A home for their hearts Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 (edited) We are going to begin our earth and space studies this week. I've borrowed The usborne first encyclopedia of our world from the library along with a few of Seymour Simon books and a few others. Now I'm in need of some ideas for hands on activities. My kids seem to remember things better if they do something that is hands on plus it makes learning a lot of fun. :001_smile: Edited October 19, 2008 by A home for their hearts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trivium Academy Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 My lesson plans have Usborne's First Encyclopedia of our World and Space aligned with activities, websites, videos to watch on Discovery Education (if you get that) and living books (excellent book list!) to read alongside each week. It might be a help and the plans are cheap. http://www.lulu.com/content/1026490 I also have earth science copywork in case you want it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen in CO Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 We are working through an earth science co-op right now. We're on week 5 of 10. Some activities that have been impressive so far are: We used snack-sized three musketeer bars to show plate movement and mountain formation. They are good at showing convergent boundaries. We put different types of chocolate and peanut butter chips in Ziploc bags and sat on them to show metamorphic rocks - "heat and pressure make metamorphic rocks." We made sedimentary rocks with a mix of colored sand and plaster of Paris - we even mixed in some shells. We made a model of the earth with a gummy bear core, rice crispy mantle then froze that and put a candy shell crust on it. We made models of the three basic types of volcanoes (shield, composite, and cinder cone) and discussed and painted them. We are working through the basics of rock identification with one new property each week - density, hardness, streak test, cleavage, compsition.... This week we are looking at crystaline structure, breaking some geodes and eating rock candy for our activity. Since we have only 10 weeks, we are focusing mostly on earth, but one thing we will do is the 1000 yard model of the solar system to get a feel for the relative size of things. it can be found here http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html We have been playing MapTangle for fun and pulling some geography into the earth part of the earth science. We've also been doing lots of geography puzzles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magistramom Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1885593295/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link We loved GEOLOGY ROCKS! by Cindy Blobaum. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pata Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 I love Janice VanCleave's books for experiments, she has one on earth science. You can usually find them at the library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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