learnFromHome – MathSciWhy https://mathsciwhy.com a teacher exploring math, science, and life's big questions Fri, 24 Jul 2020 01:24:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.13 Theme Week – (Ant)Arctic Week https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-ant-arctic-week/ Fri, 24 Jul 2020 01:24:00 +0000 http://mathsciwhy.com/?p=283 ]]> We took a break from posting, but in reality ant(arctic) week followed right after insect week. The kindergartener is a huge fan of the arctic right now, so this was a long awaited theme.

The info below is split up into the following categories:

  • Activities to do as a family (experiments, outdoor activities, etc.)
  • Independent activities that the kids can do during quiet time
  • Books & Videos

Week 8: (ant)Arctic

Family Activities

Density Exploration
In preparation for some activities with icebergs, we spent some time reviewing density. We built a little scale of sorts out of some cardboard. Then we began with a familiar material – lego. The kids checked out the two identical bricks and placed them on either side to see how they balanced. Next, we brought out two pieces of metal with the same volume, two nearly perfect one cubic centimetre cubes. One cube was aluminum, the other tungsten. The kids put one on each side and observed how the scale moved. This allowed us to talk about mass, volume, and density. On to the icebergs!

Icebergs
The first iceberg we built was using a silicone bread loaf pan. It didn’t have any really interesting characteristics, just a fun addition to the bathtub.

For the second iceberg activity, we took a frozen icecube and then turned it on its side and popped it in a space for another icecube. The result was a more interesting piece of ice that more closely mimicked an iceberg. The kids hypothesized how much of the iceberg would be under water and how much would be above water. After putting it in the bathtub, they drew in the actual water line on their iceberg drawings. Very cool conversation starter and it led to us watching some videos with icebergs flipping.

For the final iceberg, we froze a lego sabre-toothed tiger inside for fun. The look on kinder kid’s face when he realized what was inside was priceless.

Camouflage
We brought two objects out into the backyard, one green and one white. One kid hid the two objects and the other tried to find them, and then we swapped. This was a simple but effective demonstration of the usefulness of camouflage, as the green bowl really blended in with the landscape. The white ball stuck out easily. This led to some good discussions about camouflage and the changing coats of many arctic creatures.

Blubber Experiment
Our final experiment was a classic. We made some icy water and the kiddos stuck their hand in the water with just a plastic bag around their hand. We had prepared a double layered ziploc bag with coconut oil sandwiched in the middle. The kids then put their hand in this insulated bag and put that in the water and compared the effect. This is a surprisingly effective demonstration and was fun for all of us. It was a nice pairing with the Magic School Bus episode, where the students get blubberized!

Conversing with an Arctic Explorer
One of kinder kid’s goals has been to speak to an arctic explorer. We had two different conversations set, both arranged through friends of ours. One conversation with a young Inuk woman who lives in Nain is yet to come. The first conversation was with an awesome lady who works with Students on Ice. She has visited the Arctic and the Antarctic on multiple occasions and kinder kid was so excited to speak to her. He wrote up a list of questions and she graciously answered them and shared some awesome pictures & stories. This was a lovely part of the week and we are looking forward to the next conversation and the perspective she will bring.

Quiet Time Activities

We found a few larger packs of activities this time around and used many of those pages. Here are two we used:

Free Arctic Animal Worksheets
Arctic Animal Printables

Books & Videos

Books:

Videos:

  • Wild Kratz S01E07 Polar Bears Don’t Dance (Netflix). Neat note about this one, the kids (and us!) learned about pharyngeal pouches in this episode and we did some more research afterwards.
  • Magic School Bus S03E02 – In the Arctic (Netflix).
  • Lots of videos of icebergs & icebergs flipping on YouTube.

Next week: Shapes!

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Theme Week – Insects https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-insects/ Sat, 30 May 2020 01:23:22 +0000 http://mathsciwhy.com/?p=246 ]]> With the beautiful week full of sunshine we had, I’m glad that we had selected insects as our theme for this week. The kids, like most, have always been interested in insects and it gave ample opportunity to do some exploring outside.

The info below is split up into the following categories:

  • Activities to do as a family (experiments, outdoor activities, etc.)
  • Independent activities that the kids can do during quiet time
  • Books & Videos
A paper ladybug made from red construction paper with the words insect week written across it

Week 7: Insects

Family Activities

Exploring Ants
With the help of some pieces of bread and pretzels, the kids got set to lure some ants.

Once we had a few ants in hand, we transferred them to some temporary ant housing. We used the two sizes of upright containers from the IKEA PRUTA kit, nesting the smaller in the larger. We put a lid on the smaller one and then filled the space between the two containers with soil. We topped that off with our ant friends and let them get to work as only ants can.

While we all know how strong and industrious ants are, it was quite fascinating to see how much they had accomplished in just one day. The kids enjoyed playing with them on the driveway and watching them work in their temporary housing. After a day, we returned everything to the garden.

Nature Walk(s)
We did a lot of bug hunting on walks around the neighbourhood this week, but also managed to get out for a walk near the river.

We were fortunate to spot some water beetles.

And, unfortunately, also signs of the emerald ash borer.

The azaleas at home were abuzz with many kinds of bees.

I had seen a little demo for mimicking the way pollen gets stuck on a bee’s legs, but we were lucky enough to get nice and close to this little dude to see it firsthand.

Our littlest explorer has become very enamoured with insects and enjoys picking them up. She is particularly fond of beetles. “Look what I’ve found, it is beautiful!“. Here are a few of her finds from this week:

Water Beetle Rockets
After seeing a demo for soap powered boats, we printed out some pictures of beetles and made water beetle rockets. This was a very fun activity and led to learning for everyone. This demo can only be done once per batch of water, so don’t put too much in each time.

Up close with a wasp
An unexpected activity for the week came upon discovery of a deceased wasp in our bedroom. It was scurried onto white paper & magnifying glasses were out in a flash for closer investigation. A very cool distraction from the fact that we may have a wasp’s nest to deal with.

Bookmarks
We used this little bookmark template to spend some quiet moments colouring together. We read a lot of books in this house, so bookmarks are always in short supply.

Two children are seeing colouring in paper bookmarks that read Buggy About Reading. Each bookmark has an insect on it.

Quiet Activities

To complement some of the learning about the phases of insects, we drew up this matching sheet.

Some other resources we utilized:
Colour by number
Bee maze
Metamorphosis maze
Addition
More Addition
Which is more? – This ended up leading to some good number talks in our house with the kindergartener

Books & Videos

Still making use of the gazillion library books we’ve had for this time the library’s been closed.

Some related videos we watched:

  • Magic School Bus Gets Ants in its Pants (S01E12) – Netflix
  • Magic School Bus – Butterfly & the Bog Beast (S05E02) – Netflix
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy – Insects (S02 E11)
    Pro-tip: don’t watch this while you eat lunch

Next week: The (Ant)Arctic

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Theme Week – Aeronautics https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-aeronautics/ Thu, 21 May 2020 01:49:05 +0000 http://mathsciwhy.com/?p=216 ]]> Following our two week foray into prehistoric creatures, the next theme we chose was Aeronautics. The inspiration for this theme was that our kiddos’ awesome grandfather is retiring next week after 39 years working as a radar technician. We thought it was a good time to look at what brings us to the sky!

Image of an airplane cut out of black construction paper with the words Aeronautics Week written in silver sharpie

The info below is split up into the following categories:

  • Activities to do as a family (experiments, outdoor activities, etc.)
  • Independent activities that the kids can do during quiet time
  • Books & Videos

Week 6: Aeronautics

Family Activities

Paper Airplanes
I mean what can be more fun than making and flying paper airplanes? Apparently having a book that’s been sitting for over a decade with fancy paper airplane templates, that’s what! The kids picked their favourite designs and went about following the intricate folds to create some pretty neat planes. The weather cooperated for successful flights.

Once we had some fun outside, I cut out three shapes from a large piece of craft paper and we hung it up for some additional target practice.

A little girl is seen holding a paper airplane ready to throw it towards a large white paper hanging from a doorframe, with a circle, triangle, and rectangle cut out as targets

The World Record Paper Airplane
After trying some of the different designs, we decided to follow instructions for building the World Record Holder paper airplane, using this video as a resource. First we spent some time learning 3 key flying terms: pitch, yaw, and roll. There’s a nice diagram here.

Then the kids worked at altering aspects of the record breaking airplane to affect the pitch, yaw, or roll. It was fun to hear their reasoning about what impacts various changes to folds would have.

Whirly Birds
As a throwback to teaching Grade 9 science, we made some paper whirly birds / helicopters using this template. The kids coloured them in and then tossed them down the stairs. There is way more fun to be had with these helicopters in testing out what can affect their flight time, but there was too much sunshine for us to stick inside for long!

Quiet Activities

Here are some of the quiet activities the kids worked on this week, aside from throwing planes through the paper targets:

Airplane Parts with word tracing + colouring

Spot the differences

Addition & matching

90 (eep!) Page worksheet Package – We just picked a few from here.

The Fun with Mama package above inspired our kinder kid to start creating his own activities for us adults to do during quiet time. One was this cute colour by number

A child's drawing of a person pushing a luggage car at the airport with a colour by number legend surrounding the image.

Books & Videos

We were lucky to own a few of these and others were borrowed from the library. (Extra lucky that one we got just days before things shut down!)

The World Record Revised Paper Airplane Book by Ken Blackburn

Airplanes and Other Flying Machines Ultimate Sticker Book

How Airports Work by Clive Gifford

LEGO Amazing Vehicles

Some of the videos & shows that suited the week:

Magic School Bus Taking Flight (S02E09) – Netflix

Bill Nye The Science Guy – Flight (S01E01 — how cool is that?)

How Does an Owl Fly so Silently? Super Powered Owls – BBC

SuperWings – Netflix

Next Week: Insects

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Theme Week – Prehistoric Creatures https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-prehistoric-creatures/ Thu, 14 May 2020 19:10:12 +0000 http://mathsciwhy.com/?p=171 ]]> Week four of themes has brought us to a big favourite – prehistoric creatures (also known as dinosaurs and all their friends). We spent two full weeks on this theme as we were having too much fun to switch it up.

The info below is split up into the following categories:

  • Activities to do as a family (experiments, outdoor activities, etc.)
  • Independent activities that the kids can do during quiet time
  • Books & Videos

Also, fun (mind-blowing) fact:

Weeks 4 & 5: Prehistoric Creatures

Family Activities

Walking Dinosaurs
I saw this cool demo and we figured with a few alterations, we could make them look like dinosaurs. We cut out the basic shapes and the kids coloured & folded them and soon we had (kind of) walking dinosaurs! This activity is a bit finicky but really neat once it gets going.

A dinosaur made out of folded paper, coloured orange and black.

Melting Dinosaurs
Using this Dinosaur Excavation activity description, we froze two little dinosaurs in baking soda eggs and used vinegar to excavate them. To make this (and other activities) happen, we borrowed half a dozen dinosaurs from a neighbour – thanks, Emily!

Dinosaur Footprints
We used this reference for the size of dinosaur footprints to draw out some T-rex footprints along the driveway. Simple + fun!

Digging for Bones
We ran out of filament before printing the whole body, but managed to get this T-Rex skull from thingiverse printed. We buried it in some sand and the kids used brushes and small shovels to dig it out.

Lava Simulation
This took a couple of tries but with some household ingredients we made a cool demo of lava growth. The idea and recipe came from a youtube video about creating a fire snake. This was a nice follow up to Bill Nye’s episode on volcanoes and some reading we had done.

Bird Sightings
We have been trying to run Beavers each week as a family, to preserve a bit of kinder kid’s regular routine. This week we talked about how birds are the closest living creatures to dinosaurs. The kids created their own cardboard tube binoculars and we went for a walk to look for birds. We found a few, but then found a giant heap of ants which was more exciting.

Drawing Dino Shadows
We set up some dinosaurs on white paper and tried to trace the shadows. We chose this as an indoor activity for a gloomy day, but then realized the gloom made shadows rather difficult. This didn’t quite turn out as planned, but hey the kids were happy to spend some time drawing in their pjs.

Two young children are seen drawing on white pieces of paper. Each paper has a plastic dinosaur, with a light casting a shadow on the paper.

Hatching Breakfast
We inherited this box of instant oatmeal from family members after they left town. It served up some fun at the breakfast table for the preschooler.

Quaker Instant Oatmeal Dinosaur Eggs

Other things we didn’t get to:
I love these Cardboard dinosaurs and have seen other people make them with quite a bit of success. We just didn’t make the time to cut them out.

Quiet Activities

Puzzle
We have had this hand-me-down puzzle from a neighbour for a year or so. Kinder kid is old enough to do it by himself now so we brought it out for him to try during quiet time.

A young boy is putting together a puzzle from the jurassic era. Piles of sorted puzzle pieces sit beside him.

Some simple colouring sheets we already had inspired kinder kid to start his own book.

A triceratops printed in black and white is partially coloured in. The text Blue Sky Yellow Sun by Gabriel has been printed by a young child.

There are so many resources out there. Here are a few we printed out:
Triceratops Worksheet

Dinosaur Division

Dinosaur Find & Count

Counting dinos

Dinosaur Graphing

Dino numbers – up to 10

Practicing Left & Right

Tracing words that begin with d

Books & Videos

We have this collection of magazines from when I was a child. They were a subscription and I remember it being one of the coolest things ever to receive – anyone remember these? I have four binders full of mint condition dinosaur-packed magazines from the 90s, though I’m wishing I still had the glow in the dark t-rex bones. While some of the information has since been updated, the kids loved reading through them.

A binder featuring a large dinosaur, with the text DINOSAURIER! printed at the top.

The kinder kid also practiced reading with Raptors! by Lisa McCourt

Videos:

Magic School Bus S02E03 – Busasaurus & S02E01 – Blows its Top (Netflix)

Magic School Bus Returns S02E01 – The Land Before Tim (Netflix)

Bill Nye – S04E19 – Fossils and S04E14 – Volcanoes (Borrowed from the library)

Cassowaries mini documentary from BBC Earth

Lego Jurassic World: The Secret Exhibit (We borrowed from the library)

Next week: Aeronautics

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Theme Week – Gravity and Spacetime https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-gravity-and-spacetime/ https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-gravity-and-spacetime/#comments Thu, 07 May 2020 15:00:06 +0000 http://mathsciwhy.com/?p=158 ]]> There was a lot to unpack when looking at space and the kinder kid was intrigued by gravity, so that became the theme for the following week.

The info below is split up into the following categories:

  • Activities to do as a family (experiments, outdoor activities, etc.)
  • Independent activities that the kids can do during quiet time
  • Books & Videos

Week 3: Gravity and Spacetime

Family Activities

Tensegrity Structure

There’s no mystery where our children got their love for LEGO. Their dad built a cool tensegrity structure out of LEGO to kick off our learning about gravity. Very cool. Not cool? The only photo we have is on a super dusty surface where it was built in hiding.

Gravity Water Cup Drop

Next we did the Gravity Water Cup From from the Science Guys. We did it over the bath tub and the kids loved it.

Gravity Visualized

While the content of this one was way over the kids’ heads, it was fun and they liked taking part. We built this visualization of gravity based on this video, using a hula hoop, ikea drinking glasses, some stretchy fabric, and clothes pegs.

A black piece of fabric is stretched over a hula hoop and held on by clothes pegs. It sits atop a ring of ikea glasses on top of a table.

Given our rather crude setup, the visualizations worked pretty well and gave way to cool discussions around gravitational slingshots.

A golden delicious apple sits in the middle of a black piece of fabric stretched across a hula hoop. A hand is seen holding a small metal bocce ball a few inches away from the apple.

Pendulum Gravity Experiment

Using the free app Phyphox, we created a pendulum with a phone inside a toilet paper roll under our kitchen table and determined the acceleration due to gravity. A little sophisticated for the littles, but they love recording numbers, making hypotheses, and seeing what happens. The video explanation for the experiment can be found here.

Quiet Activities

I am becoming less picky about these with time. I don’t love the worksheets but the kids like having something to work on at the start of quiet time.

Space Matching

A collection of space mazes

Solar System Word Search

Space Colouring Pages

A collection of fun space-related worksheets

Space subtraction

Books & Videos

We rewatched Bill Nye’s Gravity Episode (S1E6) – the kids love this one

Pete the Cat: Out of This World by James Dean (read aloud because we can’t go to the library)

The Magic School Bus Gains Weight (S4E8) – available on Netflix

Inspiration found from The Cosmic Perspective (Third Edition)

Next week: Prehistoric Creatures!

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Theme Week – Space https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-space/ Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:00:35 +0000 http://mathsciwhy.com/?p=129 ]]> We’re into week two of our themes as we navigate life at home. Last week we looked at the microscopic world.  This week, we went with a space theme, which gave tons of options for play, crafts, and experiments. They loved it so much they requested a gravity theme for next week.

The info below is split up into the following categories:

  • Activities to do as a family (experiments, outdoor activities, etc.)
  • Independent activities that the kids can do during quiet time
  • Books & Videos

Week 2: Space

Family Activities

Labelling Planets

The kids had been given a set of solar system wall stickers a couple of years ago. They’ve been up on our wall in the basement. Our first task for Space week was for the kids to write out labels (in metallic sharpies, of course!) for each of the planets and paste them on the wall.

A young boy is sticking a black label for Mars up on a wall. Planet wall stickers and labels can be seen for Mercury, Venus and Earth
Labelling the planets

 

Smashing Space Rocks

This activity came from Pre-K Pages and was a hit (ha!). Make a flour/water mixture, coat some cotton balls, and bake them at low heat. We put them outside and the kids went to town smashing them with hammers, wearing proper safety goggles of course. A child's hand holds out a crafted moon rock in their open palm

A child's hand wearing a striped red and navy gloves holds a blue and grey plastic hammer. A fabricated moon rock is seen next to it, in motion, after being smashed

 

Paper Mâché Asteroids

Full disclosure: we started this paper mâché project to make Easter eggs. The kids hadn’t been too interested in painting them, so they sat for a week as newspaper covered blobs. When we started space week, we realized that the bumpy creations would be perfect for asteroids. The kids were much more eager to paint and precision was not a priority. Once they were finished, we hung them from the ceiling between Mars & Jupiter on and added an Asteroid Belt label on the strings.

A young girl is picking up a string from the ground, attached to a paper mâché asteroid. She holds another string with another asteroid in her other hand
Prepping our paper mâché asteroids to hang in the solar system

 

Chalk Solar System

Using the Exploratorium Calculator, I calculated out a scaled down orbital radius for each planet. I chose a sun diameter of 1.2m, which allowed us to fit the whole solar system on our short street. We measured one adult foot print to be about 1m and then counted our steps to determine the distance between each planet. Starting at Neptune, we drew a tiny chalk dot, wrote a big label, and then carried on towards the sun. The kids took note that we had much fewer steps between planets as we began to approach the sun.

A young girl and a young boy look at the ground as the boy writes Venus in chalk. The girl's shadow is seen above Venus
Venus

Once it was complete, we let some neighbours know about the drawings and invited them to walk the solar system, too.

A chalk drawing of a sun with the label "sun". The sun is filled with yellow, orange, and red swirls.
The Sun

 

Crater Creation

We had been talking about asteroids, meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids. We set up a fun and simple activity to explore how craters are created. We filled a silicone bread pan with flour and then covered it with a thin layer of hot chocolate. We headed outside and the kids dropped marbles into the pan to make craters.

A silicone bread pan filled with flour
Flour layer done

A silicone bread pan filled with flour. A package of Carnation hot chocolate sits on the corner
Ready for the hot chocolate

A silicone bread pan filled with flour, covered with a thin dusting of hot chocolate.
Hot chocolate layer finished

A strainer taps cocoa into a silicone bread pan filled with flour,
Sprinkling on the hot chocolate layer

I thought this activity might only last 30 seconds, but the kids loved it and asked for more and more marbles.

 

LEGO

We were fortunate to have been given a box of vintage LEGO from a neighbour. After researching some of the pieces, we were able to put together a bunch of proper LEGO space sets, as well as some creative space-inspired research stations and robots.
A collection of vintage space lego sets sitting on four grey lego boards, atop a dining table

Space play dough

I made play dough and added glitter. Tada! Space play dough. Sometimes it’s the simple things.

A lumpy turquoise blob of turquoise glitter play dough sits on a wooden board.
Glittery space play dough. We ran out of salt and it is a bit lumpy, but so are planets.

Quiet Activities

For visual discrimination

Space math (I took away the one and added 11 & 12 so they could use two dice and put a token in for the sum. Kinder kid also put together a lego piece for each one that showed that many dots which was a fun exercise)
Kinder kid kept asking for math worksheets for quit time, so we used a few:

Books + Videos

We’ve enjoyed these books & videos when discussing the unseen:

The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield

Star Wars: Phonics by Quinlan B Lee

These videos were all online or borrowed from our local library:

Go Noodle – Hop Hop Astronaut

Bill Nye the Science Guy – S1E6 Gravity, S1E19 Outer Space, and S5E2 Space Exploration

Discover the Universe

Space Racers (available on Netflix)

Next week…Gravity (and spacetime) week!

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Theme Week – The Microscopic World https://mathsciwhy.com/index.php/theme-week-the-microscopic-world/ Mon, 20 Apr 2020 20:00:21 +0000 http://mathsciwhy.com/?p=105 ]]> With our new reality of being home 24/7, we’ve been trying to find ways to keep our core values as a family while also investing time in teaching high schoolers online, running a podcast, and the host of other random things we do as a family. In order to find some modicum of structure, while still allowing for self-guided learning, we decided to come up with a theme for each week. The theme is neither comprehensive nor limiting, but rather it gives us something to launch off of for activities. I’ve decided to share what ideas we came up with (some we executed, some we didn’t), in case it helps as a launching pad for others with young ones at home.  Please note that this stuff might make up only 15-30 minutes in the day, but it’s enough to give us some sense of normalcy and it spurs a lot of curious questions and creative play.

I will break up each week into categories so that you can skip ahead to what’s of interest:

  • Activities to do as a family (experiments, outdoor activities, etc.)
  • Independent activities that the kids can do during quiet time
  • Books & Videos

Week 1: The Microscopic World

Family Activities

Our first week’s theme was born from pulling out a children’s microscope I had purchased at a consignment sale last year. While it is still a bit tricky for our youngsters, they managed to work it through.

Microscope

This isn’t the exact microscope we have, but it’s the same company. Ours only goes up to x900. Our first experiment was to look at the slides that came with the microscope. They looked at an onion skin, dragonfly wing, and the tip of a honey bee’s wing. Once they had looked at all three, we drew a circle using a roll of masking tape and the kids drew what they saw from the honey bee’s wing.

A young boy looks through a microscope
Microscope in action

A young girl sits, with head turned away. A sheet of paper with a child's microscope drawing of a bee wing sits in front of her, with the words Bee Wing Buzz written across the paper.
Microscope drawings

Another day, we went for a walk and gathered some things to look at under the microscope. Between this kit and other things we had at home, we made use of vials, tweezers, and magnifying glasses to investigate found items.

Other ideas we didn’t get to:

Creating a mini microscope using a clear plastic cup (we’ll be doing this as soon as I can find some cups)

Using a garden hose to demonstrate the length of our intestines

Quiet Activities

The 5-year-old requested a small task he could do each day during quiet time. My aim is to just use content other people have already created & shared and to not stress out too much about most of them cartoon-ifying all things science. Here’s what we used this week:

These germ worksheets from Simple Everyday Mom were great. They could do each of them without guidance.

The 3-year-old was getting frustrated when writing out “bee wing” because she was having trouble with some of the letters.  I used this Dotted Font to write out a batch of words that she could trace to practice. She helped to create the list of words: bee wing, virus, microscope, cell, atom, microbe, magnification.

We also printed out this avoid the germies maze from education.com.

Books + Videos

We’ve enjoyed these books & videos when discussing the unseen. All have been borrowed from our local library:

Do not lick this book by Idan Ben-Barak

Tiny Creatures by Nicola Davies

Video – Mysteries of the Unseen World by National Geographic (we skipped through the part about the microbes living on our bodies only because of the age & temperament of our kids. They have enough to process with Covid19 right now.)

While we didn’t watch it, The Magic School Bus: For Lunch is available on some streaming sites and would be a good option.

 

Next week…Space!

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