Posts tagged ‘science’

Spring has finally sprung! Here in the Midwest, the trees are beginning to fill up with leaves and we’ve been enjoying watching the Earth’s awakening from its winter’s nap.  We’ll be starting our garden soon so we can enjoy a summer’s harvest of tomatoes, snap peas, zucchini, peppers and more.

Like many homeschool families, find opportunities to educate throughout our day-to-day activities, so this week’s Featured Pathway about seeds, caught my eye.  We will complete the activities in this Pathway and discuss what we’ve  learned over the days and weeks as we plant our garden and watch the dark patch of soil begin to brim with green seedlings and morph into a delightful source of nourishment and beauty for our family.

This lesson provides information and resources for students to learn about seeds and create a nature notebook.This unit is designed to last about one week, depending on how many days you teach science and how much you do each day.

In this unit, you will:

• Identify common seeds.
• Identify the parts of a seed.
• Identify the parts of a plant and their functions.
• Learn about the different methods of seed dispersal.
• Identify the conditions necessary for seed growth.
• Go on a nature walk and create a nature notebook of seeds found in your area.

How do you incorporate learning into every day activities?

This unit, as well as over 900 other Pathways, is free for everyone. Please help keep LessonPathways.com free by supporting our advertisers. If you need to make a purchase, please consider using our online shopping mall, where a portion of your purchase will help make LessonPathways.com even better.

This post was written by Christina S., a homeschool mother and LessonPathways.com team member.  She lives in Michigan with her husband, two daughters, dog, cat and turtle.

Our family of LessonPathways.com users is a great one! Every day we receive emails with suggestions and feedback for our site and information to share.  Very recently, this site for ordering free butterfly eggs was sent to us, and we’d like to share it with you!

FreeButterflyEggs.com offers free butterfly eggs – you only pay the cost of shipping!

From their site: Why do we offer FREE Painted Lady Butterfly Eggs? Two reasons!
One: To encourage butterfly awareness and butterfly conservation and to encourage establishing butterfly habitats in yards and neighborhoods.
Two: To draw your attention to live butterflies and other butterfly products we offer at Shady Oak Butterfly Farm

These would make an excellent compliment to many of our Pathways featuring butterflies:

Frog & Butterfly Life Cycles

Letter B – Butterflies

Caterpillars (Language Arts)

You can use the search feature on LessonPathways.com to find all kinds of engaging butterfly resources.

Do you have a suggestion or a resource to share?  Drop us a line at Blog@LessonPathways.com

The Jones Family recently used our Year K Science Pathway, “Taking Care of the Earth”, and this is what they had to say:

Recycled Pen Container

“This Pathway was very educational and so much fun!  We used it with our kindergartener AND our 3rd grader and it turned into a full family project.  “

How have you used Lesson Pathways? Have you done any fun projects or want to share how a lesson worked for you?! Tell us about it!!

Many people have discovered the new ‘fun’ in Geocaching, but since we did not own a GPS system, we were left searching for similar activities where we could use maps or compasses.

In my search,  I discovered Letterboxing! It’s actually a tradition that started back in the 1800’s in England. Who knew?!

Letterboxing Adventures

Here’s a brief explanation of Letterboxing:

Letterboxing is an intriguing pastime combining artistic ability with “treasure-hunts” in parks, forests, and cities around the world. Participants seek out hidden letterboxes by cracking codes and following clues. The prize: a miniature piece of art known as a rubber stamp—usually a unique, hand-carved creation.

Letterboxers stamp their discoveries in a personal journal, then use their own rubber stamp, called a signature stamp, by stamping it into the logbook found with the letterbox, perhaps writing a note about the weather or their adventures in finding the letterbox.

My son is still too young to be able to read the directions and go on the hunt himself, but he thoroughly enjoys our adventures each time we go! I pack his little backpack with our water bottles, stamp pad, stamps, pen & journal and then print the directions and we head out on our adventure!

My favorite site for finding boxes is AtlasQuest. The searches are fairly easy and they even have simple symbols to explain a little more about the box. Make sure to pay attention though! One time I found a fun box, but didn’t pay attention to the symbol that told me ahead of time that it would be a 1-3 mile hike Needless to say, my lesson was learned that day! LOL!!

It’s a good idea to bring gloves along with you as well because in many cases, the boxes are hidden beneath brush and dirt. In most cases, the planter of the box tries to be aware of poison ivy or other environmental hazards, but like any time you go hiking in the woods, just be careful! There is a full disclaimer found on the site that explains more.

Let's see what's Inside!

Once you find the box, discretely open it up and discover what’s inside! Many of the stamps are hand-carved and just GORGEOUS! You then stamp the letterbox stamp into your journal, and stamp YOUR stamp inside the letterbox log. It’s that easy and really is FUN!

Check it out! You never know what you will discover while you are out on your adventure!!

This post was written by Gabby, a homeschool mom and LessonPathways team member.  Learn more about by clicking the “Our People” tab above.