JUL
14
2011

Expedition Earth: Arctic Circle Soap Whittling

By | Art, Geography, Homeschool

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Welcome to kids soap whittling 101! After learning about all of our fun Arctic friends, we did a super fun soap carving project that was one of our favorites for the year according to my son. I guess whittling is kind of a manly thing.   We made a penguin and a fish, which was originally a whale, but looked more like a fish so we just went with it. Sometimes you have to be flexible when creating art. Supplies: 1 bar of Dove (or Lever 2000) soap per student 1 butter knife per student Pencil or skewer to draw basic shape on soap We started off by drawing a basic shape on our soap. I think you’re supposed to use Ivory for this, but I wasn’t on the ball, so we had to use Lever 2000. Honestly, I think it was easy to do, not flaky like dove, kind of soft and moldable a little bit. That came in hand when the girl accidentally cut off one of her penguins flippers. There, now you know what soap our family uses. It’s okay, I’m not afraid to … [Read more...]

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JUL
08
2011

Expedition Earth: Arctic Circle Snowy Owl Craft

By | Art, Geography, Homeschool

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Welcome to another fun Arctic Kids Craft! Today we learned about the Snowy Owl, then watched Owl Babies on You Tube. After that we made a fun Snowy Owl Craft. What supplies do you need? 3 paper plates per student white craft glue paint brush orange construction paper for beak and feet 2 google eyes per student Fake snow Step 1: Cut one paper plate in half, cut a rectangle shape from the top of 1 plate for head, and keep one plate whole for body. Step 2: Using whole plate as body, glue plate halves on either side for wings, and rectangle cut plate on top for head {see image above}. Step 3: Attach eyes, beak, and feet using glue. Step 4: Paint glue all over body. Step 5: Sprinkle with fake snow and voila! Tip: Once dry, shake off excess snow so it doesn’t decorate your lovely clean kitchen floor…and the hallway…and the bathroom…and anywhere else the owl may venture. Click here to see the rest of our Arctic Activities! Click … [Read more...]

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JUL
08
2011

Expedition Earth: Arctic Polar Bear Chalk Art

By | Art, Homeschool

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Want a fun arctic polar bear kids craft? We learned about Polar Bears from KidZone and National Geographic this week. Then I found this idea of mixing tempera paints and chalks on Deep Space Sparkle! It’s one of my favorite resources for kids art. Pastel chalks and tempera paints mixed are the bomb! (That means “cool” in 80’s language…in case you missed that era…) Supplies: Tempera Paints Paint Brushes Pastel Chalk Black Cardstock Pencil First draw a basic shape on your black paper using pencil. Dip a colored pastel chalk into your paint and then draw on the paper! It mixes together making a lovely combination. Tip: It works best if you do colored chalk with white paint, or white chalk with colored paint. I encouraged the kids to cover all of the black paper as they went, leaving little to no black spots unpainted. We came up with some cool results. My daughter added in a bunch of color to show the Northern Lights … [Read more...]

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JUL
06
2011

Expedition Earth: The Arctic Circle

By | Geography, Homeschool

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Welcome to our Expedition Earth week on The Arctic Circle! This is our final week of Expedition Earth and we’ve had a total blast! I think I’ve learned as much as the kids did and the activities were super fun. Hopefully we created some great memories that will last for the long haul! Here are some of the things we learned this week: Located the Arctic Circle on the map and completed our mapping page Read: Living World Encyclopedia – Arctic Read Owl Babies by Martin Waddell, watch it on You Tube: Owl Babies Completed a fun snowy owl craft Learned some more geography terms Read: Window on the World: Iceland Completed our animal mini-books and added them to our animal wall. Had fun with a polar soap whittling activity Read: Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography- The Artic Checked out Anthropoids for fun facts on the Arctic Learned more about Arctic Animals at National Geographic Kids Wow, I can’t believe its our last week of Expedition Earth! … [Read more...]

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JUN
29
2011

Expedition Earth: Antarctica Blubber Experiment

By | Geography, Homeschool

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Welcome to our Antarctica Blubber Experiment. Would would have thought blubber could be so cool? I’ll be all those seals and penguins are really happy right about now! This was a super easy experiment, and the kids loved it. First we learned about Penguins of Antarctica. We also learned about Emperor Penguins from National Geographic. Penguins have a layer of fat under their skin that helps them cope with the cold in Antarctica. To demonstrate this, prepare a large bowl of ice water. Directions: Step 1: Place about 1 cup solid vegetable shortening in a Ziploc baggie. Step 2: Put one of your student’s hands in another baggie to keep clean from shortening, then place your student’s “bagged” hand into the bag with the shortening in it and “mold” it around the hand. Step 3: Place both hands (one un-bagged, and one bagged) into the bowl, see if you can feel the difference it makes to have a layer of fat keeping you warm! Click here to see the rest of our Antarctica … [Read more...]

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JUN
28
2011

Expedition Earth: Antarctica

By | Geography, Homeschool

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Hello and welcome to our Expedition Earth week on Antarctica! We’re nearing the end of our journey and we’ve had so much fun. We spent some time reviewing all of the countries we’ve learned so far, 30 of them WOW!  Next we completed the Antarctica mapping sheet. Here are some of the things we learned this week: We located Antarctica on the map. Read Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography Completed the Antarctica animals mini book Classified animals and added them to our animal wall Completed the Antarctica lapbook activity Read: Living World Encyclopedia - Polar Regions Learned some new geography terms: Iceberg, Crevasse, Glacier Did a fun penguin blubber experiment Made a visual iceberg Here was my whiteboard for the week: We talked about the lowest temperature recorded in Antarctica of –127 degrees! Yikes! They kids loved to see the word “NONE” next to each category. Since Antarctica is internationally owned, it has no flag of its own. The kids had a great … [Read more...]

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JUN
21
2011

Expedition Earth: New Zealand

By | Geography

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Kia ora! Welcome to our Expedition Earth week on New Zealand! We started off by stamping our passports! Where New Zealand is on the world map & located Wellington Learned a New Zealand song How to say “Hello” in Maori! Kia ora! Learned about the New Zealand Flag and colored our worksheet Prayed for the New Zealand people About children in New Zealand Read Living World Encyclopedia on Islands Learned more about New Zealand from National Geographic Kids Completed a New Zealand lap book activity Completed and classified animals of New Zealand Created a New Zealand whizzer craft Learned new Geography vocab. Read the Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography on New Zealand and Papua New Guinea Learned major landmarks and other fun facts about New Zealand We start off each week by reviewing all of the countries learned so far. Everyone gets a turn at the map, and I ask random questions like how do you say hello in that language, what language do they speak, what is the … [Read more...]

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JUN
15
2011

Australia Craft: Sponge Art Activity

By | Art, Geography

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G’Day Mate! Welcome to our artistic celebration of the Great Barrier Reef ! We had such a great time exploring through Australia this week and spent a lot of time learning about the Great Barrier Reef , looking at pictures, videos and reading about it! Did you know the Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world? It is located off the northeastern shores of Australia and consists of more than 2,900 coral reefs, 900 continental islands, 300 coral cays and thousands of species making it one of the world’s most complex ecosystems! The animals found in the reef include over 1500 species of sponges, 1500 species of marine fish, 30 species of whales and dolphins, 6 species of marine turtles, 22 species of seabirds, 125 species of sharks and stingray, and close to 5,000 species of mollusks, including the giant clam, and well…I could go on and on! It’s even considered one of the seven wonders of the natural world! To go along with our Expedition Earth Australia study, … [Read more...]

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JUN
08
2011

Expedition Earth: Australia

By | Geography

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G’Day Mate! Welcome to our Expedition Earth week in Australia! Of course we started off by stamping our passports! This was probably the easiest country to find on the map, especially since we review it constantly considering it is also a continent! What We Learned This Week: Where Australia is on the world map & located Canberra and the Great Barrier Reef Learned an Australian song How to say “Hello” in Aussie! G’day Mate! Learned about the Australian Flag and colored our worksheet Prayed for the Australian people About children in Australia Read Living World Encyclopedia on Coral Reefs, Estuaries, shore lines and Australia’s dry forests. Learned about Uluru (Ayers Rock) Learn about the Boomerang and made our own. Went on a “walk-a-bout” cuz’ it was nice out! Completed an Australian lap book activity Completed and classified animals of Australia Explored the great barrier reef, and watched this Great Barrier Reef video Learned new … [Read more...]

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JUN
06
2011

Expedition Earth: Egyptian Mummy Experiment

By | Homeschool

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Oooh, Egyptian Mummies, who could resist? As part of my Expedition Earth Egypt activities my kids couldn’t wait to mummify an apple this week! They’ve been talking about it for awhile now, kind of like the Brazilian Rainforest Diorama. The ancient Egyptian mummification process is quite lengthy. It typically lasts approximately 70 days and begins first by removing all of the organs from the body. The organs would then be washed, dried, then placed inside containers called canopic jars that were eventually buried with the body. A salt mixture commonly found along the Nile River was typically used to aid in the drying process of both the body and the organs. The bodies were then wrapped using yards of linen fabric before being placed in their coffin. Some bodies such as King Tut were encased in 3 coffins!We didn't do all that.We just tried to preserve a few apple slices.And it was fun.Supplies: 2 fresh apples large box of table salt large box of Epsom salts large box of baking soda … [Read more...]

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