make whatever I want to make.” Got it.

Tigger wanted to paint a picture of a tree, so I sketched it for her to give her a little guide since the sponge tips are so large.

Pooh wanted to paint a train and it ended up not going as well as he would have liked. But the experience of painting was so fun that he was all smiles anyway at the end. I think that’s what art should be like for kids!

Here’s everyone’s work. Mine is at top left, Tigger’s is at top right, Pooh’s train is bottom right, and Roo’s unique individualist expression is at bottom left.

To give the pictures a bit more flair, we sprinkled glitter and colored salt on them before they dried. A simple introduction to Impressionism, perhaps?

Have you tried this textured sponge painting preschool craft with your kids? Let me know how it went in the comments!

Like this post? Try these other ideas for preschoolers!

And get more ideas for preschool learning on my Learning for Little Ones Pinterest board!