science

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Visual Learning Systems

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I have a super great science program to share with you guys today. It’s called Visual Learning Systems and I received a full year of access to their Digital Science Online: Elementary Edition (Grades K-5) and Digital Science Online: Secondary Edition (Grades 6-12). Obviously, I’m only reviewing the Elementary Edition since my kids are elementary age.

Science is a tough subject for me. I just don’t care that much about it. I took a little more than was required for me to graduate high school, and despite being in the advanced classes and getting good grades there, I just didn’t resonate with science. I was more a math and language arts student. So when it comes to teaching science in the homeschool, I’m afraid my kids aren’t getting that much. For that reason, I’m always excited to review science programs. I know my kids love science, but I just don’t like teaching it, so if I can access a program to teach it for me (at least do the heavy hitting in the subject), I’m all for that. [Read more…]

Spear a Potato

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Would you ever think you could stab an ordinary drinking straw into a potato? Neither did I. Or my kids.

Until our science experiment last week.

But here it is.

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A straw in a potato.

Here’s how to do it. You know, in case you have littles at home you want to teach about inertia.

First, soak the potato in water for about 30 minutes. Don’t worry – it’ll still be raw (read: hard). Using a strong, fast thrust, push the straw into the potato.

It won’t break. The straw, that is. The potato will. Its skin, anyway.

Why it works: basic inertia. An object at rest (the potato) wants to stay at rest. An object in motion (the straw) will keep moving until it can’t anymore.

Each time we do an experiment, the kids also do a little paper. Very basic. It lists the name of the experiment, the procedure, what the kids think will happen, what actually happened, and why it worked.

–Wendy

Science Experiment: Fun with Colors

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We did a science experiment in our homeschool last week – those are the boys’ favorite things to do! I looked through the book on simple experiments I’d picked up from the library and found one that didn’t require a trip to the store first. Here’s what we came up with.

Tear a paper towel into strips and put a dot of green food coloring (or marker ink) about two inches from the bottom.

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I made sure to get a strip of towel that didn’t have any printing on it when we did this.

Next, place your strip in a glass of water, making sure the green dot is about an inch outside of the water (but inside the glass). Wait 10-15 minutes.

What’s supposed to happen: your green dot should disappear, leaving your water yellow and your paper towel blue as the dyes separate.

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Ours didn’t work perfectly, but we did a get a bit of blue on the paper towel, so it wasn’t a total misfortune.

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And the most important part was that the kids had fun learning!

Happy weekend!

–Wendy

Homeschool: Human Body

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For our homeschool science right now, we’re working our way through the major organs in the human body. I found this site that has some pretty good information on each one, as well as games if you can access it from a computer (which I never can, so we just use the information).

I bought a roll of brown shipping paper from the Dollar Tree and traced each kid life-size. The first day, I just did that and had them draw their face in. Starting on Tuesday, we’ve been adding 3 organs a day. As of today, we’ve got the voice box, lungs, heart, liver, stomach, spleen, kidneys, gallbladder, and pancreas done. With each one, they draw in the organ and then I read the information to them. I quiz them as we go to make sure they’re retaining the information – at least a little. I’m sure we’ll have to go over the topic again during their school career, but we’re at least building a foundation here.

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