10-Ways to Jazz Up Your Science This Year...#1
It doesn't matter if you are using a textbook, workbook, unit studies or winging it, here are some ways to make your year really fun and learn in the progress Don’t limit yourself to these ideas. My prayer is this blog post will spur you on to think of many more ideas, and please, share yours with us!
Go Outdoors #1 Way to Jazz Up Your Science!
A. Dig a hole, your child will be amazed at what they will find. If you have manicured lawns try digging in an obscure section of a flower or shrub box. Make sure the ground is damp. If it isn’t you may want to water an area of ground where you plan to dig for several days in a row. This will attract larger insects you can observe with the naked eye. Bring a cardboard box out a shoe box or larger so you can sift through the dirt. You can make a sifting screen box to put your dirt in and gently shake it back and forth.
B. Bring a magnifying glass or better yet a lighted microscope and look at the grains of sand under it. If you can, use the same hole and continue to dig deeper each time.
C. Study the trees, shrubs or plants in your own yard or in the neighborhood, take a nature walk
D. Observe butterflies and categorize them
E. Observe birds and identify (one year we had chimney swifts nesting in our fireplace. We didn’t know what type of birds they were at first, but with some research we found out. Isn’t it amazing how the Lord provides?!)
F. Observe types of airplanes and helicopters that fly by and research
G. Take pictures of these things and put them in a nature album, with a brief description, which can be a single word for a preschooler or a paragraph for an older child
H. Draw pictures and keeps a nature album of all of the above.
I. Blindfold your child and have them identify sounds they hear. Let them blindfold you and you can do this as well
J. Study and observe weather or make various instruments to gauge weather
Do you realize all of the areas of academics that were covered just by the suggestions mentioned above?
Language Arts: writing, spelling, grammar, reading
Critical Thinking: observing, researching, finding solutions
Math: counting, sorting, categorizing, identifying
Science: acoustics (study of sounds), ballistics (study of flight), ornithology (bird study), nature study, dendrology (tree study), botanical (study of trees and other woody plants), entomology (insect study), meteorology weather study, etc...
Add your ideas for fun outdoor studies here.
Date: 9/12/2009 10:55 am
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Great tips! i'm planning on scrapbooking with my children this year as part of their schooling :-)
Date: 9/14/2009 8:20 am
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Good ideas! One thing my kids always liked was when we took a slice of bread, poked a hole at the top with a straw, slid a piece of ribbon through it, spread peanut butter on it (careful with the allergies), gently pressed the bread on the birdseed (birdseed is on a cookie sheet), and hung it on the tree to feed the birds. After about 30 min to an hr. we could watch as the birds discovered a nice little treat. The kids tried to make hypothesis on who they think would eat most of the treat....the birds or the squirrels. Sure enough, the squirrels usually won and we could see the entire "squirrel family" coming for dinner! :)
Date: 9/14/2009 9:51 pm
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My 11-year old loves birds! I will have to try your suggestion, Nikki, great idea. No peanut allergies here. J
Date: 9/22/2009 5:46 pm
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I like the idea about the blindfold. I tried that with my children for a creative writing assignment. It is so much easier to discribe your surrounding when you can single out your senses one or two at a time. It works great!