LEARNING WITH LEGOS UNIT STUDY

Here’s a fun Unit Study using everybody’s favorite building blocks from WalkingByTheWay.com. The Learning with LEGOs unit study is written to the student and each day includes four components: copywork, a word of the day, explore and learn, and a building challenge.

CLICK HERE to go to the download page!

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THE MEGA PENNY PROJECT

Visualizing huge numbers can be very difficult. People regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it’s still hard to grasp just how much a “billion” really is.
The MegaPenny Project aims to help by taking one small everyday item, the U.S. penny, and building on that to answer the question: “What would a billion (or a trillion) pennies look like?”

CLICK HERE to go to the site, and have fun!

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THE HUMAN HEART

Did you know that the human heart beats about 100,000 times a day, 35 million times a year, and two and a half billion times in an average lifetime?
Did you know that, on any given day, your heart beats roughly 100,000 times and your blood travels about 12,000 miles as it circulates throughout your body?
Did you know the average heart pumps more that a gallon of blood a minute?
Did you know a kid’s heart is about the size of a fist… and an adult’s heart is the size of two fists?

Here is a great collection of links from “Education World” all about the human heart. You’ll learn how the heart works, take an interactive tour of the heart, learn about the heart’s electrical system, blood flow and blood supply, see some amazing videos, and much more.

CLICK HERE then follow the links!

Here’s another batch of great freebie resources from our archives, just for you!

MUSIC THEORY LESSONS & EXERCISES

Want a simple, easy-to-follow tutorial on the basics of reading & understanding music? MusicTheory.net offers a great series of step-by-step lessons and hands-on lessons & tools to help you teach basic music theory.

All of the lessons, exercises and tools are FREE on the website when accessed by your computer. You must enable Javascript to access the materials. Note that they also sell the same lessons if you want to use them on mobile devices and phones.

CLICK HERE to go to the site!

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HANG OUT WITH BATS!

BatsLive is a virtual field trip into the amazing world of bats! The site contains dozens of interactive resources, including video tours, lesson plans, webinars, and printable resources about bats. Here’s their introduction to this extensive and well-done resource site:

Bats are vital to healthy ecosystems and human economies worldwide. As primary predators of night-flying insects, bats consume enormous quantities of agricultural pests and reduce the need for chemical pesticides. Yet these wonderfully diverse and beneficial creatures are among the least studied and most misunderstood of animals. Bats are threatened worldwide, and their colonies and habitats are destroyed – both intentionally and inadvertently – because of myths, misinformation, and lack of scientific knowledge and understanding. Bat populations are declining almost everywhere in North America especially due to the devastating White-nose Syndrome. Losing bats has far-reaching consequences for natural ecosystems and human economies. Knowledge is the key to their conservation and protection.

BatsLIVE: A Distance Learning Adventure is an exciting, free education program for children in the 4-8th grades and their educators, that will bring bat conservation to life in your classroom or community.

CLICK HERE to go to the site

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200,000 MAPS OF THE WORLD

Wow! This website from France has an incredible collection of downloadable maps of the world, continents & countries in multiple graphic formats (GIF, PDF, CDR, SVG, AI and WMF). They also have a large collection of Historical Maps from different time periods. Go to the site, bookmark it, and use it whenever you need specific maps for studies or projects. Our link is to the English language version of the site.

To go to the site, CLICK HERE

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SIMPLE MACHINES NOTEBOOKING PAGES

Betsy at NotebookingNook.com has put together this neat little resource page on some of the “simple machines” we use every single day, but hardly even think about. Here’s what she says about it:

In the past, when we have studied simple machines, I found it easy to find information on this topic but not as simple to find good free resources. My son and I had an occasion to discuss simple machines this week and I remembered how difficult it was to find what I needed once upon a time and thought I’d put something together for any of you looking for something on this topic. I hope this helps.

Included in her PDF download are: Notebooking pages & matchbooks for levers, wheel & axle, the pulley, inclined plane, wedges and screws.
Also on the page are links to 5 short, simple online videos explaining and demonstrating how these “simple machines” work.

CLICK HERE here to go to the site!

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LEGO BALLOON CAR PROJECT

Okay, LEGO builders. Here’s today’s engineering challenge for you: Can you build a LEGO car that zooms across the floor that uses a balloon as its engine/source of power? All you should use for this project are LEGO parts, LEGO wheels if you have them, and a balloon.

There’s no one “right” way to do this, but you might keep in mind:
Which way the balloon opens
Horizontal to vertical stability
Balloon staying away from tires

Try to invent your own working Balloon Car first… and then, if you get finished, or stuck, or are ready to see how some other students did it and solved their own “engineering” problems, you can click the link below:

CLICK HERE  to go to the webpage (after you’ve tried to build this yourself)!