Tag: Homeschool

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Traveling During School

Kristen Blanchard

We have been doing some traveling lately and normally that would be a hard thing to do during a school year. Thankfully we’ve chosen to home school our children during this challenging time. I have to say it’s been quite wonderful, especially given the fact that we made an impromptu trip to Southern California. Here is how we dealt with traveling during school.

We decided to travel to Southern California last month for a few days. Just enough time to get away and be together as a family. However, we would be returning home on Columbus Day, a Monday, which we did not have off of school. So instead of skipping school I packed it with us.

If you haven’t read my previous post Top 5 Tips for Homeschool you should check it out. In there I have the 5 things that have helped me with this homeschool adventure so far. Among the post you’ll find an organizing solution that helped me so much while we were traveling during school.

Having a few days to plan out our trip, I made a lesson plan that would incorporate Columbus Day and be interactive for my kids to stay busy on the long drive home. Inside of our storage containers for school I made sure that they each had pencils, crayons, extra paper and their workbooks that would be necessary for their lessons. I also made a small notebook that they would use to make their own map for our journey home.

Routine is so important to children. It gives them a sense of stability. Because even in this uncertain time, they can count on some things being the same or similar day after day. Even though we happened to be traveling, I kept up with our routine and tried to make school on the road similar to how we do it at home.

We started the day off with an introduction to Columbus and why it’s a day that is recognized. After that I made it more interesting for them and we discussed the topic of explorers. I had them grab their notebook and I asked them what things they think an explorer might be looking for on their travels. We made topics on each page like: miles to home, landscape, wildlife, and stops made along the way.

This was done by my 3 year old.

We drew the state of California and charted a course for home. Next we used a map to find out the number of miles it would take for us to get there. Then we moved on to Language Arts until it was time to head home. One of the things we like to do for Language Arts is to draw a picture and write about it. The cool thing about vacation, or traveling during school, is that that there are so many things that you’ve done that you can draw and write about.

My older daughter loved the driving that we did. She drew a picture of our family in the car…it wasn’t quite realistic with a different compartment for each person. When I asked her about it she said “It’s my imaginary mom!”. You know what? I’ll take it. I’m glad she could incorporate her imagination into our trip. My younger daughter loved the beach so she drew her and myself at the beach. I’m pretty sure one of us was a mermaid. It was too cute.

After a while we headed home and began our explorer journals. As we were driving I had them look out the windows and tell me what they saw. They recorded it in their journals and labeled them. I also had them record each stop that we made. We looked at our map to see how many miles we had gone and how many we had left to go. We also tried to find one “cool” thing at each stop. Their favorite was finding dog paw prints in some mud. Of course we had to draw and label it as well.

We all had so much fun traveling during school. The kids felt like explorers and they were very entertained on the ride home which helps everyone. They were engaged for most of the drive and genuinely curious about the world around them. Our girls had so many questions about the things they saw. Thankfully we were able to answer them…I’m sure one of these days they will have some harder ones for us that we might have to look up.

Overall, I’d say that traveling during school was successful for our family. I was able to plan ahead to be able to bring the things that we needed and to make a fun and engaging activity that incorporated most of our subjects into one easy activity. I think the key to handling homeschool is to have fun with it. We have so many more opportunities than traditional school and we have the ability to really engage with our children and make a difference in the way that they learn. If your children see you enjoying the process of teaching, more than likely, they will enjoy the process of learning because you’ll both be having fun.

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Earthquake Experiment

Kristen Blanchard

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? I have only been in a very mild one in Southern California. It felt like I was dizzy and the room was spinning. It lasted for a very short time and was over almost as quickly as it began. Imagine being in a severe earthquake where your whole house shakes or buildings topple over. That would not be a pleasant experience. But because we live in California and earthquakes are a very real possibility where we are, I thought that an earthquake experiment would be a great activity for my kids.

Not only does this experiment give us the opportunity for education about the surface of the Earth and the way it moves, but it also gives us the opportunity to learn about earthquake safety and what to do if we ever experience one.

To perform the experiment you will need:

-Jello

-Cookie sheet with edges or shallow baking dish

-LEGOs or other blocks for building structures

Step 1:

Make the Jello and place it into the cookie sheet with edges or a shallow baking dish to set.

This thin layer of Jello will act as the Tectonic plates on the Earth’s crust that move. It is important to try and give the Jello a level surface in your fridge to set otherwise the block structures that you make may have a harder time standing on their own.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make the Jello the day before you plan to do the earthquake experiment. It takes several hours for Jello to set.

Step 2:

Create an example model for your kids.

Make a tall and somewhat narrow building. This will allow the jiggling Jello to knock over the building with ease.

We chose to use our math manipulative blocks to make our structures.

Step 3:

Place your building in the center of your Jello. If you haven’t already, this is a great time to discuss with your child about the Tectonic plates in the Earth and the different ways that they can move.

Next have your child shake the container of Jello until the building falls. They will have so much fun with this part!

Step 4:

Have your child make their own building that is different from yours and try it out in the Jello to see how stable their structure is.

During this time of your children experimenting with their own structures, it is a good idea to explain what makes buildings stable (foundation, reinforced beams and pillars, center of gravity, etc.) if they are old enough to understand these concepts. If they are younger you might want to talk about what stability means and what you can do to make things more stable.

This was especially fun for my older daughter. She loves LEGOs and building anything she can get her hands on. When I gave her the task of making her own building, she chose to make a bridge. Her first attempt was too narrow with not enough support on the bottom and it fell over almost immediately. I asked her thoughts on why it failed to stand then gave her some additional information about stability. She had the chance to make adjustments and try again. The next attempt she made was much more stable and actually was not able to be knocked over by the Jello.

My younger daughter made a really tall and narrow building with a flat base that fell over almost immediately as well. I explained what can happen if there is too much weight at the top of a building. When she had the chance to make adjustments, she made a very short and wide building. When it was time to test it in the Jello her structure remained standing.

Once you’ve finished with the earthquake experiment it would be a good time to brush up on what to do in case of an earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey has some good information about what to do in this situation. After introducing the idea to your kids you can make it as fun as possible by acting out an earthquake and taking the appropriate actions to take to keep everyone safe.

We all had so much fun with this earthquake experiment. My girls learned about the Earth’s surface, movement, stability, and gravity all while “playing”. They were so proud of themselves for being able to fix the issues in their buildings and actually have them work out. It was such a great learning experience for them and something that I think will be memorable as well.

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Oobleck

Kristen Blanchard

If you’ve never played with Oobleck, or tried to make it before…it’s definitely something that you need to do!

Oobleck is what is called a Non-Newtonian fluid. This means that it does not follow Newton’s Law of Viscosity, or the idea that a liquid has a constant flow unless a temperature change occurs.

In short, the more pressure you place on the Oobleck, the harder is becomes (like a solid). The less pressure you apply, the softer it becomes (like a liquid). If you punch the Oobleck it feels like you’re hitting the ground but if you gently press your hand into it, it feels like a liquid. It’s sort of mind blowing…like how can it be liquid and solid at the same time? The science lies in the size of the cornstarch particles. They are so small that they can’t really bind together and end up trapping water molecules between them creating “solid” parts as pressure is applied.

Anyway, on to the experiment. Oobleck has 2 ingredients cornstarch and water. You can add food coloring if you’d like to make it bright and more appealing to your kids.

Oobleck

materials

  • cornstarch
  • water
  • large bowl
  • spoon
  • food coloring (optional)

Step 1

Grab your mixing bowl and place 1 cup of water into the bowl. If you plan on using food coloring add it to this step so that the color is evenly mixed into the Oobleck.

Step 2

Add 1 cup of cornstarch to the water.

Step 3

Mix the cornstarch into the water using the spoon. If you’ve done it correctly this will quickly become hard to mix. If that is the case, go ahead and get your hands in there to finish the mixing process.

Notes

  • If you mixed the ingredients together but your mixture feels too watery, add more cornstarch to the mixture. A small amount at a time (1/4 cup) so that you don’t add too much.
  • If you added to much cornstarch you can thin it out by adding more water. Again, add the water slowly so that you don’t make it too watery.
  • If you’ve mixed the ingredients together and it’s too watery but you don’t have any more corn starch, (this happened to me) you can add tapioca flour or arrowroot powder if you happen to have those on hand.

This experiment is so much fun and it kept my kids busy for quite a while. I hope you’ll try it out and let your inner kid have some fun!