Summer School Winding Down

I can hardly believe summer school is already winding down. Our September vacation to Florida is just around the corner. It's difficult not to wish it to come soon, as that would mean ushering in fall too. We definitely don't want that!

Tessa finished up both Lollipop Logic, Book 1 and Evan-Moor Everyday Literacy: Science, Grade 1 this week. She is totally bummed...to the point of crying about it. Luckily, we still have 3-4 weeks of Evan-Moor Beginning Geography left. That should tide her over until we embark on many new journeys this fall. We are still plugging away at Hooked on Phonics and Singapore Math.

What is a Star?

A nice thing about subscribing to Evan-Moor TeacherFileBox.com instead of buying individual books is that I can pull from various levels of the same curriculum series. While deciding between Everyday Literacy: Science, Grade K and Grade 1, I found that we had already covered most of the topics in Grade K with the science that we had previously used. Several topics were repeated in greater detail in Grade 1 as well. There were five topics from Grade K, though, that we hadn't really covered and I didn't want Tessa to miss them. I have been weaving those topics into the Grade 1 curriculum.

One such topic from Grade K was, "What is a Star?" I condensed the material to two days since the lessons were quite simple. The hands-on science activity is featured below. Tessa used seven silver stick-on stars, black construction paper and white chalk to recreate the Big Dipper constellation.

Guided by a photo on my Kindle Fire, Tessa recreated the Big Dipper constellation with silver stick-on stars and black construction paper.

Tessa wrote "Big Dipper" and dotted in other stars with white chalk.

Tessa's Big Dipper!

Looking at Rocks

For this week's hands-on activity from Evan-Moor Everyday Literacy: Science, Tessa simulated the effects of weather on mock rocks. I formed the rocks from a mixture of coffee, coffee grounds, flour and salt ahead of time.

The coffee mixture made pretty convincing rocks. After a full day of basking in the sun, they dried nearly, well, as hard as rocks!

First, Tessa rubbed sandpaper over a rock to simulate wind blowing grains of sand against large rocks.

Tessa rubbed sandpaper over a mock rock.

Next, she placed a rock in a jar of water and shook it to simulate waves crashing against a cliff.

After shaking a rock in a jar of water, Tessa checked for changes.

Finally, Tessa dropped and hit rocks together to see what would happen.

Tessa learned that when large rocks collide, they break into smaller rocks. In time, those smaller rocks turn into sand or soil.

A close-up of one of Tessa's changed rocks.

Tessa and I both greatly enjoyed this experiment. It well-suited her age and cemented in her mind the various ways rocks are changed by natural forces.

Parts of an Insect

We will be finishing up a little-known early elementary science program in the next month or so that I think is absolutely wonderful for the preschool/kindergarten set. This past fall, I had the worst time finding a meaty enough science curriculum for the kindergarten level, so I pieced together my own lessons. The process was extremely time-consuming. Our small local libraries have very limited resources, so I had to buy the majority of the books we used as well. At $5-6+ a picture book, one to two books per week, it added up fast. After purchasing a discounted yearlong subscription to Evan-Moor TeacherFileBox.com via Homeschool Buyers Co-op earlier this year, I stumbled upon Everyday Literacy: Science. We are using Grade 1, but there are three levels...Grade PreK, Grade K and Grade 1.

Everyday Literacy: Science, Grade 1 - We use a digital version.

Tessa absolutely adores Everyday Literacy: Science. While there is a short lesson for each day of the week, I condense them to three days (first two pages the first day, second two pages the second day and the hands-on activity the third day). Tessa literally bums out when I tell her, "Sorry, no science today." It's her favorite subject!

Everyday Literacy: Science is about as open-and-go as you can get for science. The final lesson each week features a hands-on activity that reinforces the week's science concept. They do require a bit of prep work but use basic household supplies, or materials that can be printed from the internet. The activities are perfect for the age. Everyday Literacy: Science is worksheet-intensive but requires no additional texts to be purchased. All content is written into the lessons. Concepts are presented in interesting and memorable ways. Tessa's retention has been remarkable. The worksheets require little-to-no reading and writing. They utilize very basic coloring, circling, underlining, dot-making, tracing, filling-in-the-bubble and similar skills. Aside from the hands-on activities, lessons take only five to ten minutes to complete.

This past week, Tessa learned about the parts of an insect. Today's hands-on activity required her to create an insect of her own design. She remembered that all insects have three main body parts (head, thorax and abdomen), two antennas and six legs.

Tessa rolled dough for the three main body parts of an insect...head, thorax and abdomen.

Tessa attached six legs (and later wings) to the thorax.

Tessa's completed insect of her own design.

A close-up of Tessa's insect...it's a fancy grasshopper.