A Cool Pine Cone Experiment!

Hello, today I'm sharing a cool experiment that we did in our homeschool when we were leaning about cones. We had these cones since last year, I saved them from one of our trips to the Arboretum, because I knew I would need them for an experiment.

Initially,  we read about cones, and then she wrote some important facts about them in her worksheet that is part of her Science Curriculum. We took a closer look at them to identify the parts, and I wanted something more hands on, so I went online, researched and found some cool worksheets at The Crafty Classroom, then Little V was able to label the parts of the pine cone and we also found another cool experiment.

The pictures below, show that we submerged one pine cone in water, after about 2 hours we could see that the pine cone scales started to close up.

Then, 6 hours later check out how closed up the scales were!!

Cool, right?! I didn't now that and we were pretty excited about it! So we did some extra research and learned that the pine cones scales respond to changes in humidity. When it's warm and dry the scales open up to release the cone's seeds and when it's humid or wet, the scales close up by expanding the scales cells.

Well, that's it for today! Hope you enjoyed our little experiment!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

First Grade Science Curriculum!

We have been 5 days into our First Grade School year already and we are enjoying it very much! So, today I want to share with you what is our choice for First Grade Science Curriculum.

We are using the Biology for the Grammar Stage from Elemental Science, and the required books for this curriculum.

This is our first year using this curriculum, and as I mentioned before we've been 5 days into the school year, and so far we are very pleased with the activities, the flow of the curriculum, the books required. I love the activities and there's also an option too purchase the lapbook templates which is one of our favorite type of activity.

Little V will have 20 weeks to learn about animals, 10 weeks to learn about the Human Body and 6 weeks to learn about plants. The lessons are well planned and easy to teach. They provide a list of material needed for each week, to make sure you'll be able to complete the Scientific Demonstrations.

Another thing I liked about this curriculum, is the fact that they give you two possible schedules to be used, and believe me this is very helpful. The options are 2 days a week and 5 days a week. I decided to use the 5 days a week schedule.

While I was checking their sample classes online, I was also able to see the list of books that are required for the curriculum, and that was another plus, as ahead of time I knew what books we would have to purchase and therefore no surprises later.

As you can see in the picture above, I purchased the online version and printed the student workbook and teacher manual at home. The lapbook templates are in the same binder as the student workbook.

Come back to check more about this curriculum and to see Little V having fun while learning Science!

What is your choice of Science Curriculum? We would love to hear from you!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki