We talked about Cause and Effect. The book we read to teach the concept of cause and effect was "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Numeroff. Lily really enjoyed this book, and we read it several times. To make sure she understood the concept, Lily demonstrated a few things:
Kicking the ball to show cause and effect. The cause (kicking), and the effect (the ball moved)
Blowing a feather. (The air caused the feather to move)
Turning on the water. (When she turned the faucet, water came out)
We talked about fast changes vs changes that occur over a period of time.
Lily demonstrated a fast change by drinking her milk quickly.
She drew a tadpole and a frog to demonstrate a slow change. We are still watching our tadpole make the change into a frog. He is just starting to develop some bumps that will become is back legs.
We talked about the different ways things can change. We talked about how the number, color, size, temperature, location, position, sound and measurement of things can change.
Lily demonstrated some ways things change. She changed the amount of Cheerios in the pile.
She changed the color of her picture.
She changed the size of her cookie.
She changed the weight of her bag.
We discussed changes in the environment. We talked about changes in nature. To help with this discussion, we read the book "Look How It Changes!" by June Young. We talked about weather changes and the changes that occur in the different seasons. We discussed amounts of things. We talked about words like "few", "a couple", "a few", and "several."
To demonstrate the concept of amounts, Lily had counting bears in the cups. She had to put them in order from least to greatest. We talked about the cups that had a couple, a few and several bears in them.
We talked about changes in location. There was a worksheet, and Lily had to place the mouse in different places: In front of the TV, on top of the couch, etc.
We discussed living vs nonliving things. We talked about how living things change. She colored a picture of a lizard that camouflaged itself. We discussed the hare that has fur that changes color with the seasons.
Lily made the hare that changes it's fur color during the winter to camouflage itself in the snow. This was one of her favorite activities this week. She kept saying "This is fun!"
Lily was to draw something to demonstrate a change in a living thing. She chose to draw a kitten growing into an adult cat.
The next thing we discussed was plants and how they change. Lily's birthday is in a couple of weeks, and I had gotten her some Rock N Learn DVDs. One of them talked a lot about plants. Since we were learning about plants, I went ahead and let her open the present early so she could watch it. She LOVES Rock N Learn movies, so she was super excited about this.
I downloaded a free plant printable pack from http://3dinosaurs.com/wordpress/index.php/free-life-cycle-plant-pack/, and Lily completed some of the activities in that.
We LOVE Rachel and the Treeschooler movies, and there is a great one about plants. There is a song about Photosynthesis in it, and it is super cute and catchy. We watched that movie, and Lily was singing the song for the rest of the day. Here is the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByDPSsCnB_4
The next activity was to plant seeds in 4 cups. One was to go in the sun and be watered. One was to go in the sun and not be watered. One was to go in the closet and be watered, and one was to go in the closet and not be watered. Lily had to guess what would happen with each. We are keeping an eye on all 4 cups to see if her guess is correct.
We have some of the Magic Schoolbus science kits that we haven't used, so I found one that was about solids, liquids and gases. We spent a day doing all the experiments in that kit. Lily had a blast with this.
Next up was a discussion on how heat changes things. One of the activities in this lesson was to measure a candle, light it, and measure it again periodically. Lily learned that the heat made the candle smaller.
We experimented with the 3 forms of water. Lily had to observe some ice cubes for a while and see what happened if they were left out at room temperature. Then, we put the water in a saucepan and heated it to see what happened when it got hot.
A SUPER fun activity to see how heat changes things: bake a cake!
Lily definitely approved of this activity!
We talked about chemical changes vs physical changes. We made scrambled eggs to help demonstrate this concept. We talked about how when the eggs were broken and mixed up in the bowl, that was a physical change. Then we discussed how the heat caused a chemical change in the eggs by creating a new substance.
Lily approved!
We use sensory bins a lot with our schooling, and Lily loves them. I got her a sand/water table as an early birthday present. She immediately turned it into a flower garden and was talking about plants, their parts and what they need to survive. :)
This was a fun unit. Lily really had the most fun with the food. Who wouldn't want to bake a cake to talk about heat? Next up-mathematical changes. I think Lily will enjoy that one. She loves math.
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