Science Center Monday: Rocks and Minerals

Over the weekend, LD pulled out his rocks and minerals kits
that he got from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas. I also
had a rocks and minerals chart from Oriental Trading to add
to the center (that he hadn't seen before). We spent more than
two hours learning about rocks today! I'll share a bit more of
what we did in the next post. After the experiments, the kids
spent about 45 minutes hunting for rocks and trying to identify
them!

The Three Types of Rocks

The first thing we did together was to sing the "Rock Song."
It was to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat and
talked about how sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic
rocks are formed.

Then he put the cards in the rocks and minerals chart.
He really loved that and thought the chart/cards were "cool."
We also went over some of the cards and the booklet from
the teacherdesk.info.

Don't miss our free 3 Types of Rocks worksheets that I made (when we studied rocks a few years after I wrote this post). There are also a lot of hands-on activity ideas in that post.

 
I shared some of our hands-on activities in these related posts:

• Igneous Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activity (much older post, using sand)
• Metamorphic Rock Activities
• Metamorphic Rock Activity (another older post, where we took “core samples,” excavated and examined this baked rock — a cupcake!)
• Minerals: Our Hands-On Activities and Seeing the BIGGEST Diamond in the World
• Earth-Space Science: Topographic Maps

Learning How Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks were Formed

These are cards from the teacherdesk.info. The packet was
more than 60 pages long and I thought it was a good quality
product (it was $4 US dollars). We used them a lot in our
talks today.

Don't miss our free 3 Types of Rocks worksheets that I made (when we studied rocks a few years after I wrote this post). There are also a lot of hands-on activity ideas in that post.

 
I shared some of our hands-on activities in these related posts:

• Igneous Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activity (much older post, using sand)
• Metamorphic Rock Activities
• Metamorphic Rock Activity (another older post, where we took “core samples,” excavated and examined this baked rock — a cupcake!)
• Minerals: Our Hands-On Activities and Seeing the BIGGEST Diamond in the World
• Earth-Space Science: Topographic Maps

Sedimentary Rock Activity

For sedimentary rocks, we talked about how the
rocks were formed by layers building up one a-top
the other. Then we made our own sedimentary
layers.

We had different colors of sand (I added food dye
of various colors to the sand and mixed it together
the night before). We also collected dried up leaves
and small pebbles to add to the layers.

Don't miss our free 3 Types of Rocks worksheets that I made (when we studied rocks a few years after I wrote this post). There are also a lot of hands-on activity ideas in that post.

 
I shared some of our hands-on activities in these related posts:

• Igneous Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activities
• Metamorphic Rock Activities
• Metamorphic Rock Activity (another older post, where we took “core samples,” excavated and examined this baked rock — a cupcake!)
• Minerals: Our Hands-On Activities and Seeing the BIGGEST Diamond in the World
• Earth-Space Science: Topographic Maps

Igneous Rock Activity

In talking about igneous rocks, we looked at the
cards from teacherdesk.info and talked about how
some lava cools quickly (like obsideon) and some
cools slowly (like granite).

Melting wax from a candle was like lava cooling
quickly and after the wax had cooled for a few
moments we felt how smooth it was and compared
that to the obsideon rocks we have from the rock
kit.

Don't miss our free 3 Types of Rocks worksheets that I made (when we studied rocks a few years after I wrote this post). There are also a lot of hands-on activity ideas in that post.

 
I shared some of our hands-on activities in these related posts:

• Igneous Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activity (much older post, using sand)
• Metamorphic Rock Activities
• Metamorphic Rock Activity (another older post, where we took “core samples,” excavated and examined this baked rock — a cupcake!)
• Minerals: Our Hands-On Activities and Seeing the BIGGEST Diamond in the World
• Earth-Space Science: Topographic Maps

Metamorphic Rock Activity

We talked about what a geologist does and brought
out this "land recreation." LD and DD took turns
taking "core samples" from the earth with the straw.
They could tell that it was made of different layers.

Metamorphic rocks are made when pressure and
heat change the rocks. The oven was our 'heat and
pressure source' for creating these "metamorphic
rocks.

Then we took rock samples (below) and looked
not only for sediment layers but for mineral deposits.
Yup, there were red, blue and yellow "minerals" (ie.
sprinkles and stuff) in our "rock."

Then we ate it!

Don't miss our free 3 Types of Rocks worksheets that I made (when we studied rocks a few years after I wrote this post). There are also a lot of hands-on activity ideas in that post.

 
I shared some of our hands-on activities in these related posts:

• Igneous Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activities
• Sedimentary Rock Activity (much older post, using sand)
• Metamorphic Rock Activities
• Metamorphic Rock Activity (another older post, where we took “core samples,” excavated and examined this baked rock — a cupcake!)
• Minerals: Our Hands-On Activities and Seeing the BIGGEST Diamond in the World
• Earth-Space Science: Topographic Maps

Animal Habitat, Animal Tracks Game

When DD saw the science center set up today,
she said she wanted to do more rainforest stuff
instead. We hadn't yet played the animal tracks
game and this was perfect! Each player spun the
spinner. Then they had to guess which animal
habitat the animal lived in and had a couple of
guesses to pick the proper animal tracks. I got
the game for super cheap from Learning Resources
last year. I'd give it two thumbs up (especially
if you've been doing animal habitat studies). It
fit into our unit really well!

Oh and by the way, when it came to the rock activities
she was as excited and into them as LD!! Who wouldn't
love to "dissect" that metamorphic "rock!!!"

Port Lincoln Ringneck Parrot

Last week LD was very excited about birds (we
were going over the vertebrate groups and talked
first for a week or so about reptiles, then for another
few days about birds.)

He made a bird feeder and we bought bird seed to
hang on our front fence. It took a while, but today we
finally had visits from the Port Lincoln (or Ringneck) Parrot.

Bird Feeder

LD and I hammered together this very
primitive looking bird feeder. We wanted to
attract the Honeyeaters (birds). He filled the
containers with water, water and sugar, water
and honey, and water and squeezed orange
juice to see which one the birds were attracted
to.

Theme Time: Bears

Today the theme time table was on bears. At
breakfast we read Blueberries for Sal and Bearobics.
Blueberries for Sal is such a sweet story. It's a
Caldecott Winner from 1948. I grew up canning
blueberry jam (we had lots of blueberry bushes)
so I always have a good talk about that with the
kids when we read that book.

I also really like Bearobics. It's a rap, counting
book, has a really cute rhythm to it and is so
different from most other books and stories it's
worth a special mention too!

Also in the picture above you'll see three little
(panda) bears and the set for Goldilocks. (three
bottle caps for bowls, three chairs, three beds)
I retold the stories and all three kids were really
smitten (and demanded I do it again!). Then I
read them the story of Goldilocks (from a book).
The girls both played with the bears and furniture
on their own later.

Theme Time: Bears (cont.)

ED played with the little panda bears all day! She
even took them in the car on errands.

We followed up the re-enactment of Goldilocks (post
above) later in the day with a cute book called Beware
of the Bears, which picks up when the bear family
comes home. They follow Goldilocks to her house and
wreak havoc there.














DD cut out the parts (above) and made a moveable polar
bear (from kidssoup.com) and ED and DD did
the polar bear counting with Montessori beads (well,
ED didn't use the beads, but DD did.) (picture below)

DD made a bear out of cotton balls (which happened
to be on the counter -- yeah, great housekeeper
I am, huh! At least I can say the mess inspires creativity!!)
She didn't want to use the pom-poms (in the last
picture, though ED spent a lot of time putting the
pom-poms together to make a head, ears and a long
tail!)

And we did the letter matching activity (TOO easy
said DD!)

Other than that it was once again the 'normal' stuff:
math
reading
handwriting
piano
no music class today... sigh... I'm just overwhelmed
with the other stuff...

We did lots of errands once again because I started
a VERY long "For Sale" list and have sold more than
twenty things so far. I'm finally facing the fact they're
we're moving... soon, soon, soon. GULP!! Augh!! We've
been here 12 years and have accumulated a lot that
just needs to go.














 alphabet bears: (upper and lower case)
http://www.kinderplans.com/admin/images/bear2.pdf

alphabet bears: (match upper, lower case separate)
http://www.kinderplans.com/admin/images/bear1.pdf

Reading

Just in the last couple of weeks, DD has decided
she wants to read her books. She is really taken
with Animal Antics (She's not as interested in
Bob Books at the moment). These books are good
because they build, word by word..

I'm making this up, but it builds like this:

The rat
The rat sat
The rat sat on the mat
The rat sat on the flat mat

... you get the idea. The pictures are cute (in color).
She's been wanting to read one new book each day!
For the previous few months she didn't want any
help from Mom and wanted to read things by herself.
Thus, the little word games worked better for her. Now
she begs for me to come help her. In fact yesterday, I
was trying to get the vegies cut up and into the crock
pot, so she got LD to help her. They looked so cute
together.

Cubby House Fun

I bought foam remninants and made lots of foam
cushions of all different sizes years ago from the
small ones above to the long, 5 foot ones below.
My kids have such a great time playing with these!
They are constantly building cubby houses.
Yesterday, they put on a long "show" for me. LD
was under the cubby (see the hand in the middle
picture) when suddenly an earthquake struck AND...

eventually it turned into a gymnastics and dance
show! (And yes, I sat quietly through the 30+
minute show, my mind whirling with all the things
I "should" be doing!!)

I thought I'd post these in case this is often what
your living room looks like!

And if you look carefully, you'll see piles of "stuff"
on the flat surfaces including the couch. (heh-heh!)

Active Math Games: 5 and 6 -- Math Tail Tag; Math Monster

MATH TAIL TAG:














Today after Kindergym I told the kids we were
going to the park to play math games. They
were pretty excited.

Our first game was Math Tail Tag. The kids all had a
strip of construction paper with a number on it tucked
into our shorts. We ran around trying to protect our tail
from being swiped and tried to swipe someone else's
tail. When we got a tail, we looked at the number
(let's say 5). LD had to figure out what number made
13 (so he said 5+8=13). DD had to tell me what
number came next when she got a tail. They had to
stand still when working out the problem (so others
might come and swipe their tail). They got to put their
captured tail into a pile, then grabbed another new tail (they
were spread all over the grass) and the game continued on.

MATH MONSTER:















The BIG BIG hit was Math Monster (ie. freeze
tag with a math twist!!).

I was the Math Monster. Before we began we
spread the cards above all around the grass.

Then it started! GO!

*I counted to five...

*If I tagged someone BEFORE they picked up
a math problem they were frozen and the other
player had to crawl through their legs to unfreeze
them.

*If I tagged them and they had a math problem,
they had to tell me the answer.

*If they got the answer correct they were free to
go put their card in a pile and I gave them to the
count of five before I could tag them again.

*If they got the answer incorrect, they were frozen.

**Math Monster would win if she could tag and
freeze both players.

**Wouldn't you know it?? The kids won!!

**DD begged and begged to play again (I was
wiped out and begged to have lunch instead!)
Maybe tomorrow!

Then we went down to the now mostly dry river
bed. It's pretty isn't it??

I stuck bathers on the kids and they tried to catch
little fish (no tadpoles this time).