first grade Archives

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

Lego Bar Graphs for 1st Grade

January 14, 2016 by Selena Robinson 10 Comments

Roo is currently working his way through his first grade math objectives and it’s time to talk about reading and creating simple bar graphs. And what better way to learn just about any math skill than by using LEGO?

I’m joining up with the Early Elementary Blogging Team to share fun LEGO activities for kids in grades 1-3 today. In our family, we learned how to construct LEGO Bar Graphs for 1st Grade!

If you have a child who loves hands-on math, this is a simple and fun way to learn it!

Creating LEGO Bar Graphs for 1st Grade

In first grade, kids work on reading and making simple bar graphs. So, since we’d just gone to the store, I thought we’d collect data on the produce we currently had in the house.

I really wanted to use oranges, but they were a little *ahem* expensive this week, so onions it is!

First, I encouraged Roo to order all the objects he’d be representing. Apples in one row, onions in another, and bananas in a third row.

Then it was time to break out an anchor chart I’d made on graphing. Roo and I talked about how tally graphs, pictographs, and bar graphs were similar and different.

When he saw the bar graph, he said “Ohhhhh! I saw this before!” So we were starting out a little bit ahead.

I asked Roo what Duplo colors he thought we should use for each item. We didn’t have white, so blue had to do for the onions. But we wrote down each item and the number of each, so that he could easily create his graph.

So we got out the LEGO DUPLO Brick Set and got to work!

Once he saw the anchor chart, he had a good idea of what to do.

Apples at the bottom, onions in the center, and bananas on top – just like in his ordering sequence on the table.

Done!

Sigh….order is lovely, isn’t it?

Then we used the LEGO bar graph as the model to draw one on paper. Roo labeled his data and started drawing.

He took a few breaks to check his work as he drew.

All finished!

I love it when they look proud of their work!

Interestingly, I noticed as I wrote this post that Roo has on the exact same shirt for the activity this week as the one we shared last Thursday. I promise he has more than one shirt! He’s just strangely loyal to this one right now. Go figure.

For more math ideas for kids, follow my Math Mania board on Pinterest!

For more LEGO learning fun, check out the other activities from the Early Elementary Blogging Team this week!

LEGO Classification – Printable Diagrams from Life Over C’s

LEGO number line for Addition and Subtraction from In The Playroom

Hands-On Synonym Blocks Matching Game from Raising Little Superhereos

Spelling With LEGOS! from Preschool Powol Packets

LEGO Boat Engineering Challenge from Handmade Kids Art

Using LEGO to find Syllables from Rainy Day Mum

Area and Perimeter with Lego Duplos from School Time Snippets

Plural Nouns with LEGO from Still Playing School

Combinations of Ten Using Lego Figures from Lemon Lime Adventures

How to do an Lego Engineering Project for Kindergarten, First, or Second Grade from Thriving STEM

Estimating and Probability with LEGO from Planet Smarty Pants

Lego Bar Graphs for First Grade from Look We’re Learning

LEGO Irregular Verb Matching Activity for Second Grade from Sugar Aunts

Exploring Symmetry with a Lego Firefly from Crafty Kids at Home

Pick Two: A Fun LEGO Math Game from Creative Family Fun

Our First Grade Reading List Homeschool Picks

August 28, 2015 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Well, we’re down to our final reading list for the new school year and it’s time to show off our books for first grade! Roo is reading much more fluently than he was last year, but he’s still not really a leisure reader. He’ll read when I tell him to, but he’d rather play than anything else. Of course, he is six. 🙂

But I really want to encourage him to develop the habit of reading for fun, so I’ve selected stories he can read on his own and stories we’ll read together. Here are our first grade reading list homeschool picks for this year!

Our First Grade Reading List Homeschool Picks

Roo, like many young boys, loves construction, so I included a book with that theme. I also included a couple of books that are funny, since those hold his attention the best.

Several of the books below will be part of unit studies we’ll be completing as a family, so they’ll fit in nicely with some of our themes.

1. Pete the Cat: Construction Destruction

2. Ocean Babies

3. Harry the Dirty Dog

4. Ramona the Brave

5. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

6. The Pigeon Wants a Puppy

7. The Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit

8. Aesop’s Fables for Children

9. The House at Pooh Corner

10. The Story of Ruby Bridges

11. Where the Wild Things Are

12. Curious George: Snowy Day

And those are our first grade reading list homeschool picks! Do you have any “must-read” books for first grade? Share your suggestions in the comments!

To see our other book suggestions for this year, check out our Fifth Grade Reading List and our Second Grade Reading List!

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!