Habitat Science Saturday

 

I am going to try and post what we did for our science theme unit for Kindergarten/4th grade mix on Saturdays.  Realistically I may not get to it, but I am going to give it a try.

This past week Tyler has been learning all about Habitats.  We will be diving into specific habitats starting next week.

We started off this week by watching Hops Home on The Magic School Bus series.  We also read a picture book about different environments and discussed what we think would live there.  Then we created these habitat posters.

The next day we drew a picture of a habitat of our choice.  We discussed different types of habitats even more.

Another day we did a habitat matching game.  They had to cut out the habitat names and match them to the habitat pictures.  (Obviously, I need to work on cutting skills with Tyler).

We also created our Wild Self and watched some habitat videos on YouTube.

We couldn’t find very many habitat books at our library that weren’t for a specific type of habitat that we will be learning about more in depth in the coming weeks, so this week was mostly discussion.

It was also a stressful week around here, so I am glad we got done what we did.

All of the resources we used and more can be found on my Pinterest Board.

 

 

 

Ants Galore

Kindergarten is so fun! 

I have chosen to do units based upon the Magic School Bus series.  I have also decided that for at least the first 5 weeks of school to include Katey (9) in the science studies with us. 
I used this free resource as the basis of my plans.

We started Tyler’s 5K year off with an Ant Unit. 
We read tons of Ant Books.

We read some fiction and some non fiction.  Hey Little Ant is a book we read about decisions.  We also did a persuasive writing assignment with this.  I wrote what Tyler dictated to me and Katey wrote her own. 

We did an ant labeling page and Ant Can- Have- Are. Both of these were from Erica Bohrer’s Blog. She also has the Hey Little Ant writing page.

We decided to make our own ant farm.  I took a quart canning jar and put a pint canning jar with a lid on it inside the quart jar. I filled the edges with sand from my yard.  We then baited ants using some chips in our yard.  Then we picked up the chip and put it into the jar. We covered it with a coffee filter. Then we made a cover out of dark paper and covered the ant farm. 
We waited until the next day to take the paper off. It was really neat to see all the tunnels and trails that the ants had made.
We read more ant books from our ant book pile and then we baked an ant cake.  We just used a box yellow cake mix and put chocolate sprinkles right into the cake batter. Then we baked it and frosted it.  I actually had Katey read and follow the directions with my supervision. It worked out really well.
Here is what it looked like after we had cut into it.  It was so fun, and who doesn’t love cake.

Every day we read more and more books.  One morning we woke up and looked at the ant farm and their were ants everywhere! 
They had chewed right through the coffee filter.  We are considering it a memory. You know, “Remember the time the ants escaped the ant farm and were all over the bookshelf they were on.”  So after that if I ever do an ant farm again, I will order one.

So of course then we made some ants on a log snacks. No one liked them.  We will not be making them again. 

We did an experiment called dancing ants.  We took some raisins and put some in a glass with just water and some in a glass with sparkling water.  The sparkling water ones moved around in the glass.  Then we tried adding sparkling water to the tap water to see how much it would take to make those raisins start dancing.  We figured it needs to be more than 1/2 sparkling or carbonated water.

We also did an ant buffet.  We chose a variety of foods from around our house and put them in a circle on a plate. We all voted on which one we thought they would prefer.  We then baited some more ants (this time with our ant cake).  We then put the ants in the center of the plate and waited. We came back about 15 minutes later and the ants had all left the plate.  They climbed right off.  They didn’t take any of the food.  They just left.

We watched a youtube video on an ant hill excavation.


This first science unit went amazingly well. 

Many of the ideas can be found on my ant Pinterest Board.
Things we used in this ant unit.

 

B is for: Homemade Vacuum Bug Catchers

 

I teach a science class at my local co-op using the book Considering God’s Creation.  We recently got to the section on insects.  I decided to do a hands on project with this and we made our own vacuum bug catchers.

Supplies Needed:

• Clear plastic container with lid. (I got mine from the deli at a grocery store)
• Straw
• Gauze
• Play Dough (I just used some from my homemade stash)
• Rubberband
• Hole Punch

First you punch a hole in the container, then another one directly across from it. 

Cut the straw in half. 

Put a small section of gauze on one end of the straw, using the rubber band to attach it.   Thread the straws through each hole.  One straw per hole. Make sure that the end with the gauze is inside the container. Use the play dough to seal up any holes. 

 

Now go out side and suck a bug into the container by sucking on the straw with the gauze end in the container.  Put the other straw by the bug you want to suck up and start sucking.  The gauze stops you from sucking up the bug into your mouth.  YUCK!  

 

A is for Archaeology and Apples

Katey got this really neat Archaeology Set.  She had to decipher a code to unlock the pyramid and then excavate 5 artifacts from the pyramid.  This kit came with all the tools she needed. 
The booklet also taught us much about Egypt and how to mummify an apple. 


We cut an apple in half and placed half of it in a glass jar.
We took 1/2 cup salt and mixed it with 1/2 cup baking soda and covered the apple.
We waited and waited and waited.  A whole week we waited.
Then we took the apple out and ewe….

It was mummified!

We learned that the salt and baking soda mixture took out all the moisture from the apple. 

Science Projects Galore

 

So far this school year we have done quite a bit of science.  Here are some recent highlights.

These experiments came from:

• Apologia General Science
• Christian Kids Explore Physics
• Science Experiments in a bag. (All 3)
• Winter Wonders or other Download and Go’s
• The Magic School Bus: The Secrets of Space
• Or just ones we found at home or around the internet.
• We do use these Scientific Method Sheets with quite a few of our experiments.

These experiments are not in the order we did them.

We did quite a few experiments on the displacement of water to learn about using a control in studies. Here are a few.

These are our boats.  We raced boats using different “motors” .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we used different things to see what happened to pepper resting of the surface of water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one we just found on the internet and decided to try it ourselves.  It was -13° F outside that day.

 

We microwaved a cup of water and threw it outside into the freezing air.  We were able to watch it evaporate.

This one we got from Winter Wonders.  You do the regular density experiment, freeze it and watch it thaw.  The ice ends up floating to the top of the oil back down again as it thaws. 

Don’t forget to check out our Simple Machines Unit.

 

Tommy learned how to calculate speed. 

 

 

We learned about how a corn maze is created.

We forced a spider to make a web right before our eyes.  (No spiders were injured during this experiment.)

We classified Halloween candy.

Katey has been learning bunches about the Solar System.  This showed us how the sun reflects of the moon for us to see it at night.

Katey has been using the Download and Go’s to learn about each of the seasons.

We have been using our Discovery Scope, quite a bit.

We did another density experiment where we got things to sink and float.

We saw how cold water slows things down.

We blew up a balloon using boiled cabbage water.

We did a Mento’s Bomb.

 

We broke open Geodes.

 

We went through an electronics phase.  Taking all kinds of things apart.

 

 

 

 

Science is a favorite for all of us.  I am sure it is because of all the hands on. 

I love that my children are interested in exploring things.

Do you do science at your house?  Where do you get your ideas from?

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post. There are also freebies. There are also just links to products without affiliate links. I'm trying to show what we did and where you can find it, not to sell you a product...although if you decide to buy one of them, please feel free to use the links and support a fellow homeschooler.

 

Simple Machines Unit

We did a fun 2 week long simple machines unit that I put together using books from our library and simple machine projects I found from around the web. The first day we did an overview of all the different simple machines. Then each day we chose a different machine to learn about. Then we had a review day, followed by a compound machine day. And we finished it up by creating our own compound machines.

Here are some highlights.

Here we are making a lever to lift heavy objects.

We made an Archimedes’ screw.

We learned why a wedge is so helpful by trying to hammer a bolt vs. a nail.

We had a pulley tug of war.  Two people vs. one.  It was neat to see Katey overpower both the older kids. 

We had a build your own compound machine day.

I saved up supplies for two weeks to be able to have a good variety of items.

Emily made a cereal shooter. 

She used our catapult and made a pulley system to move the bowl as well as a wheel and axle.

Tommy made a quite complex bird feeder.

Katey made a really simple bird feeder.

This was such a fun unit for us.

Most, if not all, resources that we used can be found on my Prairie Primer Pinterest Board.