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Preschool Science: The Weather

Today in our homeschool we are taking a closer look at the seasons and weather.

We routinely use a calendar to talk about what month and day it is, and we are making a weather chart by drawing in what the weather is outside for each day.  I have a calendar to write on for this purpose, but you could make one on the computer very easily or get crafty with construction paper and a bulletin board.  I have limited space, so I have chosen one that can be put away with the school books.

We are almost complete with December, and here is our weather chart:

Where’s the snow, by the way???  Hoping to add some snow on the 30th. :)

Meanwhile, in Alpha Omega’s Horizons curriculum, having taken almost a month off for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we are studying the seasons as well.  Here’s the worksheet we did today: which things go with summer?

Alpha Omega has handily tied this in to the 4th day of creation, wherein God created the sun.  We learned how the earth spins on its axis as it rotates around the sun, and how this causes seasons.  Some of the explanation was probably above our preschooler, but we did act out the earth and the sun and spun around the room, which he found very entertaining at least!
And for our final preschool activity today, as we are easing back into school post-Christmas, we wrote a thank you note.  At the rate of one per day, we should have these complete by next week!
For more great preschool ideas, check out The Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations– this post is part of her meme, and the linkup is on her site. Check it out!

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Preschool Science: Sun, Time, and Cats in Space

Today using Alpha Omega’s Horizons Preschool, we are learning more about the sun, God having created it on the fourth day of creation, and how it is used to govern the day. We learned that the day is comprised of 24 hours, and that the clock is used to indicate what hours those are. Our first introduction to telling time! Alpha Omega does a great job of tying everything together, in this case it blends science with math, sort of like a big creation unit study. A great way to showcase God’s creation using everything our little preschooler sees around him.

In today’s lesson, we are working on memorizing Genesis 1:16: “God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

We are learning how the earth spins as it orbits the sun, even though it looks like the sun is moving around us.

We are discussing the difference between daytime and nighttime, with which activities go with each.

We watched some Youtube videos showing gravity, astronauts being weightless in space, a cat weightless in space, and astronauts in training in the back of the aircraft that simulates weightlessness by flying in a parabolic arc. We talked about Zero gravity, and “0G” “1G” “2Gs” and looked at a video of the moon landing to see the effects of gravity on the moon. The big takeaway from these videos was that he thought it was cool that the weightlessness video was set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” song.

And after that brief diversion, we got back to business and got these printables on the clock from homeschoolmath.net to supplement the worksheet from Alpha Omega.

For Christmas… do they have Dinosaur Train watches? If not, definitely Cars or Thomas, I think….

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Preschool Science: Soil Observation

In our homeschool, we’ve been working through Day 3 of creation using Alpha Omega’s Horizons Preschool curriculum.  On the third day of creation, we know God separated the dry land from the seas and created all kinds of vegetation.  Accordingly, the curriculum is spending quite a bit of time on discussions of soil and planting, and the things plants need to live and grow.  Our planting season is all but past here, but we have been watering houseplants, and we did wander outside to investigate a soil sample for our science activity!

First, we headed out to find dirt.  This isn’t difficult at our house.  Plenty of dirt, right next to the weeds.

Then, we scooped some up in a plastic cup and examined it.  We brought it back inside to spread it on some parchment paper and observe it more closely.

The idea was to find that the soil is comprised of different things such as rock, decomposed matter, perhaps insect life, etc.  We didn’t discover too much in our soil sample as we sifted through it, however, we were able to make a scientific drawing of the soil sample using pages from My First Science Notebook.

In our drawing, we had some elaboration, some included grasses in the drawing though there was no grass present.  He knows how to draw grass, so that’s what he did!  We identified four elements within the scientific drawing to label: rocks, dirt, grass, and small rocks.  Ok, its a stretch.  But the point is to practice the skills of science, in this case Observation.  These skills are important to begin at an early age, even if they require much coaching and parental input!  Note the lines in the drawing from the labels to the item labeled.  If you squint, it kinda looks like a rabbit…  :)

That’s what we’ve been doing, head over to Preschool Corner and check out what other homeschooled preschoolers are doing this week!