Over the summer, I wrote A Summer Homeschool Day with Science. In that post, I shared a day of science activities that I did with my son who was transitioning into the 5th grade.
With that in mind, I want to share more of what we have been doing with science since he has officially started the 5th grade using the Time4Learning homeschool curriculum.
If you are curious about Time4Learning, I will be posting more on that next week.
Matter and Space
When we initially started school, we began with Chapter One on Matter. But, we have also begun to skip around, more recently with Chapter Four on Space.
These two chapters alone have great and easy to understand information in each. However, I believe it’s important that children have a wealth of hands-on experience to fully understand what they are learning.
With this idea in mind, I decided to incorporate a project that I picked up from Michaels called the Discovery Air-Powered Blaster and also visit a few exhibits at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.
Discovery Air-Powered Blaster
In searching for something that went along with what we were learning, that would be engaging for him, I decided upon the Discovery Air-Powered Blaster.
In this kit, the child builds their own air blaster that shoots glow-in-the-dark foam pellets and gushy water beads. Air targets are also included so that the child can practice hand-eye coordination, but most importantly learn about air pressure and water.
Initially, it reminded me of a Nerf gun and I know my son likes those, so I thought it would be a great idea.
Wrong! LOL.
After watching a few YouTube videos about it and putting it together, my son decided that the project was a fail. He spent two days on the project before coming to his final conclusion.
Here’s what he wrote about the project in his science journal.
The air powered blaster was a fail. It didn’t say if the little balls needed to be in water. Those targets couldn’t stay up. They were flimsy like a hot dog.
Although the project may have ended in a fail in his eyes, I appreciate that the company included a large poster on Pressure Power. The poster alone makes up for the fact that the project was a fail – in his eyes.
The poster clearly defines and gives examples of pressure power all while using the science vocabulary words that we are currently focused on such as “weight” and “space”.
Indianapolis Children’s Museum Exhibits
Speaking of the terms, “weight” and “space”, we further expanded upon those concepts at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum this past week (with safety precautions, of course).
Prior to going, I took a virtual walk on their website to see what exhibits were up and running. I was happy to learn that the Beyond Spaceship Earth was open, as well as Wild Weather.
My goal was to make it through each of these to build upon what “we” were learning in Chapter One and Four. But, I also knew that there were many more exhibits such as a Sports Legend Experience and that it was possible for my son to get distracted by that; in which he did.
But, prior to that, we did successfully explore Beyond Spaceship Earth twice which included a science show.
Beyond Spaceship Earth
Beyond Spaceship Earth tells the dynamic story of space exploration from NASA’s Project Mercury program. This particular program sent the first Americans into space, to the International Space Station (ISS).
In the exhibit, we walked through the “spaceship”, learned space-travel history and learned the life of an astronaut, even what they ate and drank.
During the show, we were able to also see the actual escape pod movie prop used in the 2016 film Star Trek: Beyond.
We learned quite a bit in this exhibit. So much so that we went through a second time.
Wild Weather
Sadly, we never made it to the Wild Weather exhibit that was planned to supplement both chapters. In that particular exhibit, visitors discover various scientific discoveries about how to improve our ability to forecast severe weather and enhance our awareness of global weather phenomena.
These could include hurricanes, blizzards, severe heat, and climate change, all of which is discussed in each of the chapters we are currently covering.
My plan is to go ahead and buy the annual membership, so that we can go back as often as needed throughout our year of homeschooling.
Final Thoughts
Well, there you have it. Here are just a few of the ways that we have incorporated hands-on 5th grade science activities into our homeschool curriculum.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more about Time4Learning, as well as buying a year of Virtual Field Trips to help supplement Social Studies.
Use the code WELCOME to save 10% like I did from Dealspotr.
While we do plan to visit the museum again, I know that going too often isn’t safe with COVID. So, adding in some virtual field trips will also be helpful, all from the comfort of our home.
This post contains affiliate links to products I recommend.
