I just came across links to these two educational websites.
This one helps you comprehend the size of an atom. Quite fascinating!
Cell Size and Scale
And this one has a short educational video for each element on the periodic table.
The Periodic Table of Videos
These are both interesting and useful websites that I would like to use as supplements when it comes time to study biology and chemistry with my children. But there are many, many interesting educational websites like these that I would like to use in the future. I'm not really sure how to keep track of them all!
So here's a question for other homeschooling parents. How do you keep track of educational websites that you would like to use in the future? There are so many fantastic resources online, how do you organize them all? Any thoughts about the internet as an educational resource would be appreciated. :)
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
Friday, 4 February 2011
Things of a very vaguely scientific nature
Cross posted from my blog-apologies to anyone who has already read this.
Youngest daughter keeps asking to do "experiments". Recently, we investigated ice and melting using an idea from a DK science book, "In the Garden".
I've been really impressed by some of the ideas in the book but this idea around freezing and melting was particularly good-home ingredients, little mess and results that were fun to observe.
We half filled a muffin tray with water. We used tap water although the book suggests rain water. I didn't know how long I would have to wait for rain. We then put in pieces of flower and leaves in the water and a loop of string in each hole.
The flowers have strange tints as they were previously used to look at transport in plants, using coloured water.
The muffin container went in the freezer for half a day, we took out the finished product and hung it outside and talked about how long it would take to melt.
This current interest, probably stemmed from our cell model using jelly for cytoplasm, a truffle for the nucleus and various other sweets for other organelles. Thank you to Apologia for this idea.
Youngest daughter keeps asking to do "experiments". Recently, we investigated ice and melting using an idea from a DK science book, "In the Garden".
I've been really impressed by some of the ideas in the book but this idea around freezing and melting was particularly good-home ingredients, little mess and results that were fun to observe.
We half filled a muffin tray with water. We used tap water although the book suggests rain water. I didn't know how long I would have to wait for rain. We then put in pieces of flower and leaves in the water and a loop of string in each hole.
The flowers have strange tints as they were previously used to look at transport in plants, using coloured water.
The muffin container went in the freezer for half a day, we took out the finished product and hung it outside and talked about how long it would take to melt.
This current interest, probably stemmed from our cell model using jelly for cytoplasm, a truffle for the nucleus and various other sweets for other organelles. Thank you to Apologia for this idea.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Science year 5 and 6/grades 4 and 5
I was going to call this "super science" but thought this was a bit silly. Silliness apart, Apologia Elementary is super science.
When we started home education, I wanted to find science that was more interesting than the anodyne science that the children had seemed to do at school at primary school age and was delighted to find Apologia Elementary.
Apologia Elementary is a Christian, home education curriculum from the US but available in the UK from Conquest books who deliver very promptly. There are books around various themes-botany, astronomy, the human body and three on zoology. Each book is meant to take about a year although we've found they take a little less. The science is in much more depth than that we had seen done at a primary age previously.
A vaguely Charlotte Mason approach is used with text which can either be read aloud or the child can read and suggestions for narration and composition. The composition ideas use a variety of formats. The books are said to be suitable from ages 5-12. I don't think that my five year olds would have managed these books unless they were read to them with a fair amount of explanation. We are currently using them with our 10 year old and they are ideal for him.
One of the really great things about these books is the activities. Melting chocolate with a magnifying glass was a favourite. There are activities in each chapter and they are designed to be done at home with ingredients readily available. Conquest do supply equipment for all the activities but this is fairly pricey and it isn't difficult to find the necessaries around the house.
The picture below is our salt dough model of Olympus Mons after it had erupted.
Now, a confession, we started the first term of home education using the first zoology book. Our son found it so different from school science that we changed to a more standard curriculum for a couple of terms before he asked to do science in more detail and we went happily back to Apologia. In retrospect, I would have done some sort of fairly hands on science for a term before starting Apologia. Otherwise, Apologia Elementary is something I would throughly recommend.
When we started home education, I wanted to find science that was more interesting than the anodyne science that the children had seemed to do at school at primary school age and was delighted to find Apologia Elementary.
Apologia Elementary is a Christian, home education curriculum from the US but available in the UK from Conquest books who deliver very promptly. There are books around various themes-botany, astronomy, the human body and three on zoology. Each book is meant to take about a year although we've found they take a little less. The science is in much more depth than that we had seen done at a primary age previously.
A vaguely Charlotte Mason approach is used with text which can either be read aloud or the child can read and suggestions for narration and composition. The composition ideas use a variety of formats. The books are said to be suitable from ages 5-12. I don't think that my five year olds would have managed these books unless they were read to them with a fair amount of explanation. We are currently using them with our 10 year old and they are ideal for him.
One of the really great things about these books is the activities. Melting chocolate with a magnifying glass was a favourite. There are activities in each chapter and they are designed to be done at home with ingredients readily available. Conquest do supply equipment for all the activities but this is fairly pricey and it isn't difficult to find the necessaries around the house.
The picture below is our salt dough model of Olympus Mons after it had erupted.
Now, a confession, we started the first term of home education using the first zoology book. Our son found it so different from school science that we changed to a more standard curriculum for a couple of terms before he asked to do science in more detail and we went happily back to Apologia. In retrospect, I would have done some sort of fairly hands on science for a term before starting Apologia. Otherwise, Apologia Elementary is something I would throughly recommend.
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