Homeschool Science is FUN
Homeschooling can be downright fun!! As part of our Kindergarten Social Studies unit in expanding horizons we’ve been exploring our local parks. Goofy came up with a list of 20 criteria for what made a park ‘good’. He listed things like a tall twisty slide, water fountain, bathroom, spot to fly a kite, pond with ducks, climbing rope, swing for him & his baby sister, etc. Then, I made a worksheet for him to check off items on the ‘good’ list and tally them up.
Discovering the Scientific Method at the Park
Then we got to work! Tough, I know. Each park had some unique items: zip line, Tire teeter-totter, large spider web, wood fortress, etc. but every park had at least 9 items on our list. After exploring about 20 parks we were ready to graph.
Graphing Parks
I made a graphing sheet & Goofy got to work. The big winner was Mt. St. Mary with 18 out of 20.
Look what We Did Today in Homeschool!
- Math - Goofy had great practice graphing.
- Physical Education – lots of exercise
- Social Studies – Exploring what makes up our community
- Socialization (school, right) – meeting new friends & playing together
- Science – We used the scientific method:
- Asking a Question? Which park is the best
- Construct a Hypothesis? If a park has the most ‘good’ things it will be the best park
- Test Hypothesis by doing an experiment. We gathered data from 20 parks in our area evaluating how many ‘good’ things they had & how much the kids liked the park
- Analyzed our data with a graph – Mt. St. Mary was the big winner as far as most ‘good’ items. The kids like that park a lot, but they like several of the other ones at least equally. So hypothesis was not right.
- Conclusion – A good park needs to have many of the items on the ‘good’ list, but how having a niche is what really makes it stand out to the kids.
- Asking a Question? Which park is the best
- Construct a Hypothesis? If a park has the most ‘good’ things it will be the best park
- Test Hypothesis by doing an experiment. We gathered data from 20 parks in our area evaluating how many ‘good’ things they had & how much the kids liked the park
- Analyzed our data with a graph – Mt. St. Mary was the big winner as far as most ‘good’ items. The kids like that park a lot, but they like several of the other ones at least equally. So hypothesis was not right.
- Conclusion – A good park needs to have many of the items on the ‘good’ list, but how having a niche is what really makes it stand out to the kids.
FREE Printable Science Fun in the Park
Here are the sheets I made for our Park graphing. You are welcome to use them for your personal use. You are also welcome to share my website with anyone you wish, just please link them to my website and not directly to the download. Thanks!
Download FREE Discovering the Scientific Method at the Park
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