Super Summer Science - Frogs

In an effort to combat the summer slide and because I like lesson planning and my kids love The Cat in the Hat we are enjoying summer learning with The Cat in the Hat Learning Library books.  The approach is simple.

READ REVIEW EAT EXPLORE

-READ-

We found our usual reading spot on the couch and read:

The book is about pond life in general, however, I chose to focus on frogs just to keep it simple.

-REVIEW-

For the first part of our review we used this free printable to make a frog life cycle coloring book.  Peter took great pride in coloring his tadpoles all duh colors dare not post to be.

The book is in the style of Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?  I'd read a line, then point to each word and have Joseph repeat it practicing tracking and sight words.

This next activity, labeling the parts of a frog was supposed to provide cutting practice.  Joe was getting frustrated; and, since first and foremost I wanted this to be fun, I ended up cutting the pieces out for him.  Even though it was only 5 little rectangles, I couldn't convince him to keep going.  I liked this frog parts activity a lot.  The first letter for each part is provided making it easy for emerging readers to find the right piece and read it.  When the line is pointing to the frog's middle and the first letter is "b", both the boys had an easy time "reading" the word belly.  Joe is a master gluer so he really loved this review page.

Peter meticulously cut out each word piece and fended off Joe while gluing them in place.  I told you Joseph likes to glue.

By the way I used this free printable.  It's part of a pre-school pack, you'll have to download the whole unit and then print the page you want.

-EAT-

We planned on making these cupcakes, but ended up getting busy with life and it never happened.  Peter's been asking when? so I really need to make it happen.

-EXPLORE-

The explore part took us outside.  Peter grabbed a net and we all went down to the pond to have a looksey.  We heard the frogs croaking in the cattails, but didn't actually see any that day, but we did find a gelatinous egg mass we guessed to be frog eggs.  I really wish I had pictures of our explore time, but in the craziness of rubber boots and nets and potty breaks and Maria waking up from her nap I simply forgot to grab the camera.

Happy Summer to you all.  I hope you're taking time to do all the things you enjoy.

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Super Summer Science archives

Next book in our Super Summer Science series

Super Summer Science - Butterflies

The summer slide - it's a fact of life. Over the summer kids lose some of their newly learned skills.  We all know the phrase use it or lose it, well that's what happens when summer takes over - skills aren't used and they're lost, or at least are left trailing behind.  It's easy to indulge in all the fun summer brings.  Here at Camp Homeschool we've been fishing, swimming, boating, grilling out, gardening, trampolining, BMX and motocross biking, bowfishing, horseback riding...and more.  The activity level is mind blowing, yet the summer slide still happens.  Handwriting skills, reading fluency, math facts - pushed aside leaving room for all things summery and happy.

What if the summer slide could be com-batted with a little trickery on your part?  This summer I've decided to use the Cat in the Hat Learning Library books to infuse a little summery, happy learning into our days.  It's so easy to excite the kids with science, especially in the summer, and especially when it revolves around butterflies.  The first book in my Super Summer Science plan is:

At this point, I'm mainly concerned with Joseph.  The effort required for mastering skills is mind-blowing so I really don't want those new skills to slide away this summer.  I made a list of skills I want to keep fresh.

Reading/Listening Skills
Cutting - Motor skills
Handwriting

Then I thought about a simple structure for our science time.

Read, Review, Eat, Explore

READ

 First we cuddled on the couch and read My, oh My--A butterfly!

REVIEW

 I used this free printable for coloring practice and recognizing colors and shapes.

 Teaching symmetry is perfect in a butterfly unit.  I used this free printable, folded it in half, gave the boys paint and q-tips and instructed them to paint on only half.  Then we folded the blank half over the painted half to reveal a symmetrical butterfly.

Joseph wasn't satisfied with a perfectly symmetrical butterfly and ended up painting more dots on the wings.

Using this free printable, we reviewed the life cycle of a butterfly.  This turned out to be Joe's favorite activity.  He even read it to me before I reviewed it with him.  I was astonished.

EAT

After cleaning up, we ate a quick little snack of pretzel twists.  I encouraged them to arrange them on the table to look like butterfly wings.  They had fun and it turned into a what other animal can you make game.

EXPLORE

Then for the EXPLORE time we headed outdoors and watched butterflies flit to and fro on the hot gravel driveway.  It was the perfect butterfly watching day.  The boys chased them, trying to catch the butterflies.  We also went searching under leaves for eggs.  It wasn't fruitful, but they had a good time.

It turned out to be the perfect Super Summer Science for Joseph and Peter.  Up next:

We'll focus on frogs.  But before I sign off with this post, here's a short video of Joe reading the butterfly life cycle book.

When the Garden Produce Isn't Ready at the Right Time

I've had this problem for many years with my garden.  I'm ready to make salsa, the peppers are ready to make salsa, the onions are ready to make salsa.  

But, the tomatoes absolutely are NOT ready to make salsa.  

There is an easy fix to this problem.  Harvest, dice and freeze the green peppers.  When the tomatoes are ready just pull out the amount of peppers needed and add to pot frozen.  Salsa requires lots of chopping which takes plenty of time.  This spreads out the prep time as well. 

 Having trouble growing a garden?  I have an older version of The Garden Primer and use it every year when gardening questions arise.

*this post contains affiliate links - if you click through and order anything I receive a small commission - thank you for your support

To see my Salsa recipe click here

Summer Science Day

Late last month I hosted a summer science day.  A group of mostly homeschooled kids attended.  They took part in three science experiments. 

The first experiment was making a baking soda volcano.  Amber and I constructed the volcano in advance and then we did the experiment all together.  The result of mixing baking soda and vinegar is a bubbly, oozing eruption.  Kids of all ages dig this!  The teacher in me couldn't just do the fun part I had to make a poster chart with words like reaction and carbonic acid and arrows,because all chemical reactions involve arrows.  See the kids' faces?  Don't they look excited while I'm pointing to the chart.

They look much more interested here.

Dow Chemical You Tube video - Baking Soda Volcano

Up next was the Chemistry of Blood.  This was fun and something I had never done before.  First we discussed the different blood types and defined the words antigen and antibody.  Then we conducted the experiment.  I had mixed "blood" samples ahead of time and then had kids volunteer to combine different "blood" types and discuss the outcome.  They caught on quick to the idea of certain blood types being compatible and others not.  We then discussed universal donor and universal receiver and using the blood type stickers I put on their hands they figured out who they could donate blood to and who they could receive blood from.  This worked well and got them moving around a bit.

Dow Chemical You Tube Video - Chemistry of Blood

The last experiment of the day before we indulged in a pile of yummy snacks was "Just For the Sport of It", an experiment in physics.  This experiment held the kid's interest, but the results for us were sketchy.  The predictions were consistent with the "right" answer, but our results didn't prove our predictions to be correct.  I pointed out that many factors are involved in getting the most accurate results.  Precision is important in science and maybe we conducted our experiment a bit sloppy.

Dow Chemical You Tube Video - Just For the Sport of It

Disclaimer:  Dow Chemical provided me with compensation for supplies.  All opinions and comments are completely mine.

Summertime Science

The official school year is coming to a close. Samuel finished kindergarten. Amber has 3 spelling lessons to finish. Nick has a few spelling and about ten math lessons before he can officially wrap it up and Emily has 2 spelling lessons and 5 math lessons left to complete. As the seatwork dwindles I find myself loosely planning some open-ended science activities/discussions. Summer is the perfect time to "study" science. We find ourselves outside exploring the natural world most of every day and so much of what we do is linked to science. Watering plants with a garden hose is a good time to make rainbows and discuss colors, prisms, or light refraction. Gardening lends itself to many fantastic learning opportunities: seed germination, plant types (dicots/monocots) insect identification, worm behavior, soil types, animal tracks and sign (those darn blackbirds and rabbits). Keep a supply of magnifying glasses around. Hand them out some morning and instruct the kids to get outside and look at the dewy grass, chances are they'll search for neat things all morning and you can drink your coffee in peace.

Now just say that you turned off your brain when the last of the lessons were completed and you can't think of any ideas on your own, don't fret. The easiest way to study science this summer is by reading books. Simple books, easy books, not textbooks. One of my favorite ways to introduce new science ideas is reading children's books. One of my favorite authors of nature writing is Jim Arnosky. He writes about animals mostly, on many different levels. He has the All About Series which is excellent and has many PreK-K books about ducks, muskrats and other pond animals. I check out piles of Arnosky books from the library and we just read them, usually outside. When we finish reading a book I like to ask, "So, what do you think?" It's amazing the thinks Samuel thinks after a good book. I believe much of his play throughout the day can be traced back to the science books we read in the morning. Don't have time to read? Or you want your older child to listen in but they think the book is too babyish? Well, have them read to the littles. This has many benefits, including, but not limited too: refining their read aloud skills, sibling bonding, confidence in their science knowledge by reviewing previous studied material. I find that giving the older reader a little extra phone time, computer time, alone time, etc. is a great way to entice them to read aloud to the littles.

Another series I love is the Let's Read and Find Out Series. We own a few of these and have read them several times. Each time Amber and Samuel take away something new. If you need ideas for science themed books, I have two favorite resources.

For the Love of Literature by Maureen Wittmann

The Complete Home Learning Source Book by Rebecca Rupp

Often times I'll just go down the list of, for example astronomy books and check out every one in the age range I'm looking for. We won't make a styrofoam ball mobile or create our own constellations. We'll just read and the good ones we'll read again. Then sometime, usually a long time later, one of the kids will ask a question about the size of Mars or the North star and someone will have remembered what we read in that book so long ago. That is success. That is learning. And I don't have any papers or projects to pin up, hang up or pack away.

SUMMERTIME SCIENCE = READING = EXPLORING = LEARNING

I Had An Appointment Today

When I got home this is what I saw:

Notice the alcohol on the counter. The hand sanitizer was there, too. Amber with the lighter. A little fire. School's cool with dad. This doesn't surprise, but what does is that he put his farm paper at risk. See it underneath the plate.

Super Summer Science

The written schoolwork is quickly coming to an end. Grace has two spelling lessons and 18 math lessons to complete. Lee has two spelling lessons and 15 math lessons to complete. Lou has five math lessons to complete. Then, officially, school will be done for the summer. However, in my mind it's never really done is it? Maybe the written spelling lessons and formal math lessons will end, but learning will continue. Currently, we have three tadpoles (one with back legs) and a clam or mussel in an aquarium. The chicks are growing steadily; our cat will be having kittens soon. The swimming hole is open for admission. There is no doubt in my mind learning will continue.

I love the idea of unstructured summer days. Kids moving freely from one activity to another with just a quick yell to me as to their where abouts. But after a week of this sometimes the freeness of it all gets to me. See, I love schedules. I love details. I love having a general outline for each day. So with that I planned a short chemistry unit to kick off the summer. There's no theme just a hodge podge of activities that sounded fun to me, each with its own concept to learn.

Invisible Ink.

Items Needed:

We ended up only using one lemon. Cut lemon in half and squeeze juice onto saucer. We diluted with a teaspoon of water which I don't think is really necessary.
A quick lick of lemon juice before the real science began.

Dip the cotton swab in the lemon juice and write a message on plain white paper. We also think a blunted toothpick would work well, because you'd get a thinner line of writing. Allow the invisible ink to dry thoroughly.

To read the secret message, hold the paper ink side down over a lightbulb until the message shows up. THIS DID NOT WORK!

With the blowdryer on HIGH, heat the paper until the message appears. THIS DID NOT WORK!

Once the kids are thoroughly discouraged by this chemistry experiment, think hard about other heating sources. Rule out the lit candle (fire hazard), microwave and oven. Then in a last ditch effort to prove to the kids you really were once a science teacher in a real school, pull out the iron, turn on high and start ironing the paper. After about 30 seconds the message will magically appear in a dark yellow, tannish color. Once the paper cooled the message wasn't as noticeable so the picture didn't turn out so well. But our secret messages were as follows:

Mom Loves Dad

Lee - cool bike

Grace horses

pictures of hearts and flowers

Science behind the project - the acid in the lemon juice contains carbon compounds. When those compounds are heated they turn brown (or in our case dark yellow-maybe because we diluted it a little). We also talked about ascorbic acid and how it prevents oxidation when squeezed over fruit, preventing it from turning brown. Of course, the scientific method was discussed once our original plan had failed.

Super Summer Science: The Answers

Earlier this week I posted a science problem for you and your kids to work at. Did you? Here are the answers.

#1 - Bend the straw about 3 inches from one end. Insert the short end into the bottle. Pull the long end slowly until the bent end touches both sides of the bottle, then lift. Tah Dah! You lifted the bottle without actually touching it with your hands.

#2 - Insert the round end of the balloon into the bottle, being careful not to let go of the opening of the balloon. Blow air into the balloon until it fills enough so that it touches both sides of the bottle. Then lift. Easy!

I hope you had fun with this and that your kids did too. We certainly did.

Super Summer Science

Can you pick up a bottle without touching it?

Using science to solve what sounds like a magic trick can be fun. You will need a clean, empty 16 oz. plastic water/soda bottle, a plastic straw and a balloon. Using the bottle and the other items can you figure out how to pick up the bottle without actually touching it with your hands? Assemble these items for your children and let them work on it for today, tomorrow, as long as it takes. I will be back later this week with the answer, oh, I mean answers. Good luck!