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Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2009 · Last modified May 14, 2016
The majority of damage from hurricanes comes from heavy winds. We watched a youtube video about hurricanes where the wind blew the roof off of a house. Then we did our own activity. We built a house out of index cards and then tested their strength with level one winds (one straw). Seeing that the house blew down, we reinforced it (with more tape). It then withstood the level one...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2009 · Last modified March 19, 2018
Our next activity was to recreate a tsunami. In a flat pan, the kids built up a sandy beach (sand, corn flour) and built little houses. Then they added water and created an earthquake. It didn’t work when the kids hit the table with the bat, but when the table was given a good shake the tsunami hit fill force! We looked...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2009 · Last modified January 4, 2018
Last January we made a volcano out of paper mache. This time around we just used sand and corn flour. The mixture actually dried to rock hard (later), but the kids didn’t have the patience to wait a full day. Of course we had to make our “lava” realistic by using not just baking soda and vinegar but also red food dye and dish soap (to add to the foaming...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2009 · Last modified May 14, 2016
We talked about mud slides and land slides. Mud slides usually occur after heavy rains, so our butter container (again covered with our sand/corn flour concoction) was watered for a time and the mud slid down the “mountain.” The girls enjoyed playing in the mud for a long time after that while LD kept exploding his volcano again and again!
JULY 2009’s postings are all preschool/toddler related. I’veposted a lot of the homemade (and Montessori) typeactivities I’ve put together for my 3 year and 18 month oldand placed them together in one month for easy access.
About four months ago we started really delving into worldgeography. We started with the seven continents. We got some beautiful (free) 3-part continent cards and havebeen using them in conjunction with this map I had fromteaching days (it’s from world history, the age of explorationand the kids just love the fact that people believed in seamonsters (on the map if you look closely). Anyway, we’ve learned the continent song (to...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 6, 2009 · Last modified February 23, 2019
The continents cards (both the small and large cards in the post above) are available in our World Animal Packet. We placed world animal cards on each continent. There are three for each continent. LD, DD and I take turns saying, “This is a __buffalo__ it lives in __North America___” and putting it on the correct continent. There is a much more recent post about Animals Around the World with...
We spend a fair bit of time learning about geography. A lotof it is incidental because we have a world map hanging on thewall behind the dining room table. LD likes to test us, “whereis South Africa? Where is Brazil?” But we also have a fewgeography activities that show up in the workboxes everycouple of weeks. Pictured below is DD (age 3) doing a continent push pin map.I printed it...
I don’t like this anywhere near as much as the push pin andfoam that I made (pictured above), but here is the flag andcountry matching activity. It was made with a laminatedmap of Asia taped onto of styrofoam (and placed in the boxso our toddler wouldn’t destroy the styrofoam!) We still pullthis out every few weeks. I think I got the Asia flags (free) from this site:http://www.montessorimaterials.org/geo.htm If you are...
We got a wonderful assortment of mini erasers from OrientalTrading and have been using them for all kinds of math and sorting activities. Below LD did skip counting by 3s (http://filefolderfun.com/FirstGradeMath.html)and grouped three items below each wagon. I asked himhow many items there would be with 4 groups of 3 (12) andso forth. DD did some general counting (pictured below) while ED,the toddler, just put the erasers and numbers into...
DD did a couple of different masks while LD made a knight’shelmet out of paper mache. He came across this project in aScooby Doo magazine and begged to do it. “I’ll even get my handsdirty this time!” he told me. (The first time we did a paper macheproject he didn’t want to get his hands dirty with the flour-glue.) Paper mache recipe: mix 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water. ...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 5, 2009 · Last modified February 21, 2016
We tried this spider web craft that we came across at http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/2008/01/colorful-spiderweb.html
LD made this cardboard tank about a month ago. He wasvery excited by this project so I thought I’d share theinstruction link for others if you’re interested:http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-a-Cardboard-tank/
Most every week Mom puts up a new artist in our weeklycalendar. Below are pictures by Norman Rockwell andAlbert Bierstadt. We’ve also done some of the followingartists:Leonardo DaVinciMichelangeloRembrandtVan Gogh I usually post a self portrait of the artist and we talkbriefly about each picture (what they see, what they likeor don’t like about it) and leave it at that. I notice it doessink in as LD noticed a Van Gogh’s...
Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)
A bit about me: I have my Master's from Brown University. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. I was a high school teacher for many years both in the U.S. and internationally and also taught for the University of Maryland before leaving to homeschool my 3 wonderful kids.
To read more about us CLICK HERE.
Click on the image to find out more about the units and packets we have available.
This post has links to dozens of posts and resources both for new and veteran homeschoolers for everything from finding homeschool curriculum to general homeschool advice and encouragement.
Click on the image above to see the History Units we covered in our homeschool.
What science topics could I teach my 5-7 year old - Homeschool Science Curriculum
Click on the image above to see the Science Units we covered in our homeschool from elementary through middle school (and beyond!).
A list of the books we've used most in history, science, math, language arts, etc.
Click the image to check out our packets on Earth Science, Rocks and Minerals, the Atmosphere, Weather, Energy and More!
Units are also sold separately.
This is one of our most popular units. It covers the Layers of the Earth, Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, Volcanoes and More! It is included in the Earth Science Bundle (see the picture/link above).
Click the image to see our Biology Units on Animal and Plant Cells; the Biology Unit on Biomes, Food Chains, Symbiosis; Scientific Classification & Taxonomy (Domain/Kingdom/Phylum/Class, etc.); Botany - Plant Kingdom and Oceans and Oceanography.
Click on the image to see our Animal Bundle - including the Animal Unit, Life Cycles, the Rainforest, Winter (Polar Animals) & Hibernation, Chameleons, Wolves, Cicadas and more!
The Human Body Systems, Skeletal, Digestive, Circulatory, Muscular, Nervous, Endocrine Systems and More (with lots of hands-on activity ideas)! We usually study a different body system each year.
Click on the image to see our units on the States of matter, Properties of Matter, Electricity & Circuits, and the Chemistry Unit (Get to know the Periodic Table in a fun way!)
This is a free checklist I put together of the various science units I hope to cover in the elementary and middle school years.
Do your kids know the 4 largest countries? Which countries have the most people? The longest river? This packet covers basic world and U.S. facts and also covers geographic features and land forms.
Click on the image to check out our 100-page unit on World War I.
We have used AAS for 6 years! AAS is an affiliate link.
Dozens of posts about how to create a homeschool writing workshop.
Click on the image to check out all of our fun K-2 Math Packets.
This is one of the best values we have... more than 20 PDFs with games, activities and worksheets to learn/practice the multiplication facts ($7.00).
Click on the image to discover some of the pages, posts and homeschool resources within our blog that might be the most useful for you including a long list of our freebies!
Click on the image to check out our 100+page Rocks and Minerals Unit.
This is a fun, hands-on unit for early elementary students!
How the body is organized from cells to tissues... organs to body systems
Click on the image to check out some of the Spanish worksheet bundles we have available!
Click on the image above to check out our German worksheets.
Click on the image to find out more about our units and packets.
