In anticipation of a hoped-for vacation to the beach, I began a Unit Study about Oceans today with Lulu and Max. It has been about 7 years since I used this particular curriculum. Lulu was 2 on our first (my first!) ever visit to San Diego to see the ocean. In the months of planning toward that trip, Brett and Eden made Ocean Journals, read tons of books and did many experiments. While our unit study may not be as in-depth, we are using the same book for the backbone of our curriculum that we used before. The book Awesome Ocean Science, by Cindy A. Littlefield , is wonderful. It is written in an interesting and entertaining way. But most importantly — THE EXPERIMENTS WORK! (And many involve food coloring, which is irresistible, right?)
I have shared with you before my frustration with science experiments at home. Often they require lots of mommy time, effort and mess, with little result or little correlation to the subject being studied. I usually unschool science. I bring home lots of books on various subjects, and try to let the kids go ahead with the experiments they can perform on their own. I have been excited to do the experiments in this book, however, because they really prove their points, quickly and easily.
For example, this drop of salt water is dropping through the fresh water because salt water is denser than fresh water.
This carrot is floating in salt water, for the same reason.
The kids now understand the phrase “just the tip of the iceberg.”
And we know why melting ice in Antarctica can raise sea level, while melting sea ice does not.
Some of our next experiments are about ocean currents, and they will be looking at tide pool videos on Youtube and making tide pool creatures from clay.
Do you have any recommendations for our Oceans unit? Please leave me a comment below!
1 Comment