Arts & Crafts, Just for Fun

10 Week LEGO Class

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Mary (and her son) at HomeGrownLearners.com put together this fun 10 week class all about LEGOs! The full 10 session lesson plan is a PDF freebie on her site. Here’s what she says about it:

“This is for the oodles of moms out there dealing with LEGO crazed kids. I am one of those moms, and when my little boy asked me to teach a LEGO class at our homeschool co-op, how could I refuse? My son and I spent a lot of time brainstorming and planning this class TOGETHER, and I wanted to share my plans with you.”

This is a fun class any young LEGO fans would love to be a part of, whether with a group of fellow homeschoolers or just at home. (Tip: the download link to the PDF is near the bottom of the page.)

CLICK HERE to go to the download page

Arts & Crafts

Hand Made Books

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MAKING BOOKS with your KIDS

Author and artist Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord has been a teacher of making books since the late 1980s. On her website, she has project instructions for creating eight different types of hand-made books, including an accordion book, an elastic book, a color poem book, a summer journal, a leaf book, and more fun projects, all presented with detailed, illustrated instructions. Loads of fun ideas here!

CLICK HERE to go to her site!

Math

The Manual of Mathematical Magic

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Mathematics and magic may seem a strange combination, but many of the most powerful magical effects performed today have a mathematical basis. Math is also the secret behind the technologies we use, the products we buy and the jobs we do.

The Manual of Mathematical Magic is packed full of magical miracles to impress and entertain your friends. The secrets behind street magic, close-up and stage tricks are explained clearly with instructions and videos to help you perform them perfectly. Then you can learn about the math behind the trick and discover how that same mathematics is used to power our modern world and numerous careers.

“Our goal is to help more students engage with Mathematics. Magic tricks get the students excited and then we show them the mathematical principles that make the whole trick hang together. We also reveal how the same Mathematics underpins everything from medical scans to sending text messages.”

Talk about “hands on” math… this fascinating guide is a great learning (and fun) resource for students grade 6 and up.

Click here to go to the download page.

Arts & Crafts, Biology

The Kaplan Anatomy Coloring Book

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This excellent 200+ page anatomy coloring book and review guide from Kaplan  is a perfect resource from which to print out coloring pages to go with any studies of human anatomy.

IMPORTANT NOTE: PARENTAL GUIDANCE RECOMMENDED. This coloring book was developed for Jr & Sr high & college use, and along with every other illustration of human anatomy, it does include some fairly explicit drawings of the reproductive system, which may not be appropriate for younger children. So while this is an excellent anatomy resource, please be aware of this fact, and handle this coloring book accordingly.

To download this 200 page PDF coloring book from Archive.org, CLICK HERE.

Biology, Science

Optical Illusions: Do You Really See what you Think You See?

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The Museum of Vision  put together this wonderful ebook a few years ago on how our eyes work, and how they can be tricked by perspective, persistence of vision, and other phenomena

This ebook is chock full of great illustrations, fascinating optical illusions, and “hands on” learning activities and projects that will appeal to students of all ages. Highly recommended!

To download the PDF ebook directly from the Internet Archive, CLICK HERE!

 

Biology, Science

What? Huh? and Your Sense of Hearing

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How do our ears detect sound? How do our brains interpret it?

Today we return to the Neuroscience for Kids website created and curated by Dr. Eric Chudler to focus on the Sense of HEARING, and learn about the parts of the auditory system and how they work.

Click here to go to the introduction about the sense of hearing.

Click here for a collection of experiments all about your sense of hearing.

And the PDF Lesson Guides: The Teacher’s Guide is HERE. The Student’s Guide is HERE.

Biology, Science

Sniff, Stink, and Your Sense of Smell

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What does your NOSE tell you?  Like your other senses, it tells you such things as:

  1. What is out in the environment.
  2. How much is out there.
  3. Is there more or less of it than before.
  4. Where is it.
  5. Is it changing in time or place.

Today we focus on the Sense of Smell, with this great activity guide and lesson plan from the Neuroscience for Kids website, created and curated by Dr. Eric Chudler.

CLICK HERE to go to the “Smell Experiments” page.

Then for the complete Lesson Plan/Unit Study…

CLICK HERE to go to the Teacher’s Guide

CLICK HERE to go to the Student’s Guide

Biology, Science

Yum, Yuck, and Your Sense of Taste

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Delicious, scrumptious, delectable, mouth-watering, yummy.
Stale, awful, terrible, unsavory, bland, unpalatable.

These are just a few of the many words to describe how food tastes.

Today’s freebie resource is this neat collection of lessons and activities about the sense of “taste”, from the site Neuroscience for Kids, curated by Dr. Eric H. Chudler for students and teachers who would like to learn about the nervous system.

Start with this COOL INTRODUCTION TO THE SENSE OF TASTE

Next, check out this COMPLETE LESSON PLAN (WITH LAB EXPERIMENTS) ON TASTE

Here are lots more short, fun HANDS ON EXPERIMENTS to try

…and there are more links to other “tasty” resources in these pages! Bon apetit!

Audio, Living Books

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Audio Dramatization & Audiobook!)

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Washington Irving was an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” published in 1819.

In “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, you’ll hear his famous story of a mean spirited, dim-witted schoolteacher named Ichabod Crane and the events leading up to his meeting with the headless you know who. Oooo! Great fun! (28 minutes)

Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Click the above link to play the story online, or right-click and “save” to download it.

Next, here’s a link to the unabridged audiobook version of Washington Irving’s story.

It’s only 1.5 hours in length, and the reader is great! If you like the above dramatization, be sure to have your kids listen to this excellent reading of the original!