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The Experimental Zone ~ Spring Fever Contest

1:49 AM, Mar. 28, 2007

Spring is in the air where we live, and it’s time to open the windows, let in the fresh air and introduce some fresh ideas into our teaching.

This time of year I get “Spring Fever” and think, “Hmmm, are we really going to get to the end of the spelling book?” Or, I count the chapters left in a math book versus the number of weeks until June 1^st (our arbitrary official start of “summer break”).

I’ve learned there are several ways to treat “Spring Fever”, among them:

A. Add a few more hands-on and creative activities to the mix, especially if these activities take us outdoors into the warm (but not too humid) sunshine. And;

B. Give away some fun "stuff" to a blogger to encourage hands-on learning!

So, here’s the “A” part… (The free stuff part is below!)

A few weeks ago, as Spring started to show itself, and I knew we’d start doing more bird and insect activities, I purchased two Dover Books “Learning About” sticker books while at a local science museum (Afterall, I had to buy something!)

However, I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to incorporate them into our science activities. There had to be something creative we could do with this resource.

After some brainstorming, we came up with the project shown below. A project that was age appropriate and could easily be done by my six year old (Remember, the more your child can do on his own, the more likely they will take ownership of the project and the more information they will internalize).

We did two”flip and learn” posters – one using the Learning About Birds book and a second (photos below) using the Learning About Insects book.

Each book had 12 pages of information. One page per insect (or bird). In the middle was a section of stickers that we pulled out.

A Guessing Game

I handed the two pages of stickers to my daughter. As I read each insect or bird description (leaving out the name of the specific creature), she tried to guess which sticker matched what I was reading.

The birds were fairly easy, but the insect book was definitely a challenge. The exercise truly made her listen and deduce.

What We Learned

After all of the stickers were placed, we removed the pages from the book and separated them.

The pages are two-sided, so we made a little flap by folding one long edge of the page and taped it onto a colored paper “background”.

The page squares were then glued onto poster board in the order she selected.

Next, she drew a picture to go with the creature. It may have been a drawing of what the creature eats or how they live – the drawing was based on information from the book.

As an example…in the photo below she drew a horse for the horse fly, since this insect likes to take up residence on horses. For the bee, she drew a jar of honey.

We repeated this for all of the insects.

Expanding the Activity

Then, when all was done, it was time to decorate the title area.

This part of the project piqued the interest of my 14 year old, and he grabbed our insect field guide for “authenticity purposes”. (His interest in all things mechanical and precise came into play here.)

The kids flipped through the field guide, finding insects of interest. One of us would read aloud information about the insect’s habitats, prey and unique characteristics. Then, the others would try to guess the insect. Even my six year old could describe the insect, read the habitat map and provide us with enough clues to keep us guessing.

As you can see from the photo below, quite a montage of insects were drawn!

Of course, some creative license was taken, as we have a few “inconsistencies” with a spider, insects with far more than 6 legs and a few missing the required head, abdomen or thorax.

But, it was a fun project that allowed a 6 and a 14 year old to collaborate, learn and have fun!

Now, For Part “B” – Win Free Stuff

Here’s the simple contest to win 6 Dover “Learning About” Books, one of which is birds, and a Wild Birds Unlimited hummingbird feeder (Oh, we’ll throw in a cute little red, metal ant moat for the feeder, too!). A prize pack worth $35!

It’s easy to enter, here’s what you do..simply leave a comment here and share one thing you did for science in the last few weeks.

Increase your chances to win...If you announce this contest on your blog, I'll put your name in TWICE for the drawing (But don't forget to tell me you blogged about it.)

Remember, a science activity can range from something organized and planned to a spontaneous discussion. Maybe you constructed a baking soda volcano or perhaps you observed and talked about the leaves and buds that are starting to appear on trees in your area.

We will put your name into a beaker and draw one name on Tuesday, April 3^rd and announce the winner on next week’s Experimental Zone.

See you next week!

Michelle

Michelle and her husband have been homeschooling for 9 years. She has a Master's degree in Child Development and Family Studies. Michelle serves as the Judge Advisor for the North Carolina FIRST (www.usfirst.org) Lego League and a judge for the www.FIRST.org World Festival. She is the author of numerous Sam's Science Adventures, including "RIC: Robots in the Classroom", all available through www.TreasureBoxPress.com. She spent 15 years in the biotechnology industry before turning her heart toward home.

Posted in The Experimental Zone, 8 comments, Link
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Science

11:30 AM, Mar. 28, 2007, posted by Angelheart

My kids and I have been working on Classification of animals. We just finished a big weather unit with making weather insturments and perdicting the weather. Anyway We made a book of different kinds of animals. Starting with Insects and a separate catagory for Spider. I had them label all the parts of each. Today we are onto amphibians. We might have to end this with a zoo trip with spring on its way.

Oh almost forgot I posted about this on my blog . :)

Nikki

whales

12:01 PM, Mar. 28, 2007, posted by Aligirl

I love it when we start learning one thing, and then it morphs into a new lesson. We were reading a story about the men who became whalers in the early american years, and how they used whale oil as their fuel. We started talking about whales, and then we started googling images of whales and printing them out. This lesson took on a life of it's own! We talked about all of the different kinds of whales, the differences between baleen and killer whales, and made a big whale poster with our pictures we had printed out. The kids labeled their pictures, and then we got online and listened to all of the different sounds that each whale made. It was awesome! For the rest of the day, my kids played like they were whales. Each one a different species like we had learned about. That had to be one of the most fun science lessons ever!

Ali

Untitled Comment

6:34 PM, Mar. 28, 2007, posted by Rebeca

We're enjoying watching the birds in our backyard and trying to identify them. We put a feeder right outside our dining room window so we can see our feathered friends more closely. I bought a poster of common Western feeder birds and put in up near the window, and also a book of birds that are local to our valley. We've seen many different kinds of birds in the last few days that I couldn't have identified before. We've had a pair of Flicker woodpeckers, both a downy and a hairy woodpecker, a varied thrush, a stellar's jay and some scrub jays, and lots of Oregon juncos. The kids seem to be catching the enthusiasm and running excitedly to the window when they spot a bird. We've also started reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children. So far we're enjoying the stories and learning about birds as well.
In the kitchen we're baking bread these days, and learning about the process of growing and grinding grain, and about yeast.
My kids are only preschool age, so none of this started out to be "science"! We're just having fun together, and learning along the way.
Rebeca

Contest

9:40 PM, Mar. 28, 2007, posted by servingtheKingofkings

Thanks for sharing about your cool posters. We enjoy making books around here. My 5 yo son is curently working on his "Flower Book" because he is interested in flowers at the moment. We've been reading books about plants and flowers. We cut pictures of different flowers from old magazines and pasted in his book. He then writes down the names of each flower. He drew flowers. We observed and talked about tulips and daffodils in our front yard. He learned about different parts of flowers. We also do a science experiment about once a week.

Science this week

10:15 PM, Mar. 28, 2007, posted by MotherHen

We have been studying birds and other flying critters the last few weeks...this week we have counted and kept a tally of the birds visiting our yard and examined a piece of house finch egg shell we found on the ground. In addition to this we have read about bats and their habitats. I'll blog about our science this week, too!

Wow! Thank You For Sharing!

11:36 PM, Mar. 28, 2007, posted by eyecorn

Many thanks to those who have already shared all of their neat science ideas! It's fascinating to read how one activity leads to another to another. Or how a piece of a bird's egg can bring about so much learning!

If you haven't yet left a comment for the contest, please do.

We'd LOVE to hear about your latest science fun!

Michelle

Untitled Comment

1:10 AM, Mar. 30, 2007, posted by nsremom

My son and his best friend have been doing something really cool. Making science cards. I plan on blogging about them any day now. Each card has an animal on it and a power. (chosen by the boys) for instance, The Box Jellyfish has a HUGE power number because it has such deadly poison. But, a Grizzly Bear also has a high number due to it's massive strength.

Then, the fun part. The boys see how the animals match up against each other. They have hundreds of cards. Each has hand drawn animals along with their elaborate points system.

I love homeschooling! When would little boys have the time for such things in between school, after school activities and homework?

If I win, I want to donate my gift to Gayle~the mom of the other boy who does this. I'm moving, so I don't need any more items to pack up. :)

I'd be happy to link!

10:28 AM, Apr. 3, 2007, posted by AHappyHome

What fun! Lately we have been reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children, which is a great story of Peter Rabbit greeting various kinds of birds......(if you go through Ambleside Online, they have a link to read this book for free!)......

http://www.amazon.com/Burgess-Children-Dover-Science-Books/dp/0486428400/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1188545-7931825?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175609604&sr=8-1

Afterwards, we head upstairs to the computer and poke around looking at, for example, sparrows, and to listen to their song......

http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i5810id.html

Finally, we fill out a beautiful page about our bird that we got from the web........

http://www.notebookingpages.com/Notebooking_Pages_Nature_Pages.html

.......and then try to hear "our" bird when we go outside to play! It's totally fun, and even though we haven't heard a particular bird outside yet, it has definitely opened our ears to the ones we have.

Blessings,
Keri

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