A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

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How to Teach Elementary Science

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Wanting to do science with your students?  I love science, I find it very easy to teach, particularly in the younger years, but not everyone has a natural love of science.  The question arises: How to teach elementary science.  Let’s walk through some of the options you have for teaching science to elementary aged students.

how to teach elementary science

Nature Study

Honestly, I find nature study to be easiest way of teaching science to elementary students.   There is so much to explore and learn just be observing the world around you. 

Observe Animals

Observed the animals around you.  These can be the squirrels in your local park or the spiders and bugs inside your house.  You can visit the animals at the local zoo or at a wildlife rescue centre.   You might want to visit a friend with a rabbit/guinea pig/dog or maybe go to a dog/cat/rabbit show.

Perhaps your co-op will offer an animal class or your local library offer a photo series of animals around the world.

You might want to sit down in your own backyard, block off a section of 1 or two feet and have your children count all the animals they find.  Then you could walk down to the local stream or park and look for ducks, water striders, bugs, spiders etc.

You could easily do a  bird study by setting up a bird feeder in your backyard.  Find animals and take time to watch them, you’ll be amazed at what you learn.  

If you can, bring along your phone, or a nature study guide, or a note pad (to write down questions for later) so you can answer questions that your children have.  

An example of Nature Study

 We have three squirrels in our back yard… grey (new youngster) white and black.  Just by watching them we know that grey is a bold as brass and will probably cause trouble in the rabbitry this winter.   White is easy going and knows to stay out of our way.  She’s been around for the past two years and doesn’t cause any fuss for us.  Black will get into mischief in the summer and if I leave a bowl of grain out for him in the winter he’ll get into that but won’t bother with anything else.   Bold as brass grey is starting to chase black around but so far hasn’t ousted him from the backyard maple tree. Grey is still confined to the front yard… he is pushing hard though.   By watching them we are able to learn so much about them, what they eat (did you know they will eat green tomatoes?), how they defend their territory (or to challenge for more), and all the sounds they make.   

observing nature

Unit Studies/LapBooks

Other than getting out in nature, or alongside of getting out in nature are unit studies and lapbooks. 

You take your child to the zoo and they get fascinated by tigers, or chimpanzees, or maybe the dwarf goats.   You can find a unit study or lapbook on them. My son has long been fascinated by ants and spiders and his youth I commissioned an amazing ant unit study for him.  He LOVED it.  Learned so much.  Now he raises ants and gains additional learning. 

Some places you can go for materials.

  • Amanda Bennett Unit Studies. Horses, tigers, dolphins, geckos, insects, oceans, volcanoes, seashells, caves and so much more.  Go explore, and then come home and learn some more!  (pay)
  • Homeschool Share has all sorts of unit studies and lapbooks.  (free)
  • Lapbook Lessons – Animals and science to learn and do. (free)
  • SchoolhouseTeachers.com – a variety of lessons, so many options, bug science, world of animals, curious science, disgusting creatures etc.  with over 400 lessons there’s sure to be nature studies for you! (paid)
Schoolhouse teachers

Pay Attention to Landforms, Soils and Plants

When you are out and about pay attention to landforms.  Notice the pond, the creek, the hill, the way stones stick out of the ground.  As you travel around pay attention to different trees and terrain.

When you are working out in your garden show your children what good soil looks and feels like.  Have them experiments with sandy soil, clay and good loam.   Does it make a difference if you add fertilizer?  

Help them grow a row, or start a bean plant in a container, or maybe grow some cat grass for a loved family pet.  Have your children test out if a plant will grow in the dark or what happens if light is far away from it.  Learn about phototropism and more.

When you walk through a forest pay attention to the mosses, fungi, ferns and trees.   Help your students see the different levels of a forest and then take an excursion on line and learn about the rainforest and its different levels. Expand their learning naturally. 

Additional Online Sites

There are numerous places on-line if you need more of a curriculum, or places to learn or see experiments done.  

  • Mystery Science – has open and go science lessons. Sign up for a free year of science lessons.  They have a limited number of spaces open. 
  • cK-12 – has an elementary division that you might find useful.  These are flexbooks that you can use online or download as a PDF. 
  • In the Lab of Mr. Q you will find downloadable classic science texts.  Provide a well-rounded science education. 
  •  The Canadian Wildlife Federation has put together education units to help teachers. 
  •  Nature Canada doesn’t have lessons but they are a wealth of information. 
  •  PBS learning has a number of experiments to watch and maybe do. 
  •  Canadian Geographic has a great kids area, and as an educator you can sign up for the cangeo education newsletter.  They put together some great resources!
  •  Project Gutenberg has put together an elementary geography program.
  •  Easy Peasy has an all in one science curriculum. An excellent resource for your science needs.  
  •  Guesthollow has a science and literature course. 
Online sources for teaching elementary science

Don’t forget other sources

Don’t forget to 

  • go to the library and raid their shelves for all things nature study-ish
  • Watch youtube videos
  • search websites with good information on whatever your children are interested in.
  • Easy science experiment books…. there are lots on the market.  

There is so much information available, make use of it. 

For instance, I am hopeful to get my lad into a Biodiversity weekend.   That might not work for your younger children, but I know in London we have groups that do forest school, another that takes regular walks in the local swamp, my son spent time with friends and family looking for minnows, crayfish and clams in our local streams, and of another group that does scavenger hunts in various local playgrounds.  Make use of the world around us, and do science the easy way!    Enjoy your explorations.

A book that might help you is the family adventure journal, or these nature cards.   You might want to make some crafts from the things you discover making the crafty nature journal just what you need.  I’ve pinned loads of ideas over on my nature study pinterest board.  Give it a boo, you might be delighted by what you find. 

Add in Your life

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Aren’t you delighted to see me back after a summer away from talking about how to be a better writer?  What can I say, it’s been great to take a break and focus on other things for a while.  To add to the experiences in my life.  What experiences did you add in your life?

My life over the summer was filled with a teen busy landscaping and visiting friends, a hubby working, visiting a friend from CA, and gardening. We took in the beach and some sights and kept ourselves entertained well enough.  🙂  Even a week away for camping was found. 

Anyways, I’ve kept up one of my joys over the summer of participating in Five Minute Fridays.  Almost every week I partake and turn a one word prompt into a poem.  It allows me to do what I’m going to be talking about today.  Insert my life into my writing.   Letting a world flow through your mind until it strikes a chord…using the chord from my life to respond to a simple word prompt.

add in life (making your writing come alive)

Insert My Life in Writing?

Write what you know, it’s an adage that writers are often told.  In every book I read on writing it’s repeated: Write what you know.  It doesn’t mean that you have to tell your life story, but you use your life and what you know into the stories that you tell. 

For instance, today my lad was telling me about a character he would like to create.  A cat, who is a warrior, but is only good with a crossbow.  He doesn’t fight well hand to hand, has no knife, or other weapon, just his crossbow.   He would be about two feet tall but highly effective.  Not a talker, just a crossbow expert.

I told him this character sounds like a fascinating fellow and would love to know more about him.  Is his whole race of people the same or is he an odd-ball?  What causes him to not talk much?  That question caused the thoughts to spiral.  It’s SUCH FUN!

We took the time to explore a bit where such an idea came from: his cats, the games he plays, his friends, his interests in life etc.   All helped him spawn this imaginative creature. 

Warrior cat

Don’t Short Change Yourself

It’s hard sometimes you know, to figure out how the events, thoughts, conversations etc of your life, can add depth to your writing.  The things that we do, the very conversations, and fun, and even the sorrows that we experience, these are the well-spring of our well-written work. 

Regardless if our focus is on poetry, on non-fiction or creative writing.  If you take the time to add in your life, your writing will be full of meaning and experiences only YOU can create, because only you have lived your life.  Don’t discount your experiences in any way. 

Live your life, live it well.  Use your life to make what you do even better.  Take your love of fishing to show the excitement of a child catching their first fish.  Use your confusion over the right outfit to wear to showcase the angst of getting ready for a date.  Apply your laughter over a night out, your disappointment in a movie, your fear at stepping outside of your comfort zone, the smells of campfire and how different that is from burning rubbish.  Growing up on a farm or growing up in town…they bring a richness we can’t always fully grasp.  Choose your words wisely, sift through your memories, and share them well.  Therefore enabling help us see the world more clearly. 

add in your life experiences

Engineering for High School

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Do you have a child who is detailed oriented and likes to figure out the why of how things work?   Who likes to figure out how to make things, or figures out the most efficient way of doing things?   Well.. I DO.    It sometimes drives me crazy, but I’ve learned (mostly to live with it).    I’ve had more than one person tell me that he’s got a bit of an engineers mind.  Therefore, this week I’m hoping to help others who are looking into opportunities for engineering for high school.

engineering for high school

Places to Go On-Line

The Engineer Guy is a website I am still exploring.  There is much to see and read.  How useful he will be to me and my lad I don’t know.  Check him out.

I find this site Instructables absolutely fascinating.  The things people make.  Sometimes I feel so inspired to try some of them out.  You need to be aware that not everyone is as complete in their instructions as others.  Some have specialized equipment, so pick and choose what you look at.  But wow… browsing is such fun!  They even have lessons just for high school. 

TeachEngineering has some 360 lessons.  Print them off and use them.  Practice out your engineering skills.  Complete a whole unit or dash around trying your hand at different things.   

I’m looking into a program called Engineer Your world. I don’t know a whole lot about it but it certainly looks interesting.   I’ve learned it’s not cheap, it’s three year commitment with materials to store and you need a minimum of 9 children to participate yearly.

If you want more online options, you could go to many of online options I listed here and search out their engineering courses. For instance Alison has all these engineering related courses. 

Real Life Opportunities

As I was doing some researching I discovered that different universities (in the States and Canada) and I’m assuming there are opportunities world-wide for summer learning.   For instance the University of Western Ontario has this high school program. 

The University of Waterloo has these enrichment programs. 

You could job shadow an engineer… there are so many fields for engineers it’s amazing.  SO if you didn’t like aspects of one engineers job you could easily switch to another. Pursue to the type of engineering you would like to do. 

Positions for Engineers

Civil engineer.  These are the most common. Something is being built like a road, a house, a building etc.   You need people to design it, and then you need people to safely construct it.  These people (the designers and the constructors) are civil engineers.   To learn more see here.

Mechanical Engineer.  An engineer who deals with mechanical things.  They work on the design of machines, calibration and more.

Chemical Engineer.  Well you know it has to do with chemicals right?  They use their knowledge of chemistry and chemical to develop and design chemical manufacturing processes. They use this knowledge to develop new drugs, in food production and much more. 

Petroleum Engineer.  These folks finds ways to better utilize petroleum products and to extract it from the ground. 

Electrical Engineer.  “Someone who designs and develops new electrical systems, solves problems and tests equipment.” They apply (after study) physics and math to various systems to transmit energy and to help process information. If it’s electrical, they are involved. Continue reading here.

Aeronautic Engineer.  Think of anything that interacts with the air and space.  Those items/jobs/positions are what these folks fill.   

My son has taken two engineering courses over his middle school years.  Last year Robotics and Thinking like an Engineer.   

SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a few engineering tasks on their site.  Not a whole lot, but perhaps enough the whet the appetite of your students.   Before you know you’ll be teaching engineering for high school!  🙂

schoolhouse

Want to Learn Some Specifics?

How to Save Money on Curriculum

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The school is about to start if you are in Ontario at least, I know that some folks have already started back to school already.  Will the curriculum you picked work out in the long run?  What if you or your children absolutely hate it?  How will you handle it?   Needing to know how to save money on curriculum is vitally important. 

How to Save Money on Curriculum

Curriculum isn’t working

So let’s say your curriculum simply isn’t working.  What do you do?   Do you keep plugging along or do you set it aside?  It depends on what the problem is.  

I’ve run into situations where the graphics caused my lad no end of distress, so we learned to cover them up.   Just do the work, ignore what is under these little pieces of paper and voila problem solved.  Quick problem-solver eh?  🙂 

Sometimes though, the problem isn’t so easy to solve.  The way it’s written doesn’t work for your student, or it’s too difficult or way too easy, or whatever.  The curriculum simply won’t work.  Then you need to find an alternative.  Perhaps the rest of the year you can make use of free math, art, or foreign language programs.  Sometimes your student needs to learn to deal with material they don’t like.  This too is a life lesson. Otherwise, you may just need to buckle down and get a program better suited.  In that situation you may not save money, but hopefully that won’t happen often. 

At other times, simply changing one aspect of a curriculum or revamping it in some ways does the trick.  One year my son and I were reviewing an geography program that was not doing over well.  We changed how we did it, adding extra elements, reducing the disliked portions and by the time we were done with it, it had become a favourite.  Saved us tons!

Finding Curriculum

So you find yourself needing to buy a curriculum to replace a disliked one, or simply because you need something that perhaps you forget or haven’t been able to get ahold of. How can you save money?

How to Save Money on Curriculum

You want to own your curriculum:

  • Used curriculum sales
  • Book Fairs
  • Library book sales
  • Thrift stores
  • Fellow homeschoolers
  • Check through what you have
  • Repurpose another curriculum by adding something to it.

You are okay not owning it

  • Library book shelves
  • Co-op library
  • Fellow homeschoolers
  • Sharing with someone already using it (form a small class).
How to Save Money on Curriculum

Don’t forget the Older Curriculum

My son has used old textbooks, elderly science notebooks, Sunday school material, ratty student notebooks, and more.  Old stuff is a treasure trove of information.  Ignore the natty covers and see what’s actually inside them.  You might need, at times, to update information.  But for the younger years, you want to build excitement in learning… and some of those old materials do an excellent job of doing just that.   🙂

Use them well and because they are old, you can either toss them, pass them along, or thrift store. 

It’s always your choice

At the end of the day we have to remember…. New curriculum is wonderful.  Like really.. the scent of a newly opened textbook.  It is great.   BUT what is even better is being able to buy more books and more curriculum because you stuck with your budget.    Find those budget friendly options and use them well. 

The Apollo Missions for Kids

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Did you know that this year we are celebrating the 50 anniversary of the moon landing?   The Apollo Missions for Kids by Chicago Review Press helps us understand this fascinating piece of history. 

The Apollo Missions for Kids - Review

What I am Reviewing

Apollo Missions for Kids: the People and Engineering behind the race to the moon.
21 activities.
Jerome Pohlem
Chicago Review Press.
160 pages, softcover, grades 4-6.
Reviewed for Chicago Review Press.
Moon Landing, Outer space, astronomy, American History, science, geography, history, children’s non-fiction, upper elementary

In 1961, President Kennedy issued a challenge: before the end of the decade, the United States would land a person on the moon and return him safely to Earth—a bold proclamation at the time given that only one US astronaut had ever been to space, for just 15 minutes. To answer President Kennedy’s call, NASA embarked on the Apollo missions: a complicated, dangerous, and expensive adventure involving 400,000 people. Before the missions were over, NASA astronauts had made eleven Apollo flights, six of which landed on the moon, and eight astronauts had lost their lives. The Apollo Missions for Kids tells the story of this pivotal era in space exploration from the perspective of those who lived it—the astronauts and their families, the controllers and engineers, and the technicians and politicians who made the impossible possible.

The Apollo Missions for Kids

The Details of The Apollo Missions for Kids

One of the things I love about the 21 activities series by Chicago Review Press is how complete these books are.   

  • With experiments to help you understand the science behind the mission
  • Colour photos and  illustrations,
  • Highlighted learning
  • Resource lists
  • Timeline

Upper elementary children are drawn into deep understanding of the people, science and places behind important events.  The Apollo Missions for Kids is a well developed yet easy to understand manual. 

Let’s jump into the details shall we?

The Apollo Missions for Kids

Full colour images or photos dot every page of this 160 page book.  At 8 x 11.5 inches it’s an easy size to carry around.  I loved seeing all the different mission badges.  100 colour photos and 35 full colour illustrations.

The Apollo Missions for Kids

You will not only find photos of the mission and it’s people.  You will also drawings and labeled illustrations.  Be enabled to understand more fully the moon, the spaceships, the command modules and much more. 

21 Activities

The Apollo Missions for Kids

The 21 Activities have decent materials lists, and are varied in nature.  Sometimes you’ll be doing a science experiment but other times. you’ll be doing art projects or math.  Some of the activities include:

  • Determine your weight on the moon
  • Identify the moon’s features
  • Demonstrate orbital mechanics with a marble and a shallow bowl
  • Calculate how far away the moon is using sports equipment
  • Recreate the shape and size of the command module
  • Eat like an astronaut and make “space food”
  • Designing a mission patch

Highlighted Areas

The Apollo Missions for Kids

Yellow highlight boxes scatter the pages. These boxes teach about individuals, places, and other important details.   Some of the highlighted items are “The Command and Service Module”. “The Saturn V”, “The Lunar Roving Vehicle”, “Margaret Hamilton” and “Moon Suit”.

The Apollo Missions for Kids

My Thoughts and Recommendations

I love a book that is well-designed and thought out. One that works on feeding the fascination of students.  This book is great for upper elementary aged and older students.   With 21 activities, a timeline, resources for further study, and places to visit, this book brings this pivotal moment in history to life. The Apollo Missions for Kids manual helps us get to know the people and places important to the space race and American History. 

Other Space Books

disclosure

Want to learn keyboarding?

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Over the years I have looked at a number of keyboarding, or typing programs. Some free, some paid, all have their place.   I thought I’d work you through some of the options for who want to learn keyboarding, or have a student in need of these skills.

Want to Learn Keyboarding Skills?

Why Do I Care

You might be wondering why do I have this focus on keyboarding?  Why is it important that my son have excellent keyboarding skills?  

Did you know that I mark papers?  I KNOW .. funny eh?  I mark biology and physics papers for a high school. This very odd thing was learned!  I like papers that are typed out.  Typed papers mean I don’t have to fight with handwriting wondering if the penmanship is sloppy or if a word is spelled incorrectly.  It is quicker to read even writing and spacing.  It’s no small wonder to me that colleges and universities like their essays and papers typed out!

The elementary students of today will be tomorrow’s highschool and higher education students.   They will:

  • Write reports.
  • Argue papers, topics, put together presentations
  • Comment on discussion boards and blogs.
  • Journal in blogs and online tools like Penzu.
  • Research online (type addresses into a search bar).
  • Take digital notes (using Evernote, OneNote and similar).
  • Collaborate on Google Apps like docs, sheets, presentations.
  • Take online quizzes.
  • Use online tools for core classes (Wordle, Animoto, Story Creators).
  • And more

Having good keyboarding skills will make their jobs of learning easier.

Before we get too far in, let me talk about some of the products that I have actually used with my son. 

Keyboarding Reviews I have Done

We did UltraKey Online.   He pretty much liked this course, but found he didn’t really retain much of it when he was finished.   

Then came working through The Typing Coach.  This overall wasn’t a good fit for us long term.

This past year my son studiously engaged himself with Typing Instructor Platinum.  He really liked this program and found it also taught him to do the numbers, not just the letters.   It covered everything on the keyboard. 

Learn Keyboarding

Learn Keyboarding – free options

The benefits of free of course is that it is free.   Doesn’t cost you a dime beyond your internet fee.  Free programs can be really well done, or they can lacking in detail, practice time, tests or more.  Try them out, they are free, you will learn something and perhaps you can use one to build upon another.   Others it just requires using the full program and adding in drill time.

want to learn keyboarding

Learn Keyboarding – paid options

I have gone to thrift stores seeing keyboarding books there, the old flip style that I grew up with. 

Paid programs tend to be more complete than free, but not always.  Try before you buy so you can get a good feel for the program if you can.  

I found some options for you on amazon.  Note affiliate link.

Want to Learn Some Specifics?

Devotionals for Teens

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When my son was younger it was incredibly easy to find devotionals for him.  Easy worksheets on-line, whole curriculums, colouring sheets and more.  Now that he is getting older, it is more difficult to find free materials on-line for him.   This is what I have found when I looked for devotionals for teens.  

Devotionals for Teens

On-Line Free Resources

I am not going to say that every devotional on the sites below are good or have spot on teaching, but they do provide food for thought. They do provide fodder for good conversations. One needs to be careful in today’s religious clime to avoid encouraging false teaching, but we need to teach our teens to be discerning. They will need it to survive!

Josh McDowell Youth Ministries. 

Written for teenagers to use in their daily quiet time readings, this plan will make them laugh or cry. Some are fiction, some are stranger than fiction, but each will help you discover how to make right choices in the everyday ups and downs of life.

Student Devos.

A blog that posts a daily devotional geared at teens and young adults.  There is also a smaller section for youth and younger teens. 

Crosswalk

Posts a weekly devotional for teens on the theme Then and Now.

Wels.

Weekly devotionals geared at teens. 

DS2

Has a variety of topically based devotions.  

Youth4Him.

About 45 devotionals, I was unable to get the rest of the board to work. 

Devotionals for Teens

Now imagine my surprise when a link I was looking at took me to youtube.  I didn’t expect to find teen devotionals there.  I shouldn’t be surprised I gust in this digital age. 

What We have used

For the past year my son has been familiarizing himself with the books of the bible and their major passages and themes.   We’ve been using Teach Sunday School’s curriculum.  You can find my review here. He has been enjoying going through it, and though it isn’t free, it is well worth taking a look at. 

Devotionals for Teens Books of the Bible

Over this upcoming year we’ll doing working through Max Anders’ book 30 days to understanding the bible.  My review is here. 

Always Check for Error

Now remember… just like with anything.. read or watch or listen to what your teens might be listening to.  If only so you can talk with them, generating discussions to help them make their faith their own.  Thinking through issues, learning and discussing is the way to go eh?  🙂  You don’t want your teens believing things they shouldn’t about God’s word and the Christian faith.  Guide them.  Help them to seek after truth thoughtfully. 

Other Ideas?

I do love the idea of using a daily devotional to help encourage children and teens to dive into God’s word. It’s an easy way for them to interact with God’s word on a daily basis.  I sometimes struggle with the simplicity of most devotionals. Wanting to teach my son (and myself) how to just read God’s word for themselves.   This is a skill I hope to teach my son over the next year.  Different ways that he himself can explore God’s word on his own so he can more truly make it his own.

Want to Learn Some Specifics?