Last week, my son was playing with a fortune teller that he found in an activity book. It predicted what amazing vacation he had in his future. It had destinations like Disney World and Paris, but his destination ended up being “A smelly sewage works.” This was hilarious to us because last week we actually had a homeschool group field trip to . . . our local sewage treatment plant!

At the water treatment facility, we had a full sewage treatment plant tour of the various water treatment cells, as well as introduction to the science lab where testing occurs. My son and I had read the Magic School bus book about the trip to the waterworks in the past, so some of it was delightfully familiar! We still learned so much from the tour! While it was, admittedly, rather smelly, it was eye opening in so many ways.
Really, everyone should experience a science field trip like this at some point! The good thing is that every community is sure to have a wastewater treatment facility. My only caveat is that younger kids must be restrained so they won’t run around, as there are huge 20-foot deep containers of gross waste water being treated around every corner. For this reason, I left my super-active 4-year-old daughter at a friend’s house this time around. She probably would not have appreciated the tour as much as a school-aged child.
Here are the things we learned from this super gross science field trip.
Continue reading
Tag Archives: science
Learning about Biomes Game Cards

My son is currently taking Geology from Athena’s Academy, using the Focus on Geology textbook from Real-Science-4-Kids. It’s labeled a Middle School textbook, and his class is using it as a nice overview of the various concepts of geology. Their online class spent extra time learning about volcanoes, earthquakes and other ways the earth’s crust changes. They’ve spent time learning about rocks and the layers of the earth. Now he’s moving in to the other aspects of the earth, such as the atmosphere and now the biosphere. To review the various biomes on earth, I made biomes game cards for us to play with and to spark discussion.
Continue readingThe Play Dough Way to Learn about Core Sampling

My son is taking an online Geology class this winter/spring. Recently, his class talked about core sampling, and I was intrigued by the concept. This week we replicated core sampling with play dough, and it gave us a lot to talk about. What we can learn from what is under the surface of the earth, simply by taking a sample of one spot?
Continue readingSTEM Challenge: Build a Bedroom Model with LEGO Bricks
My son has struggled with area and perimeter so we decided to make it hands on. I gave Raisin a challenge this morning: find the area and perimeter of his bedroom. Further, I asked him to build a bedroom model to go along with his answer.
Then, I gave him a measuring tape and graphing paper and told him he could use LEGO bricks if he wanted. He was delighted to get to work in making a bedroom model, and was especially excited once I mentioned LEGO bricks!
Continue reading
Human Body and Nutrition Activities
This year, for science, my son and I are using Galore Park Junior Science 1. For chapter 1, my daughter had not yet begun preschool, so I decided to play up the chapter into a human body unit for both of my “students.” With pregnancy as a distraction, this became my daughter’s busy box activities for much of the last two months.

The first part of the chapter was about the human body in general, with a bit of emphasis on digestion. My daughter has been obsessed with the digestive system since she potty trained six months ago, so I focused on the rest of the body. The second part of the chapter was about nutrition, followed by teeth and bones.
Here are some of the human body and nutrition activities I did with my preschool daughter and my elementary-aged son.
Continue reading
Integrating STEM into Our Elementary Homeschool
The middle of the school year is the perfect time for evaluating how the curricula choices have been going and tweak the schedule.
This month, I finally accepted two things that I’ve been fighting against.
First, Writing With Ease Level 2 was not working for Raisin. He hated it. The “listen to a passage” portion was boring. The copywork was tedious. And although he seemed somewhat interested in the books the quotations were from, he was bored with all the work.
Secondly, my husband reiterated again to me that he wants me to do more with S.T.E.M. subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Now, I am not a science and math type of person. At least, those subject were always the most difficult for me in school. I was not even sure I could label what engineering really is. So I must insist that I still am not a STEM person.
That said, I have found that integrating STEM more fully in to our school work is not as hard as I was afraid of! Continue reading
Teaching with Technology: Stop Motion Videos (Sea Anemones)

We gave new life to our sea animal research project by turning our research information into a stop-motion video!
My son’s science class in our co-op finished learning about the ocean just before break. Although there is not often take-home work, the teacher did in this case give the class an assignment: learn about a sea animal and report back to the class in some sort of presentation (a poster, a pamphlet, etc.). Since I absolutely love everything to do with the Coral Reef, I strongly encouraged him to so something coral reef related. (I would have been happy with something else if he really wanted.
It was finally time to give him all the pieces of my Coral Reef Unit! When he found the drawing component a bit too tedious, we changed is final project into a stop-motion video using a simple app on his tablet! Continue reading
Kitchen Table Science: Sink or Float?

We’ve been learning about ducks, thanks to Strawberry’s interest. After reading dozens of books and playing with duckies in the tub, Strawberry still wants more! To play up the duck theme yet farther, Strawberry, Raisin, and I conducted experiments with sinking and floating. Continue reading
Sorting Living Things into the Five Kingdoms
I mentioned a few weeks ago that our co-op science teacher has family heath issues; she dropped out of teaching for the remainder of this year and we have decided to not seek out a sub as there are so few weeks left. I was panicked, as I’ve never believed I was very strong in scientific concepts. What could I do for my son’s science learning?
Well, it turns out it is not too hard to find things to do! I decided to finish off the Human Body, which is what the co-op teacher had been teaching, because my son has been immersed in body books this winter and spring. Then I have moved on to animals! Continue reading
Almost Spring + Coral Freebie
It may officially be spring, but after the winter we’ve had, it’s been hard to image it was nearly here. This week, though, the weather warmed a bit this week! As a warm thank you to Spring for nearly arriving in Chicago-land, I’ve also created a small freebie for you, my readers!
Continue reading