Category: Science: Ocean Unit

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Homeschool Science: Year in Review and What’s Coming Up

When I think about all we’ve done this past year in 2015 in science, I’m really pretty amazed! It’s been a fun, full year!  This post has links to dozens of our science experiments, printables and hands-on activities. You’ll find direct links to the posts in the table below. We managed to squeeze in various engineering (STEM) type activities here and there. In January of 2015 we were in the...

4 Earth Systems Worksheets 2

Earth’s 4 Major Systems (Free): Atmosphere, Geosphere, Hydrosphere, Biosphere

As we start off our new science units, I wanted to be sure the kids remembered Earth’s 4 major systems (or ecospheres): atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere.  We spent several days just reviewing these four Earth Systems in a general way.  You know me, I also made the kids some notebook pages and review cards to go along with our discussion!  I thought it might be helpful for some of you...

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What Creature Can Make Water Boil? (Kids Will Love This!)

All kids who love science should check out this cool website about the mantis shrimp…it sees an incredible range of color, is beautiful to look at, yet it is one of the most violent creatures on the planet — it can make water boil and smash glass with one blow! My kids loved it! Here’s a picture of the beautiful mantis shrimp, but you and the kids should check out...

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Aquarium of the Smokies (Gatlinburg, TN)

We spent an amazing afternoon at the Aquarium of the Smokies.  It was really fabulous. There were all different kinds of displays from the Tropical Rain Forest, penguin display, sting ray bay, underwater sea life, whale skeletons, a coral reef, and much more. I’ll try not to overwhelm you with pictures–just putting together a few collages, but it was such a great day it’s been hard whittling down the pictures!!   The...

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Ocean Unit Freebies

Since I talked so much about the ocean yesterday, I thought I would share some of the ocean related freebies I made for our ocean unit last fall.  I hope someone finds these helpful. Remember, crustaceans, arachnids and insects are all part of the arthropod group (look at this chart to see what I mean).  This is not a complete list of invertebrate groups, just some of the ones we studied last...

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Seashore Life

Last week we joined my folks, sister and brother-in-law and my two nieces and nephew on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Because they are homeschoolers as well, we took advantage of the pre-season prices and lack of crowds to enjoy time off together at the shore. We had such a great time — splashing in the waves, building sand castles, being buried in the sand, riding in the waves...

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Fossil Hunting

We love fossils!   I guess the fire was first lit in Australia.  My scientist friend told us about a creek south of Alice Springs where people have found lots of fossils. (See original post here: Fossils in Australia and the photos below.) We took the kids and made some great finds. Even my friend, Peter, was impressed!  LD was hooked on fossils!   Not too long after that we...

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Whale Unit (and the Arctic) — Icebergs, Blubber experiment, Buoyancy and more

Whales are able to survive in the frigid waters of the Arctic. In this series of activities the kids and I explored how that is possible. First, not directly related to the whales themselves, we talked about icebergs. We took giant cottage cheese cartons and froze big blocks of ice.  One of those blocks had our wooly mammoth plastic creature. I had the kids guess how much of the ice...

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Whale Unit (and the Arctic) – Migration, Echolocation, Baleen vs. Toothed Whales

One of the days we read books, I stopped frequently to explain things and do activities with the kids. Whale Migration: For example, we talked in quite some depth about whale migration from the Arctic down the west coast of North America and back again.  I pulled out an Arctic Pin map I made and the kids placed the various countries that make up the Arctic region. You can download...

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Whale Unit (and the Arctic) – Buoyancy

Have you ever started a unit and then something else unfolds?  Well this is a unit I started to put together on the Arctic.  You might even recall that we covered Antarctica for a couple of days to lead up to this unit. The more we got into it, the more this turned into a full blown study of whales!  We spent more than a week reading, doing experiments and...

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Ocean Activities – diorama

We made the starfish, sand dollars, crabs and coral out of cornstarch clay. 1 cup cornstarch 1 cup baking soda 1/2 tablespoon salt 1 cup water Mix and cook on low to medium in a pot until it congeals together. We had fun putting this project together. I’ll share the various steps below: We spent one day painting our boxes. The girls then added glue and sand along the bottom....

Starting Our New Routine 5

Starting Our New Routine

Sorry about the endless postings about our ocean unit… just a couple more and that’s that!  Blogs are funny because they sure don’t show the whole picture. From looking at our blog our days are consumed by oceans!!  Heh heh! Well, that’s not at all accurate.  I read and read, planned and planned and finally the older kids started back to school last week. As you’ve seen, ED has been...

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Ocean Animals — the real deal

Even though it was quite a drive for us, I decided a trip to the aquarium was in order with all our studies of ocean animals. We went last week. We sure had a terrific day! We all LOVED the jellyfish displays!   We were so lucky to see the octopus moving all around!       Everyone loved the sharks and we were lucky to see the sharks, sting...