Lewis and Clark: A 3 Week Unit Study

This unit study is available for our patrons over on Patreon and covers science, language arts, history, and art. You will be doing a Minecraft reenactment of the journey, working with maps, studying animals and tracks, and playing Discoveries, The Journals of Lewis and Clark. It is geared toward grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8  but can be adjusted for higher or lower grades.

This unit study contains a list of resources and  activities for you to use in your studies. Choose those that will best suit  your students, time, and learning environment. My hope is that you will enjoy  the process of learning and not feel constricted by the timeline or  activities. Make changes as they suit your needs and enjoy your time learning  together! 

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Bean Plant Experiment Finale

What did we learn? Sun and water give the best affect, of course. We also saw that water and sun are not equally important to plants. A plant can still grow and produce beans without water, albeit stunted. No sun and  the bean plant is doomed to death. Plants 1 and 2 both have bean pods growing now.

Ping Pong Science

We did a fun and easy experiment this week. Put a small dent in a ping pong ball. Fill a cup with hot (but not too hot) water. Put in the ball and cover. The air inside the ball warms up and expands, pushing out the dent.

Bean Growth

Now that it is spring, we have finally begun learning about seeds. This is happening inside of course since we have a high risk of snow here in Minnesota.

Here are our beans (3) the day we planted them. The baby food jar has about an inch of water (do not allow them to be completely submerged as it stunts the growth) and the center is full of paper towel.

This is at 1 week. The leaves were straight up in the air the next day and there are lots of  roots.

This is just 2 weeks and 2 days. We transferred them to dirt and now the experimentation can begin.

If we go from left to right on the plants above, the first will get sun and light, the second only sun, and the third only water. We are also charting their growth. The experiment is supposed to go 1 month, so we will see how they fare till then.

Volcano!

On Tuesday we read The Magic School Bus Blows it's top. Thursday we crafted our own volcano and Friday we set it to erupt.

Sculpy on a formed pie tin make the volcano. Baking soda, a few drops of red food coloring, and vinegar make the eruption.

What to do with a clay volcano? We filled the center with polyfil and glued it to a piece of felt. Add some cut up red felt and you have yourself an instant volcano play set!

Floating Peanuts

Water + baking soda + vinegar + Peanuts = Floating
Yeah, so what's happening? Well, peanuts do not normally float, let me get another cup with just water in it.  Okay, so sometimes they float and sometimes they sink. What are you trying to show me?

Here, let me add the baking soda and vinegar to the plain water with peanuts...
water + peanuts + baking soda + vinegar = Ohhhhhh!
Order matters...you learn something new every day, even when you are a mom!
This went with our Magic School Bus Gets Baked in a Cake book for science.

October

Have you missed me? I have! Last Sunday I pulled into the driveway with our dog in the kid carrier. It hit the curb and flipped. The dog is fine, but I came out with a sprained right wrist. That means I can do very little, typing included. I did want to pop in and say hello though and share a bit of what we have been doing the last couple of weeks...

Jayne makes a ruff for history class

Halloween decor went up

Jayne and I made this just days before the sprain...thank you pintrest!

Jayne learns about cells!

on the left is the animal cell, on the right is the plant cell. Our organelles are dried currants and the nucleus is a prune.

Oh What a Week

Sewing his pouch pocket

A fun week, that is! Our school week has been just great. We did an especially large amount of hands on activities this week and that may have been a part of it. We learned all about living in medieval times, castles, bathrooms, food and the like. He always wants to know about the bathrooms each time period uses and he has yet to be disappointed by the information. Jayne even got to try his hand at swing his own pouch (pocket) like they used to wear.

In science we spent a lot of time learning about the ocean. We learned about waves, the tide, and coasts. Jayne saw a glimpse of how waves work when we made a wave bottle. He also got to see how things freeze and melt. We put some fun stuff n the ice tray in the freezer and some ice cubes insulated and not insulated mugs.

The wave bottle

Our little Passports came in this week too. Sam and Sophia went to Japan this month. Jayne got a little sushi eraser and an origami set. We made a book all about Japan and spent a lot of time folding paper.

Origami galore! You can tel which is mine by drawing ability only.

This week we finished reading Th Hundred Dresses. This book did not keep Little Guy's attention like the last 2 books did, but t did teach some great lessons that we have already been able to apply in real life. We will be reading The Family Under the Bridge next. This should be good! I just hope it draws him in better than the last one.