Posts Tagged ‘Homeschooling’

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Dolls Around the World

Monday, November 21st, 2016

dolls-around-the-world

A great geography project for kids to understand the cultures of different countries is to make dolls around the world. Why not have your kids look up the traditional costumes of several countries and sew or hot glue those costumes onto dolls?

You will want to collect lots of scraps of cloth. If you do this with a school or homeschool co-op, one child can sign up for each country, and you can have the child research the costume for that one country. Then they can write a speech or report to go with their doll, and present it on a geography day!

I had always wanted to do this project myself and never had the time. When I saw this homemade dolls around the world set at a resale shop, I was overjoyed that I could show my children the costumes of the different countries while decorating my homeschool room colorfully.

If you don’t want to buy so many dolls, you can make dolls out of toilet paper tubes. Just hot glue cloth and beautiful accessories on them, and you can have a less expensive version of the dolls around the world. When I was a teacher in the schools, I assigned a biography for each of my students, and they made a figure of the person beginning with a toilet paper tube. Most of the students’ figures came out gorgeous!

Looking at all these dolls makes me want to travel the world!

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Posted in Geography | 8 Comments »

Clock Cake

Friday, October 28th, 2016

clock-cake

If you have a friend who loves math, or someone who is constantly late and you want to give them a hint to start being on time, then you can bake this fabulous clock cake.

To make this super cute cake, you will need two round cake pans. I used one cake mix box. You can bake whatever flavor you want. When the cake is cool, place the cake on a plate, cover it with cellophane, and put it in the fridge. A cake is always easier to frost when it has been in the refrigerator.

Frost the cake with white frosting. If you want to be fancy, you can put strawberry jam in between the two layers. Then grab some Hershey’s kisses, turn them upside-down, and use one for the center of the clock. Place one on the top, one on the bottom, one on the right, and one on the left. Then place two Hershey’s kisses equidistantly between the others, so that you have twelve kisses going around the clock where the numbers should be.

Grab some Fruit by the Foot or other Fruit Roll-up-type candy. Cut out the arrow hands with scissors and place them on the cake. Then put a “ribbon” of Fruit by the Foot around the entire cake to give it a polished look. Now your clock cake is complete. Enjoy!

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Posted in Cooking and Baking, Math | 6 Comments »

Calculator Cake

Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

calculator-cake

This calculator cake is super easy to make and is perfect for a nerd, a math teacher, or anyone who enjoys math. All you do is bake a rectangular cake in whatever flavor you want. We placed the cake on a piece of cardboard lined with foil and taped at the back. Then we frosted the cake with chocolate frosting.

We used white icing for the top rectangle, which is where numbers show up on the screen of the calculator. If you’re clever, you can put some numbers into that rectangle. (For example, 4+4 or something along those lines.) You can find candy numbers in the baking aisle of a grocery store or in the cake supply aisle of a craft store.

I left the screen blank because the calculator is off. We used Sweet Tarts for the buttons of the calculator, but you could use any round candy that is about the same size.

Now your calculator cake is complete. Give it so someone you love and stand back and watch the amazement in their eyes as you present them with an edible calculator!

math-cake

If you enjoyed making this calculator cake, you will probably also like these hands-on math activities:

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Posted in Cooking and Baking | 4 Comments »

Elementary Physics Series

Wednesday, October 19th, 2016

elementary-physics

This post contains affiliate links. I was compensated for my work in writing this post.

We had a great time learning about Elementary Physics, using the book Christian Kids Explore Physics by Bright Ideas Press. Here is a quick index of the different experiments we performed for you on video, to help you as you study this subject.

The first unit of this book is called “The Foundations of Physics.” It describes what physics is all about; how to measure distance, time, temperature, and weight; and it familiarizes us with famous physicists. Here is a demonstration of how we see physics all around us:

The second unit is “Matter.” If you have taken Elementary Chemistry, you can skip these chapters, which are a review of chemistry. If you have not taken Christian Kids Explore Chemistry, here are the experiments from this physics book that you will need:

The third unit is “Mechanics,” where we learned about force, gravity, work, friction, and energy. Here are the video demonstrations we performed to learn about mechanics:

The fourth unit is “Matter in Motion,” where we learned all about motion:

The fourth unit is “Energy in Motion,” where we learned about electromagnetic energy, light, color, heat, and sound:

The last unit is “Electricity and Magnetism.” Here are a couple of experiments that we did for this unit, in order to understand electricity and magnetism:

These fun experiments are from the book Christian Kids Explore Physics by Bright Ideas Press. We really enjoyed studying physics in such a hands-on way. Why not study physics with your own kids by grabbing a copy of this book?

christian-kids-explore-physics

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Posted in Science | 6 Comments »

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