I haven't posted on my blog in so long, and with JJ age 6, our 18 month old (Bear), and a little newbie boy baking at 5 months along, I'm not likely to be posting much in the near future, but I have made some lesson plans using Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding which I wanted to post online in case it might help another mom feel confident to use this great book!
I'll post them as I create them. We'll be using a couple a month, over the rest of JJ's kinder year - 2nd grade, moving as slowly as we need to. Since I have no clue how to link to a word document, I'll just cut and paste them directly into my blog. Anyone reading who'd like the files themselves, I'm happy to send them if you'll give me your email address.
Lessons included here are in the order I will begin to use them (about 6-8 weeks worth) and include A/B-1, A-2, A-3, and B-2. Most of what is there is taken directly from Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding and credit to Dr. Nebel; I have added a few points or outside resources/ideas of my own for teaching.
More coming soon!
Happy homeschooling!
Building Foundations of
Scientific Understanding
Quick summary of lessons in order with resources to be used
for each. We will explore each concept
for a minimum of 2 weeks during K, 1st, and 2nd grade
years, alongside Sonlight Science and assorted living and interest-led books
and projects.
A/B-1: Organizing things into
Categories
Teach
As often as
possible, use the words ORGANIZE(D) and CATEGORY(IES)
·
-At
the grocery store, library, etc.
·
-In
the schoolroom, kitchen, etc. and during clean up times.
Remind child
that organization and categories can change.
What is organized into the category “toys for John” will certainly
change as John grows from a baby to a school-age child, for example.
Ask
Q: Why do we put things into
categories? Why have we organized things
this way?
A: To help us find things when
we need them. To keep track of
things. To help us learn, think and
recall things we need to know. Our
brains have a hard time handling many different things at a time. Organizing things into categories helps us
make sense of what we know as well as make use of what we know.
Do
o
Place
20 random household objects on a tray.
Allow child to see it for 20 seconds, then remove and ask child how many
objects he can recall in 2 minutes.
Demonstrate how sorting these same items into categories will improve
recall.
o
Play
“store” in play kitchen area while having him group items for sale into category. Review the basic food groups and money at the
same time!
o
Have
him help sort laundry into categories and assist in putting it away in the
proper places, or sort and put away a collection of scattered household items
during tidy-up times according to category they fall into (kitchen items, toys,
dirty dishes or clothing, etc).
Resources to use
Sorting
vehicles set
A-2: Solids, Liquids,
and Gases
Teach
Identification
of solids, liquids, and gases
·
Provide
assorted examples of SOLIDS, LIQUIDS, GASES (use a balloon full of air “whooshed”
in the child’s face, or fan the air at them, for a gas), and coach children in
identifying each. Make sure they
understand a liquid is a liquid and NOT the contained holding it.
Point out
that
·
Solids
have distinct sizes and shapes, which can be very different, but they will stay
in a certain space without a container.
If child is confused by something like salt or sugar which “pours” point
out that it can be swept into a pile.
Try to do the same with water to demonstrate it will simply flow and
spread again.
·
Liquids
will take the shape of their container and will spread if not in a container.
·
Gas
is all around us in the form of air.
Demonstrate how we breathe it in and out, blow bubbles, and blow up
balloons with it. We cannot see many
kinds of gases but we can smell them.
Spray perfume or air freshener on one side of the room and allow child
to note when he can smell it on the other.
Show that solids,
liquids and gases can change from one to another.
·
Have
child classify an ice cube, then the meltwater, then the steam from
boiling. Emphasize that solid, liquid
and gas refer to the present state of a material.
Introduce
the idea of matter.
·
All
solids, liquids, and gases are referred to as MATTER. Solid, liquid or gas are states describing
matter. Review the idea that solids,
liquids and gases are ways of ORGANIZING matter into CATEGORIES.
·
Matter
applies to ALL material. Everything we
can see, touch, taste or smell is matter.
Ask
Q: Can you identify a solid, a liquid, and a gas in
the house? Challenge: can you identify
solids, liquids and gases in our body?
A: Open ended, but be careful in the answer “blood” though
as blood is part liquid plasma, part solid cells. Any child’s body book or the internet can
show a picture that will easily demonstrate this.
Q: What happened to change the
ice cube to water, and the water to steam?
A: Changes in temperature were
involved. If child shows difficultly
understanding that, show the child how a solid pat of butter will melt in a pan
applied to the hot stovetop for cooking, or how various liquids will freeze in
an ice cube tray when put in a cold freezer.
Q: As something wet becomes dry,
what happens to the water?
A: The water is going into the
air as a gas.
Q: How does your nose detect a
smell?
A: Gaseous particles of the material
are in the air. You breathe them into
your nose.
Q: What is one word describing
all solids, liquids, and gases?
A: Matter
Q: Can you describe how matter
changes states from solid to liquid to gas?
A: Changes in temperature can
change matter from one state to another.
Do
o
Have
child identify solids, liquids, and gases in the kitchen or bathroom.
o
Have
the child identify solids, liquids and gases that are part of their meal.
o
Discuss
parts of the body that are solid, liquid or gas (will amuse kids to point out
that urine is a liquid).
o
Usborne
Science Activities vol. 2, page 3. Have a paper race to demonstrate that air is
real.
o
Usborne
SA, page 30. Disappearing water
experiment to help demonstrate that water from a wet object goes into the air
as a gas. If it cannot, the object won’t
get dry.
Resources to use
Books
·
What
is a Solid? What is a Liquid? What is a
Gas? (Jennifer Boothroyd)
·
Solids,
Liquids, and Gases (Ginger Garrett)
·
The
Solid Truth About Matter (Graphic Science)
·
What
is the World Made of? (Kathleen
Zoehfeld)
·
Usborne
Science Activities vol. 2
A-3: Air is a Substance
Teach
Air (gases)
is a real substance.
Matter can
have many differences (size, color, state, etc) but it ALL takes up space
and has weight.
Gases take
up space, which we demonstrate by:
·
Blowing
up a balloon while asking what is going into the balloon to make it inflate,
and pointing out that if air were nothing, it could not push out the sides of a
balloon.
·
Usborne
SA page 3: Hold an empty bottle underwater to show how air bubbles out when
water flows in. Air is being displaced
by the water, and it leaves as bubbles that you can see while they are
underwater. Point out that air and water
can’t be in the same place at the same time; no two materials can occupy the
same place at the same time. Also have
child blow into a glass of water with a straw to see the bubbles their breath
makes to reinforce the same concept.
Gases have
weight, which we demonstrate by:
·
Placing
two identical balloons on either side of a balance. Show that they balance – they weigh the
same. Then inflate one balloon; show
that they no longer balance. Or just search
Youtube for a demo video of this by typing “Balancing balloons – Air has weight”.
Explain that
although there is a lot of air around us, we do not feel the weight of it
because it is pressing equally all over us – both on top of and underneath our
arms, for example. Suck in cheeks and
explain that they cave in because you are removing the air from your mouth, so
the outside air is presses your cheeks in.
Helium
balloons rise not because the gas helium has no weight, but because helium
weighs less than the other gases that make up air, so it floats in air.
Ask
Q: When we feel wind or fan ourselves with a fan, what
are we feeling?
A: Air! Air,
even though we can’t see it, is a real thing, which takes up space and has
weight.
Q: When we breathe, what is going in and out of our
lungs?
A: Air. We need
the oxygen in the air for our body processes to work correctly.
Q: How can you show that air takes up space?
A: Blow up a balloon, see bubbles coming out of an “empty”
bottle held underwater, etc.
Q: How can you show that air has weight?
A: Compare the weight of a full verses deflated balloon
on a balance. The full balloon weighs
more.
Q: Why can’t you feel air pressing on you?
A: Air presses equally on all parts of you, therefore
you cannot feel it pressing.
Q: How is air, or gas, like liquids and solids?
A: All are matter.
Review that all matter takes up space and has weight, and that two
materials cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
Q: Why are solids, liquids and gases three categories
of matter?
A: Because matter can exist in all three states, and
varies with temperature. (If confused
review the ice cube example).
Do
o
Water
play in a large container or the bathtub with small empty containers,
straws.
o
Point
out the wind while outdoors to show that air is a real substance that takes up
space and has weight.
o
For
an extra fun, memorable lesson, play in a bounce house and discuss with child
what the bounce structures are filled with (can show them the air pumps which
push air into the houses, keeping them inflated)! A memorable way to realize that air takes up
space and has weight, and is a real (and very fun) thing.
Resources to use
Books
·
Air
is All Around You. (Franklyn Branley)
·
Can
You See the Wind? (Allan Fowler)
·
Youtube
(for demo video of balancing balloons)
·
Usborne
Science Activities vol 2.
B-2: Distinguishing
Living, Natural non-living, and Human made things.
Teach, Ask and Do
How to tell
the difference between living, natural non-living, and human made things.
·
Take
a shopping bag on outdoor walks/to the park/around the house etc and have child
collect assorted items of interest.
·
Review
the idea of organizing items into categories and make three boxes labelled 1)
living or biological things, 2) natural, non-living things, 3) human made things
·
Hand
the child objects from the bag and ask them to put each into what they think
are the correct boxes. Do this several different
times over the course of this lesson to reinforce it. As they do so and ask questions or make
mistakes, discuss the following:
§ Characteristics of Living things –
any plant, animal, or fungi material, currently living or dead:
§ Have orientation (a top and bottom, a
front and back, a head and tail, an upside down and right side up, etc). Contrast to a rock, which has no orientation.
§ Have symmetry, either a right and
left side that mirror each other, or radial symmetry such as a pinecone, or
circular pattern such as a starfish.
Symmetry found in natural non-living things, by contrast, is rare and
randomly seen.
§ Fine structure and detail, in an
even, repeating pattern. Use a
magnifying glass or microscope to see this further.
§ Tenuous quality – living things can
die. They need specific conditions to
stay alive (temperature, food, light, etc.) and even if given these, will
progress through a cycle of aging and death.
Living things continue because they can reproduce.
§ Characteristics of Non-living natural
things – all non-biological things that are not human made, dirt, rocks, clay,
water, air, etc.
§ Have an absence of those features
above which help us define living things
§ Point out that air and water are
non-living natural things, since it is unlikely a child would put these into
their bag.
§ Characteristics of Human made things
or materials – all synthetic material and any human made item created from
natural material.
§ Often have orientation and symmetry
but lack the other attributes of the living things.
§ Are not tenuous in that they do not
live and then die. But some do require
fuel or batteries to run, and some can break.
§ May be made of natural materials such
as wood, but also from materials that do not occur in nature such as plastic or
paper.
§ Are usually made for a specific
purpose.
§ Can human beings make something from
nothing? No – and then point out the
resource used to make each human-made item.
Resources to
use
World
Discovery Box and its included items (http://www.worlddiscoverybox.com/)
Books
·
What
is a Living Thing? (Bobbie Kalman)
·
Materials
(Heinemann)
·
Natural
and Man-made (Heinemann)
