Science Is All Around Us!

This is a subject which prior to starting this home schooling journey I believed belonged in a school lab and didn’t really have a place in early years learning. 

My girls have resoundingly proved me wrong in that assumption, and for the past three years we have been on a magical scientific journey together. 

Sophia was so curious, from the age of three wanting to know what made a rainbow and asking questions about her world around her. 

I found some great educational presenters on YouTube, namely Jack Hartmann and Rachel and the Treeschoolers who have some fantastic videos for this early years age group, up to the age of seven. There are lots of songs and dances to help little ones to remember the material and the girls have just taken this subject by storm. In the first year I introduced the topics and then have built upon them throughout the years, extending their knowledge and understanding.

I have laid out the topics within this blog, starting with the girls verbal review of combined knowledge learnt over the past couple of years, followed by a more detailed explanation of activities performed by them.

Space and Gravity

‘The sun is a star, and S-U-N spells sun. There are eight Planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. There’s also Pluto a dwarf planet, he’s too small to be counted. Mercury is the smallest planet and closest to the sun. Jupiter is the biggest and has lots of moons, some of which have volcanos on. Saturn has rings round it made from dust and rocks. Neptune is the coldest and far away from the sun. We live on Earth, and have a moon, and have oxygen because of trees. Mars is red. Venus is the hottest, we can’t live there because there is no air there, just gas.

Astronauts travel to moon in a rocket ship, they wear space suits, helmet, gloves and heavy boots, to help them breathe as there’s no trees on the moon. There’s not much gravity on moon, the suits help them stay on the moon, otherwise they would float away. Gravity makes us fall, the Earth’s gravity pulls us down so we don’t float away because Earth has more mass and force than us. The Earth goes around the sun because the sun has bigger gravity than the Earth, so it pulls it around itself.

This topic is a firm favourite in our household and if you ask the girls what they want to be when they grow up, one of the answers is astronaut. They are fascinated watching anything news related to do with space. 

Following on from last year where we learnt the existence of the sun, moon and stars, and the planets names and sat in our space rocket during transportation lessons, we have expanded our knowledge a little further to incorporate the topic of gravity and how to keep astronauts safe in space.

Kira innocently asked that time old question one day, ‘Mummy why do things fall?’. I brought her the book 'Baby loves Gravity' and Kira read the answer herself. It became a regular game for them where I would be talking about gravity and randomly drop something or crumple to the floor to demonstrate gravitational force. 

Alternatively I’d be the sun and Sophia as the Earth would walk around me whilst Kira was the moon and walked around Sophia. This inevitably ended up with me getting dizzy and the girls tripping over each other and they would be laughing like mad.

Sophia tends to process her knowledge through art and one day she presented me with a picture of the Earth orbiting the Sun and the Moon orbiting the Earth and I was amazed because it looked so familiar, and immediately went online to find the image which was in my head. Sophia had recreated the typical scientific  diagram instinctively at the age of five, without any former reference. I showed it to her and she just said, ‘oh yeah that’s what I drew’. Yes! Without ever having seen it before! She did not see why I was so amazed. 

Another day Kira presented me with a page full of circles, and I complimented her on the circles thinking initially it was simply that. She was still stood there waiting, so I asked her to explain the picture, thinking I must have missed something. She went through the picture and specifically named the circles, bless her she had drawn the solar system.

Seasons/Weather

‘In Winter it’s very cold, it’s rainy, snowy, windy, and dark. We wear hats, scarves, coats, boots. Trees lose leaves. We jump in muddy puddles. We have Christmas with lots of presents. Animals hide away when it’s cold.

In spring plants grow, animals are born, it’s a bit warmer, sunny and rainy. We wear raincoats. It is Kira’s and Mummy’s birthday.

In summer it’s hot, sunny, people go to the beach. We wear hats, sun cream, dresses and sandals. Lots of plants, fruit and vegetables grow. It is Daddy’s and Xander’s birthday. 

In fall leaves fall from trees, we make pictures from the leaves. We have Sophia’s birthday and Halloween. It’s colder and darker again, we wear jumpers. It is in a circle that happens again and again, and that’s called an ear (year)’.

They had learnt a great deal of this in the previous year, I just wanted to re literate and cement the knowledge, whilst adding in extra features, such as which months appear in each season, birthdays and seasonal events. They are fascinated with weather so it naturally led on to the next two topics.

Rainbows and Rain Cycles

‘The colours of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When it rains whilst the sun is out it makes a rainbow. Also light shining on a glass triangle prism causes a rainbow. The colours appear in a certain order due to how fast they are. Red is the fastest and violet is the slowest’.

‘Water on the ground is taken by the wind and the sun up to the sky, called evaporation. It disappears. Clouds form and once they’re filled up, it rains, making plants and trees grow and then it happens again. Its a cycle’.

These topics were expanded upon from last year in greater detail, learning science experiments with prisms and learning the speed of the rainbow colours, explaining why yellow doesn’t appear first, and how its not scientifically accurate to draw a rainbow with green as the first colour. 

Sophia remained convinced however that pink should belong in the rainbow spectrum and she religiously colours in pink after violet in every rainbow. 

The girls have completed indoor experiments regarding evaporation where a saucer of water was left on a radiator to evaporate, and outdoor experiments whereby ice has been left out to melt in the hot sun, and they’ve watched the puddle dry. Sophia was absolutely in her element for on the day we did it, there was a shower a couple hours later, and she was convinced her puddle had helped tip the cloud over the edge into raining. Cosmic timing certainly helped cement that lesson.

The Human Body

‘The digestion system is where the food goes in the mouth, goes down the long pipe to the stomach and then it’s made into poop in the intestines and comes out of your bottom.

The heart is a muscle which pumps the blood around the body. Your heart beep (beat) gets faster when you’re running, and heart beep slows down when you’re asleep and rests. The brain makes you think and move, make memories, and learn things. We keep it healthy by eating fish, by resting and drinking lots of water. Lungs are how we breathe oxygen in and give bad air back to the trees.

The red blood is pumped round the body by the heart holding oxygen from the lungs. The white cells fight the germs. Platelets heal a cut, a scab happens, once that falls off there’s new skin’.

The girls also know that the skin is the biggest organ and the number of bones we have, as well as naming well over twenty parts of their body both externally and internally. They both love this topic, particularly due to the ill health within the family. They like to have an explanation about what is happening internally, and love nothing more than to look through anatomy books.

What is a carnivore, herbivore and omnivore?

‘A carnivore eats meat, for example a T-Rex, lion or cheetah. A herbivore eats plants, for example a stegosaurus or a rabbit, or zebra. An omnivore eats both plants and meat, humans and monkeys are omnivores’.

This was one of those day topics, where they learnt the meaning of the word and then could naturally apply some examples to the category. It was an extension to their existing knowledge of wild and farm animals. Next year the topic of food cycles will be broached to once again build upon this bigger picture.

Plants, Trees and Basic Photosynthesis

‘Plants make their own food using oxygen from the air, heat from the sun and water from the roots, and this is photosynthesis’

‘A tree has leaves, branches, a trunk and roots. It’s home to birds and monkeys. To make paper you cut the tree down, and make wood chips, mix them with paste and squash them until paper is formed. A plant has flowers, stick and leaves and roots. Bees go to the flowers, and then go home to make honey’.

Sophia used art again heavily in this topic to cement her knowledge, producing artwork to display the workings of photosynthesis, and an accurate drawing with a trees main features. They learnt the process of making paper from a great YouTube video which fascinated both girls. The topic in general did not hold Kira’s interest but she still absorbed the knowledge.

Recycling

‘Cardboard, wood, paper, glass and plastic are materials that can be reused and made into something new. This helps save the earth from too much rubbish, so animals don’t get hurt’.

This topic was discussed whenever they helped me with the recycling and we’d have a chat about what types of repurposes the materials could have. Sophia would snag a cardboard box and say she wanted to reuse it to make a castle. I allowed it one time for our topic on Castles, which was a great project. We watched some videos of the effects of littering with wildlife, and seeing animals with plastic rings around the necks etc hit home with the girls and they are very conscious of their actions regarding littering.

Volcanos

‘There’s magma underground inside the volcano, which is hot liquid rocks, caused by squeezing, pressure and friction. Pressure builds and builds until the top explodes and volcanoes errupts lava and ash any time of the year. People need to run if they see the lava. It cools into black, and forms rocks. There’s volcanos in space!’

This was the last topic we covered last year purely because of the amount of coverage in the news on freshly erupted volcanos over the year. Sophia would notice an image and ask questions and so I took advantage and broached the topic with them and they loved it. Sophia took on board the videos and produced a lovely piece of artwork which showed her level of understanding. 

We also did several science experiments with Daddy in the garden, exploding soda volcanos. One we made into an art project and they tried their hand at paper mache for the first time which was an experience for them. Sophia in particular has an ocd issue with having clean hands. 

We have combated a lot of messy play over the years with the security and reassurance of there being a pack of wipes by her side during the activity. However this project proved to be her upper limit. Both girls could not reconcile with making the volcano with their hands after the initial touch. However, when armed with paint brushes they were comfortable to glue the strips which I submerged and stuck to the cardboard cylinder surrounding the 2litre bottle. They then enjoyed painting it from an arms length distance wearing protective clothing. 

The other two volcanos were naked bottles and were simply pop and mints, however they were equally as fun. I’m sure we will happily revisit this topic in greater detail next year, particularly if there are further eruptions on the horizon.

There we are dear readers, a recap of our scientific adventures. It certainly went down unforeseen and unexpected paths with the majority of it being completely unplanned, but an engaged child is an educated child. If you engage with their interests and follow up on their questions, then you will have a happy, informative environment, where lessons are not a chore, but just part of fun days.