Science – Page 8 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Geology 101: Rock Sorting

This week our STEAM subject is Science, specifically, Geology – the study of rocks.

I love blogging activities that I’ve come up with to do with our kids. But, I really love getting to blog about fabulous ideas Cody has come up with and done with them. I love watching him interact with both of the kids, but he and Becca definitely have a very special bond. This particular day was cold and just yuck… not a day for going outside. So Becca pulled out her rock box, and Cody suggested “how about we sort your rocks?”

They proceeded to study each rock. Here they are shown sorting them by size – and putting them in order. But they also lined them up darkest to lightest, sorted like color shades together, and found other ways to group them like “sparkly” vs “not sparkly” rocks.

If your child has a rock collection, this is a fabulous, easy activity that doesn’t require any prep! Just pull it out and use it when they are playing with their rocks the next time! Note: it easily killed 20-30 minutes if you’re looking for a FREE, NO PREP time killer! 🙂

Need an idea for what to keep your rocks in? Check out how Becca made her rock box here.

Crystal Snowflakes

Today’s STEAM topic: SCIENCE

Ok, so I’ll be perfectly honest with you that I got the idea to do these snowflakes from a post I saw on Facebook, but when I went back to try and find it, I can’t even begin to locate the source. (This is what Pinterest is for. Yes, I know that. But do I pin every wonderful idea I see on Facebook? No. I don’t have time for that. Shoot me now. HA!) Ok, so now that you’ve stuck around past my disclaimer, here’s a link to the post that I DID save from Playdough to Plato where she does an awesome thing of making letter crystals to spell the child’s name. That is so totally awesome, and I plan to do that with Becca later on this spring. But for now, we did snowflakes.

I just cut and twisted the pipe cleaners into snowflakes and then, we followed the directions on the Noirin’s post (linked above) to make our crystal snowflakes!! They turned out super awesome and Becca has really enjoyed looking at them over and over and touching them. Now I need to figure out what to do with them, because I don’t want to just throw them away…

Mini Habitat Boxes

Every Tuesday this month, I have shared with you some ideas for various animal habitat boxes. (Arctic/Antarctic – Farm – Dinosaurs – Ocean) But what if you don’t have abundant space to store all of these habitats? And what if you don’t have a million storage containers big enough for everything that I showed?

That’s where these MINI Habitat Boxes come in! Simply using a small Ziploc box, or even a washed out lunchmeat container (hello, recycling and FREE!), you can make a fun habitat box. Whether it’s a Serengeti refuge for just four safari animals, or a woodland retreat for five, these mini habitat boxes can provide just as much fun for your kids, while making it possible to have even more variety stored in a smaller amount of space! You could also create two different mini boxes from the same Toob of animals so that siblings could have their own habitat boxes to play in.

Shown in these boxes are a combination of animals from a variety of Toobs that haven’t already been placed into sensory boxes. I love it that we bought several Toobs and combined them all into one big bag so that when I want to make a box, I can just go and sift through and see what we have available. You can find the animals shown above in these Toobs (affiliate links – thank you for your purchases!):

Safari Ltd Pets TOOB

Safari Ltd Big Cats TOOB

Safari Ltd Wild TOOB

Nature Appreciation

Becca LOVES to be outside. And she loves watching birds. So this winter on a somewhat warmer day, I made a couple of bird feeders out of milk jugs and Becca helped fill them up with bird seed, and we hung them in a couple of our trees in the front yard. We’ve checked them and refilled them a couple of times, and she’s always so happy to see that the birds have been eating the food she puts out for them. These are super simple, basic feeders – just cut a rectangle in two sides of a paper milk carton, then cut slits a little further down, and fold down a little flap for the birds to sit on. Poke holes in the top for your string, fill them up, and you’re ready to tie them to the tree and go!

And along those lines of appreciating nature, I got these beautiful shots of some of our succulent plants this last week. They are just beautiful – ~~even~~ ESPECIALLY in the winter cold, which turns them various shades of red and pink. I love living in South Texas and learning how to use native plants in my flower beds!

Ocean Habitat

This month I’ve been talking on Tuesdays about our animal habitat boxes. Hard to believe we’ve just got one more week in this series! I hope you are enjoying the ideas I’ve been sharing. If you’ve missed any of them, here are the links:

Arctic/Antarctic Habitats – Dinosaur Habitat – Farm Habitat

So today is the Ocean! Becca’s favorite habitat. She is obsessed with learning more and more about the ocean. She loves watching Octonauts on Disney Jr, reading ocean books, and of course, taking care of our tank of saltwater marine life. She would live at Sea World if she could.

The best part about these habitat boxes for me is that they take about three minutes to throw together. And for a Mommy who works from home, that three minute prep for an activity that will occupy her for 20+ minutes, is GOLDEN. So here’s what you’ll need:

colored rice (I used the blue and green rice mix that we already had together from our Colored Rice Sensory tray activity – KEEP everything, Mommy. Just throw it in a bag when your kiddo is “done” and pull it back out a couple months later. Keep everything.)

a storage box

Safari Ltd Toob (here are a couple great options):
Safari Ltd Ocean TOOB

Safari Ltd Coral Reef TOOB

Safari Ltd Baby Sea Life TOOB

Extension – get this Toob and make it be a shark box! Safari Ltd Sharks TOOB

A different idea for your older child learning about the various levels of the ocean – color your rice black and purple and get this Toob: Safari Ltd. Deep Sea Creatures