After our participation in the Chicago Wildlife Watch project, I decided to use woodland animals as our nonfiction topic for my story times at our homeschool co-op this week! We began with some great books (both fiction and nonfiction) and then jumped in to forest animals activities in science stations!Continue Reading
I am so fascinated by the sky and clouds. I love photos of clouds. I love a nice clear blue sky. Raisin’s fascination is with space. He loves reading about the planets and the moon. One day, a little while ago, Raisin was asking about the sky. He wondered when the sky ended and space began. I did not know, so we began a project for learning the layers of the atmosphere! We learned about the atmosphere layers by doing an interactive lab with kitchen materials (honey, corn syrup, dish soap, water, and vegetable oil).In the process, I wrote a simple ebook with atmospheric layers diagram to help us understand, and we culminated our learning with a hands-on atmosphere lab. For this lab, we used the things I have in my kitchen to recreate the different layers of the atmosphere.
Continue ReadingWhat could be better than learning about space and sending off our own rockets? Learning about DOGS going in to space and helping send THEM up in to “space”! Today’s brief storybook-inspired science project found us learning about two stray dogs and their incredible journey into space. Then, we designed our own doggie rockets and tested how far we could send them upwards!
The other evening, as we were eating our dinner, I looked up and saw an opossum sauntering through our backyard. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I wanted to catch it on camera but I knew I had just moments to either find my camera or point the creature out to my children. So instead of capturing his evening stroll, I called all my kids to the window to watch him.
I’ve lived in the Chicago suburbs my whole life and seen deer, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and even ducks wandering through our yard. But I’d never seen a possum. It made me wonder what other animals we might find around our suburban town. As we read a picture book about animals in the city and found a way to help scientists through a citizen science project, we have learned more about how animals interact in our city as well as which ones are most common. Joining in an actual research project as a “citizen scientist” has made science feel more pertinent on a daily basis.
