Seymour Simon is a children's science author whose books couple vivid photographs with good, easy to comprehend writing. He has a long series of books about bodies in space like the planets, comets and the moon.
His website SeymourSimon.com has an author blog, children's resource and game section and an educator section that might be of interest. The kids' and educators' sections have a registration process to ensure that kids have parental permission to use the site.
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Waiting for the Typhoon
Well, it looks like we have another typhoon headed our way this week. I'm sure everyone has already started securing loose items on the balcony and in the yard.
If you're looking for some interesting educational ideas for typhoons, check out some of these.
Beaufort Wind Scale illustration from Howtoons. Last year we did our own illustrations in the spirit of this chart during the "back to school" typhoon.
Typhoons and hurricanes are the same kind of storm, just happening in different locations. Weather Wiz Kids has some good info on hurricanes and what causes the different resulting effects of the storm like storm surge.
The education section of the National Weather Service has some good stuff on weather in general and storms in particular.
NOAA has a great education site. Weather, reef exploration, climate, marine life, etc are all profiled and explained. They have tons of info on hurricanes.
If this strikes up an interest in weather science, you might be interested in the online weather course available from NOAA. It's called Jetstream and it seems very good.
If you're looking for some interesting educational ideas for typhoons, check out some of these.
Beaufort Wind Scale illustration from Howtoons. Last year we did our own illustrations in the spirit of this chart during the "back to school" typhoon.
Typhoons and hurricanes are the same kind of storm, just happening in different locations. Weather Wiz Kids has some good info on hurricanes and what causes the different resulting effects of the storm like storm surge.
The education section of the National Weather Service has some good stuff on weather in general and storms in particular.
NOAA has a great education site. Weather, reef exploration, climate, marine life, etc are all profiled and explained. They have tons of info on hurricanes.
If this strikes up an interest in weather science, you might be interested in the online weather course available from NOAA. It's called Jetstream and it seems very good.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Free Elementary Life Science Curriculum
This website from Mr. Q has a free elementary level life science curriculum as an intro to his other science curriculum. You can also browse through the lab notes archive, which containes some interesting stand alone experiments. The blog section has been running a series of science posts relating to food.
There's some good science here using a lot of material that you probably have at hand.
There's some good science here using a lot of material that you probably have at hand.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Free Science and Literature Studies
One of the exciting things about homeschooling is the number of families who are writing their own curriculum to suit a particular interest or area of focus. Sometimes this is tweaking of something already in print. Sometimes it is a full fledged series of books and activities. Story of the World, by Susan Wise Bauer, for example, started out as a series to fill a niche that she thought was lacking, that of a world history continuum for the elementary grades.
Even cooler is the fact that the internet allows some families to share their creations with the world at large and for other homeschoolers to benefit too. And it is great when some of what you find is available for free.
Little Blue School has several literature units that the author developed for use in her coop in Norfolk, Virginia (which almost makes me want to put Norfolk on the top of our duty station wish list).
Aeneid
Treasure Island
Elections
Novel Writing (This is a great breakdown of the parts of a novel, even if you don't sit down and write your own.)
Jungle Book
The blog Handbook of Nature Study has lots of resources for focusing your time outdoors. Barb sells some of her studies as inexpensive ebooks, but also has lots of nature study ideas that can be downloaded for free. Don't miss the Outdoor Hour Challenges and the free downloads on the sidebar.
I also found a blog called Fieldwork that was posting a series of lessons in marine biology/oceanography. She ended up only finishing 24 of the 34 she had planned, but I still think it is a nice resource. Something that I like about her approach is that it is hands on and could be used as a basis for exploring any seaside, not just the east or west coast of the US. That's something that has been important to me since we've spent the last decade living beyond the scope of most English language field guides.
Even cooler is the fact that the internet allows some families to share their creations with the world at large and for other homeschoolers to benefit too. And it is great when some of what you find is available for free.
Little Blue School has several literature units that the author developed for use in her coop in Norfolk, Virginia (which almost makes me want to put Norfolk on the top of our duty station wish list).
Aeneid
Treasure Island
Elections
Novel Writing (This is a great breakdown of the parts of a novel, even if you don't sit down and write your own.)
Jungle Book
The blog Handbook of Nature Study has lots of resources for focusing your time outdoors. Barb sells some of her studies as inexpensive ebooks, but also has lots of nature study ideas that can be downloaded for free. Don't miss the Outdoor Hour Challenges and the free downloads on the sidebar.
I also found a blog called Fieldwork that was posting a series of lessons in marine biology/oceanography. She ended up only finishing 24 of the 34 she had planned, but I still think it is a nice resource. Something that I like about her approach is that it is hands on and could be used as a basis for exploring any seaside, not just the east or west coast of the US. That's something that has been important to me since we've spent the last decade living beyond the scope of most English language field guides.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Online Weather Course
I find that I have to work hard to keep feeding the science interests that my kids have. I'm not sure if this is because they are still in the "What's that" and "Why" stages or if it is the influence of science related TV shows like Mythbusters or if it's just because they like science. Whatever the reason, I am always looking for interesting science relate books and websites for them.
Today I found an online weather course from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, called Jetstream. If you dig a little into the Lesson Plan Overview section, you can find an outline of all of the lessons and quizzes for each section.
Within some of the lessons there are Learning Lessons which are weather related experiments or demonstrations. You might want to review the Learning Lessons for the modules to collect all of the items you'll need. There's nothing as annoying as needing something like balloons or thumbtacks in order to do some cool experiment and not being able to find them.
Today I found an online weather course from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, called Jetstream. If you dig a little into the Lesson Plan Overview section, you can find an outline of all of the lessons and quizzes for each section.
Within some of the lessons there are Learning Lessons which are weather related experiments or demonstrations. You might want to review the Learning Lessons for the modules to collect all of the items you'll need. There's nothing as annoying as needing something like balloons or thumbtacks in order to do some cool experiment and not being able to find them.
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I find that I have to work hard to keep feeding the science interests that my kids have. I'm not sure if this is because they are still...