Homeschool Den

Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!

Category: Science Units

What Should the Kids Be Learning? 1

Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Spelling / Language Arts: Writing / Math General Posts / Music / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science

What Should the Kids Be Learning?

I think we all worry a lot about what our kids need to know right now. What skills should they have? Can they do what they’re supposed to in fill-in-the-blank subject? We’re currently working on lots of stuff — math, spelling, physics, critical thinking, writing skills, music, but ultimately what is important that they remember and know from *this* day or *this* week? What do I want my kids to learn?...

The Space Shuttle Blasts by our House! 1

Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Astronomy Unit

The Space Shuttle Blasts by our House!

We were outside this morning on the lookout for the Space Shuttle Discovery.  We were so excited to have it fly by at tree-line! Naturally we had to take a million pictures as it flew by! A little while later we went inside to watch the drama unfold on NASA TV as it landed at Dulles Airport! Pictures courtesy of  NASA TV. We talked a lot about the space shuttle...

What You Can Do to Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 – freebies and more 0

Holiday: Earth Day / Homeschool Den / Nature / Science

What You Can Do to Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 – freebies and more

The celebration of Earth Day began over 40 years ago. It is a day to celebrate our planet and think about how we can help our environment. Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency was established not long after that first Earth Day in 1970? The Clean Air Act also passed that same year. Now Earth Day is celebrated in more than 175 countries by an estimated 500 million...

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Science / Science Experiments / Science: Physics Unit

Physics Unit: Gizmos, Gadgets, and Simple Machines

We have been gearing up for these activities for a long time.  Back in January I mentioned the kids read the Physics, Pre-Level 1 (Real Science-4-Kids) book. LD read it on his own while I read it together with DD. I thought it was a wonderful introduction to some basic physics concepts. Then as you’ve seen we did some background activities on Newton himself (the geography of England/Britain/UK; the Black...

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History: Middle Ages / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science

Black Plague Activity

Would you believe this is an activity that I created as an introduction to our physics unit on simple machines, gizmos and gadgets?!! Sometimes inspiration just hits! So here’s how it came to be.  I was doing some background reading on Sir Isaac Newton, the scientist who developed the Laws of Motion among other things. I learned that while he was at Cambridge University an outbreak of the Black Plague...

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Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Outdoor: Fossils / Science / Science: Ocean Unit

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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Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit

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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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit

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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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit

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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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities / History: This is the United States-Unit Study (grade 1) / Homeschool Den / Science: Earth Science Unit

Preschool Geography

NAME THAT CONTINENT: One morning in collection (our group time) I brought out a beach ball globe. We took turns tossing the ball around the circle. Each time someone caught the ball they had to look at where their thumb had landed and had to name that continent. The kids quickly became silly, but we did manage to get a few rounds in for each of them. Another preschool geography...

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Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science / Science: Garden Science / Science: Plant Unit

Gardening with Kids

It’s that time of year again! Our dining room table and a second table are covered with dirt planters! Last week the kids and I planted some seeds together. The kids are always excited to watch the seedlings start to grow. You can tell the kids helped since there are so many seedlings in that one pot to the right!!       We also weeded and worked on one...

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Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit

Brush Your Teeth! (another experiment)

A couple of weeks ago I saw some cute preschool activities about dental health at 2 Teaching Mommies, I was inspired!  We didn’t get to Amber’s ideas, but we did fit in the science activities from 1st grade with Miss Snowden. After talking about the germs in our house (see this post), it seemed fitting to talk about the germs in our mouths. I hard-boiled six white eggs and we...

Where do Germs Grow? 24

Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit

Germ Experiment — Where Do Germs Grow in Your House??!

Germ Experiment: When I saw this germ experiment, I knew we had to add this into our unit on First Aid. After all keeping ourselves healthy is as important as patching up the injuries, right?! The experiment called for gelatin, sugar and petri dishes. We didn’t have petri dishes so used paper cups and covered them immediately with glad wrap in lieu of a cover. Boil 1/2 cup of water...

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Health / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit

First Aid Unit: Germ Lapbook

Our germ unit took about a week to complete in part because of the amazing germ-experiment we did (more about that next week… the experiment was awesome!).   We talked about the major types of germs: bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa.  While fungi can produce athlete’s foot and protozoa can cause giardia and malaria, we didn’t go into much detail about those. Some sources also consider helminths (worms) a germ as...