Science | Not by Default

An Easy DIY for Christmas

by Chris | Dec 20, 2022 | Geography, Geography Activities, Geography DIY, Homeschool, Science DIY

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This year for Christmas I wanted to try making a number of my children’s gifts myself. I have been admiring the cosmic address activity made by Waseca for a very long time and that became one of my main DIY goals this holiday season. I got some wooden nesting blocks off of my local buy nothing group and set to work. These particular blocks were from a cartoon Melissa and Doug set. I sanded off the original images ( the children actually unknowingly helped with his step). After a few layers of paint they were ready for me to start working on our cosmic address. I only had eight blocks to work with so I had to alter it somewhat ending the address with our house address. I painted these blocks by hand but I think it would look gorgeous with print outs of real maps modge podged onto the blocks. I am still considering doing this for the back of the blocks, but I am running out of time until Christmas! It would also be great to make paper or felt cut outs that symbolize each stage of the address and glue them onto the blocks.

This is it for this post, I just wanted to share that sometimes you can make your own materials without spending a dime and often children love these materials more than store bought toys and are even more careful in their use! I will update sometime in the new year to show the different ways my children have found to use these blocks and some of the activities I have in mind for them as well. Merry Christmas!

Planting Season

by Chris | May 9, 2022 | Homeschool, Parenting, Science, Science Activities, Toddler Activities

With the arrival of spring my kids have become fascinated with plants. I have been subtly scaffolding this interest with books about local plants, three part cards of different types of flowers, and gardening based sensory bins. Less subtly I have been inviting them into all of my plant care in and around my home. Recently it was time to feed my plants and as it often goes when I want to do a chore Mr Man asked if he could help. I explained what my plan was, and Mr Man began inserting the plant food in the nearby plants. As soon as Little Miss noticed she wanted to help as well. We have many houseplants and the children spent a good half an hour caring for our plants. While we worked we chatted about what the plants needed to be healthy inside our home. We also watered and dusted off the plants leaves as we worked through them. Since that day I have noticed both my children checking if the plants soil was drying out, as we talked about how they would need to be watered more often now that it is spring again, so I moved their watering can to a more obvious space for them to access. Mr Man observed that one of our plants was getting pretty big and asked if I would be trimming it down because he remembered helping me trim the bushes outside. We talked a little about propagation and put our clippings in our aquariums where we could watch their roots develop. They really wanted to start our garden but it was a little too early in the season so we started some seeds indoors. These are the children’s plants, they are fully responsible for their care and these seedlings are flourishing! We always like to experiment so we decided to plant some very old seeds, some new seeds, and some fresh seeds right out of a bell pepper. Mr Man has been recording his findings on various charts and drawings as he watches them grow. We are waiting and observing our outdoor garden every morning hoping for signs of flower growth. Little Miss did not understand what we were talking about before we had planted the seeds, but now that she has watched the vegetable seeds sprout she is aware of what we are looking for. When we go for walks she looks for plants that are sprouting and claps. The children have prepared their gardening tools, gloves, watering cans and are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to do some outdoor gardening. Mr Man has already noticed and pulled a few weeds he found in our bushes and has suggested he could take care of all the weeds this year. There are so many ways I hope to extend this area of interest and learning as spring turns to summer but for now I just wanted to share how we are spending our time as we prepare for the warm weather.

A Fishy Arrangement

by Chris | Mar 21, 2022 | Parenting, Parenting preschoolers, Preschool, Preschool Environment, Science Activities

Now that Mr. Man is four he has been seeking ways to take on more responsibility around our home. He is seeing himself as a capable contributor and wants to have his own to do lists and chores most days. I even had the opportunity to hear him say, “I’ve got dinner tonight mom!”, and he did! He has prepared our dinners (with guidance and support) a few times now. He sees these new capabilities as evidence that he is getting older and more responsible and used them in his reasoning for why he is ready for his own pet. We have three birds in our family but Mr. Man does not see them as his pets, and they make him too nervous to interact with in a meaningful way. Our Green Cheek Conure is still very nippy and unpredictable so while Mr. Man would love to help care for her, and train her, he is very nervous. Over the course of a few weeks we entertained different imaginings of the pets he could have. He considered dogs but he was concerned they would scare him when they bark. He mentioned maybe a lizard but he quickly changed his mind when we looked up what they would eat. He was very excited about the idea of a hamster and we imagined for a while what that would be like. He realized while we thought about it that he wouldn’t want to hold the hamster, and he didn’t really want to care for it either. He really just wanted to build it mazes and watch it solve them. We agreed that a hamster probably would not be a great fit. One evening I was at a pet store on my own and I saw a beautiful Betta fish. I decided to surprise him with a pet that I knew he would be capable of fully providing for (although with the knowledge that it was still my responsibility). When we got home Mr. Man was thrilled to set up the aquarium for his new pet Fishy the betta. We did it together, cleaning the gravel, setting up the décor and plants, assembling the filter. When the tank was finished cycling and at an appropriate temperature he very carefully released his new friend into his tank. We decided to keep the tank in the living space to ensure Fishy received supervised care. For now Mr. Man is very happy checking the temperature of the water and feeding Fishy daily, and in a week or so I will introduce him to the other big fish care task of a water change. I have always enjoyed keeping Betta fish and I am enjoying watching Mr. Man care for and observe his fish. We will likely extend this experience into a research activity about Bettas. There are so many options- we could look into what foods they can eat as a supplement to their diet. We could learn about their origins and how they live in the wild. We could jump into a unit study on fish and underwater life in general. It will depend on where the most interest lies!

Displaying Puzzles

by Chris | Feb 10, 2022 | Homeschool, Science, Sensorial

Finding a way to store and display puzzles can be a real challenge. For toddlers it is easy enough to put a puzzle flat on the shelf with the pieces to the side. Preschoolers tend to enjoy doing a larger variety of puzzles however and storing them in the same way would take up a lot of shelf real estate. This has been the solution I have found for peg puzzles and small wooden jigsaw puzzles that has worked best in our home. We use paper trays to store a small rotation of puzzles at a time. There are also paper trays with removeable shelves which I find very useful for puzzles, the whole tray can be pulled out and carried to the table with all the pieces arranged however you please. When I do a themed unit study and I happen to have a puzzle that suits the theme I also like the appeal of the puzzle being displayed with a picture holder. I find that even a puzzle that has been ignored on the shelf for weeks will draw children in when it is displayed this way.

Parts of a Frog DIY

by Chris | Jan 31, 2022 | Science, Science Activities, Science DIY

If you have read any of my other DIY posts then you may have noticed that I use felt for a lot of activities. Before I purchased my parts of an animal zoology puzzles I was wracking my brain trying to figure out how to make them myself. I am not really a wood worker, and I do not have a cricut machine so I needed a way to make them with simpler materials. I considered using cardboard or foam board but could not think of how to make precise enough pieces that would not be easily damaged. So I turned to my favorite material once again, felt. There are plenty of free outlines of frogs that I looked through online before settling on an outline that suited this activity best. I made my pattern and cut out the pieces to make a single layer puzzle. It was very flimsy and did not feel great to me, it was not the beautiful puzzle I had envisioned. I decided to make it double layered and sew the pieces together. It work much better this way, and my children adore it. Even though we ended up getting our own zoology puzzle set later on I find that Mister Man still enjoys using this handmade version fairly often.