Lego Learning Games

1. Walnut Hills Homeschool created a story book with lego scenes kids create. Kids makeup a story line and build a scene for each page in their book. Not only are they the authors, they are the illustrators too! Their lego creations are the illustrations for their book.

2. Graph legos - Happy to be Homeschooling my Children.

3. Lego Addition: Make math fun by having kids add legos! - Sixkents

4. Have kids construct sentences and words with legos. They get to write and build at the same time! - Chalk Talk and Happy to be Homeschooling my Children

5. Make patterns with legos: AB, ABB, and ABC! - Keen on Kindergarten

Precipitation, Evaporation, Transpiration, Condensation

Precipitation - Make it Rain!

Raining Rainbows (shaving cream and food coloring) -  A Bit of This and a Bit of That!

Rain in a Jar - Guest Hollow

Transpiration - Collect Plant Sweat!

Learn about transpiration through this hands on experiment from Weird Science Kids. By tying a large baggie around a plant's leaves on a super hot, sunny day, you will demonstrate how transpiration is part of the water cycle. Pour the water from the plant into a measuring cup. Kids use their measuring skills to figure out how much water the plant produced. Click here for full instructions! Save your water for the puddle experiment below!
Also, check out Parents.com to see how to conduct this experiment with a patch of grass and a jar!

Evaporation - Watch a Puddle!

Science With Me conducted a puddle experiment to teach kids about evaporation! Pour water on the pavement in a sunny spot. Then, draw a line around it with sidewalk chalk. Let it sit, then check up on it later. What happened? The water evaporated! 

Condensation - Create a cloud! 

Handprint Calendar

Snow Flake, Heart - Share and Remember 
4 Leaf Clover - Meet the Dubiens
Earth - Busy Hands Art
Butterfly - Michelle's Journal Corner
Fish - Bobo Gallery
Flag
Sun
Crayons - Mrs Kilburn Kiddos
Pumpkin - Dana Hinders
Turkey
Lights - Tip Junkie
Tree - Mom 2 Posh Diva

Growing Gummy Bears

Check out the gummy bear below that Science Matters grew! Who knew gummies could expand so much when submerged in water?! 

Experiment - Keep gummy bears submerged in water at least overnight. The longer you leave them in the water, the more dramatic the results! Measure, weigh, and feel the gummy bears. Compare them to a "regular" gummy bear. What differences do you see? Did the gummy bears undergo a physical or chemical change?

photo via science matters

A Survival Guide to Middle School took this experiment further. They put a gummy bear in tap water and one in salt water. Check out their red gummy bears featured left! Visit A Survival Guide to Middle School for lab questions and worksheets to go along with the activity. 

"My Place in the World"

Kid-made flip book that helps them understand geography, where they live, and how their community fits into our wide, wide world from Kid World Citizen. To take the activity further, add my street (with address) after my city. Then, a picture of themselves after my house (ME).

Stars in a Jar

photo via Intimate Weddings

Create your own jar full of stars! Splatter glow paint inside of mason jars. Visit Intimate Weddings for a photo tutorial!

Note: You can also use glow in the dark paint.

Glimmering Pennies Experiment

Make dingy, old pennies look brand new! 

materials:
5 pennies
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 tsp salt
non-metal bowl
paper towels

how to:
1. Mix salt and vinegar.
2. Put all of your pennies in the vinegar. "count to 10 slowly."
3. Remove your coins and rinse in water. Voila- shiny and new!

Hold up, don't throw away your vinegar solution! Visit Science Bob for more science tricks that you can do, using your solution!

Invisible Ink: Ghost Writer!

Kids can transform into mini detectives, writing secret messages and codes with lemon juice!

1. Squeeze the juice of a lemon.

2. Dip a q-tip in the lemon juice and write on white paper.

3. To reveal the secret message, hold the paper up to a heat source (lightbulb, hairdryer, or candle)

Traveling Water

Experiment with color mixing and traveling water! Visit All for Kids to check out their experiment (featured above)!

Discovery Bottles

Discovery and exploration in a bottle, set up your own science lab! Dr. Jean and Preschool Play constructed the bottles featured above. Below are the instructions:

1. Magnetism- Can a magnet work through plastic? What happens when you add water?
2. Static Electricity- Tear pieces of tissue paper and styrofoam. Then, rub the bottle on wool, your head, or the carpet. What happens?
3. Waves- Create waves and motion in a bottle. (1/2 cup corn syrup, drop of color, and glitter)
4. Bubbles- Mix up 1/2 cup water, drop of dish detergent, and food coloring. Shake, what happened? 
5. Mud- Can water and dirt make mud? (1/2 cup dirt, 2/3 full with water) Classify the water and the mud.
6. Sink / Float- What objects sink / float? (Beach Bottle in photo: Fill bottle with 3/4 cup sand, add water, drop of color, small objects, and a balloon.)
7. Numbers- Roll the dice and find the sum of the 2 numbers. Estimate how many objects are in the bottle.
8. Story- Put objects in a bottle and create a story from them!

visit Dr. Jean for more bottle ideas!

DIY Jelly Fish in a Bottle!

Visit Bhoom Play for instructions!

Colorful Ice Sculpture Science

photo credit: art and creativity

Create colorful ice sculptures and see the science of mixing salt with ice! Art and Creativity shows how kids can make works of ice art by simply dropping liquid watercolor mixed with salt onto a chunk of ice! Science: Salt creates tunnels in the ice because it lowers the freezing point of water, causing the ice to melt. The colors make the tunnels pop, so we can see them better.

Also, check out We are Teachers to see how you can conduct this experiment with a large group of children!

Snowflake and Ice Experiments

Examine, grow, melt, and cook with these four fun experiments:

photo via Austin Kids Blog

1. Snowflake Shapes
Kids can see all snowflakes have 6 sides and not one looks the same!

materials:
black paper or black fabric
magnifying glass

instructions:
1. Place paper in the freezer for a few hours to prepare it. Then, put the paper outside on a snowy day.
3. Let some snowflakes land on it
4. Use the magnifying glass to see the snowflakes up close.






2. Experiment with Insulation and Ice
Cocopreme helped kids learn about thermal insulators and how they affect the temperature of ice. 

Document what factor caused the ice to melt the fastest: salt, newspaper, or aluminum foil. Also, try other forms of insulation. 

photo via cocopreme

3. Classic Snow Ice Cream Recipe:
1. Put a big bowl outside to collect snow (8 cups)
2. Mix in a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk and either 1 tsp of vanilla extract or 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of chocolate syrup (you can play around with ingredients) 

Photo is from KSPR, click the link for more snow ice cream recipes!

4. Grow snowflakes in a bottle! Find out how at Snow Crystals by Ken Libbrecht.

Gumdrop Earthquake

Mr. Hansen's 7th grade Science class demonstrated "the effects of earthquakes on engineered structures." See who can build the strongest structure. Who's will last the longest through a fake earthquake?

Visit Exploratorium to find out how to build a strong, long lasting structure!

Moon Sand, Space Putty, and Galaxy Dough

Moon Sand

materials:

6 cups of play sand

3 cups of cornstarch

1 1/2 cups of cold water

instructions:

1. Mix the water and cornstarch together 

2. Mix in the sand, one cup at a time. You'll need to really work it in with your fingers. 

3. Play with it!

When you're all finished, store in an airtight container. 

When you play with it again, add 2-3 tablespoons of water

Space Putty

materials:

2 1/2 cups of liquid starch

1 cup of Elmer’s glue

Silver Glitter

Food coloring

instructions:

1. Stir the glue and 1 cup of starch together in a bowl.

2. Add a few drops of food coloring (optional)

3. Cover the bowl and let it stand overnight.

4. The following day, mix in 1-1 1/2 cup of starch, add glitter and play!

sillyputtyrecipe.org

Galaxy Dough

Visit Fairy Dust Teaching

Geography: Passport Please...

A fun geography project is to take your kids on a pretend trip around the world, to learn about other cultures and their history. Introduce kids to the food, music, geographic features, architecture, and language. Print out pictures and decorate your room to represent each country you visit. Send a stuffed animal around the world to different schools around the world, exchange souvenirs and postcards. For each country your animal visits, have his picture taken in front of a famous landmark or monument. To take the project even further, try to skype or ichat with schools from different countries. You can print out pretend passports and stamps, make airline tickets, and track your travels on a world map. Visit Making Friends for printable country fact cards. Note: You could also do this project nationally and learn about different states, corresponding with various schools from all over the U.S.

Christmas Soap!

Confetti Soap, all you need is glycerin soap and food coloring.

1. First, you melt the glycerin in the microwave, add food coloring to 1/3 of your solution, stir
2. Next, pour the solution out and let it get hard
3. Once it hardens up, cut the soap into small pieces and add to your mold (sprayed with cooking spray). 
4. Pour the clear solution over your confetti pieces, let set, pop out, and enjoy!

Treasure Soap

1. Choose trinkets to put inside your soap, then place them in an oiled ice cube tray or other soap mold
2. Melt glycerin in the microwave
3. Pour right over top of your trinkets and let set (trinkets will come out of the soap through washing)

Snowball Soap

1. Grate Ivory brand soap with  a cheese grater
2. Add a little water, not too much.
3. Mold the soap into a ball with your hands and let it set to harden

Enjoy your Christmas soap!