Research Project for Kids - Study a Famous Scientist or Inventor

A Biography Research Project with a STEM Focus

Biographical research projects might feel overwhelming to kids, especially if it's the first time they have tried this type of activity. I created this activity as a first exposure to studying a famous person. It is all contained on one sheet of paper, so that is something that does not overwhelm kids. There are also a couple of different formats to choose from: a folding brochure format or a poster format.

Why scientists and inventors? Obviously I am passionate about STEM fields, but in finding out more about these important contributors, kids may become inspired to pursue a similar career or at least take more of an interest in it. Sports figures, performer s such as singers and actors, and other professions inspire kids from an early age. Why not scientists and inventors? Without them, we wouldn't have high-tech sports gear, a way to watch sports events, or the technology to record and play back music and movies!

Here's how it works!

First, choose the scientist or inventor to study. I have provided a list in the resource I created, or you can find a great list for kids on ducksters.com.

Now it's time to do the research. I love utilizing the library to find general information books about various scientists and inventors, but you should also be able to find individual books about many of these inspirational figures. Find the basics, such as when they lived, where they lived, and some other background information about them. Then go a little deeper and find out what important invention they dreamed up or scientific contribution they made. Maybe their discoveries or ideas weren't considered viable or important in their time. Maybe they died penniless and unknown. Some had fame and fortune, as well as respect. Others may have been dismissed for being too revolutionary or for being a woman or a person of color.

The next part of the project is so much fun, because it is time to present the findings with others and do a fun scavenger hunt! Display the research projects around your room, so that students can read about the scientists and inventors and fill out the scavenger hunt page. If you don't have the resource below (you can find it here) you can create a simple scavenger hunt to hang up, with questions such as:

Can you find a scientist who lived before you were born?
Can you find an inventor who invented something you have used?
Can you find a scientist who is from a country other than the one you live in?

Find the resource on Teachers pay Teachers:

Or pin this idea for later:

End of Year Memory Books: POP UP Style!

I have been working on this pop-up book for awhile now and am so excited it's finally finished! Are you looking for something a little different in your end of year memory books this year? How do pop-up memory books sound?

There are base pages (with guides for gluing in the images) as well as the pop up image art. The above pages show the basic book, but I have included several more pages that you can add in based on what you'd like to include.

Fill out the base page and pop up inserts. Color as desired.

Cut out the pop up inserts and fold in half. Fold back the tabs.

Glue in the tabs. Here is the page opened op.

The pop up inserts fold snugly into the book as it closes.

Trim wish washi tape for a fun touch!

This is a fun way to end your year. Pop up books always bring a smile, and the creation of their very own pop up book is a way to instill creative confidence! There is even a page for homeschoolers. I have labeled this activity for grades 2-5, though if you have classroom helpers you could do this with first graders as well. Students in grades 4 and 5 should be able to complete this project independently, while second and third graders might need a little assistance making sure their folds/flaps are creased well and lined up to fold into the book correctly.

You can follow the steps I've shown above to create your own book, or purchase my template by clicking on the image below:

Draw and Write Paper: FREEBIE FRIDAY!

Draw and Write Paper

A few years ago I created some simple draw and write paper to use at home with our Draw Write Now books. I decided to update the paper and add several more options! These are available for free download at my Teachers pay Teachers store:

Create short stories, work on sequencing, instructions, and more, and illustrate them as you write!

FREEBIE Friday! (one day late)

I have decided to make my alphabet printing pages, AlphaMats, an exclusive freebie from my blog! Each page is provided in color and black and white. Use the color if you are making laminated/reusable wipe-off mats, or black and white to print a book for each of your students! I meant to get these posted yesterday but time got away from me. =)

Enjoy! Here's a larger sneak peak at what they look like:

Writing about Community Helpers!

When my oldest was in K, we learned about community helpers but I wasn't really fond of the resources I had at hand. Since that was the case, I had created some more community helper resources such as writing prompts and are-can-have tree maps. That worked great for him. However, with my youngest, he wasn't quite ready to tackle everything his brother had at the same age. With two brothers being so different, it only makes sense that in a classroom there will be a lot of differences in skill sets, particularly in K and 1! Now my youngest is in 1st, and needs a little extra practice, both with reading and writing. I got to working on a new set of writing pages to address this very issue! I love working through this unit, because it's so easy to tie everything else in with it! It's also important for our kids to know how many people it takes to run a successful community. We are lucky to have had some wonderful encounters with many of our community helpers, in particular our farmer, librarian, and firefighter!

I think we will spiral with these community helper packs, first using the cut and paste option, and then moving on to one of the more difficult pages. The full pack has 10 community helpers in all: police officer, firefighter, librarian, crossing guard, chef, teacher, mail carrier, veterinarian, farmer, and doctor. I think we will also try to draw a local map of our neighborhood and try to locate all of these helpers as well. Click the image below or the link at the bottom to download the police officer pack for free!

You can download the police officer pack FREE here!

Free Summer Fun!

This week we finally got a chance to use our Kids Bowl Free passes! Massachusetts is one crazy, wacky state (commonwealth)? Whatever. They don't have regular bowling, only candlepin, eh (apparently candlepin is popular in some parts of Canada too)? On the plus side, the balls are small and easy for kids to hold and throw. The pins don't fall over like regular bowling pins, though. It's more likely they fall to the back than knock each other down. Also? YOU GET THREE BALLS PER FRAME! What? You'd think you'd bowl 10 every frame, but it happens far less often than you'd think. In any case, it's still fun.

If you haven't signed up, check out the website and see if there's an alley near you! We always get the adult pass, too. I've found it well worth the $25 for 4 named adults!

Another free thing we'll try tomorrow is the Bookworm Wednesdays at our local cinemas.

If the kids (ages 6+) fill out a one page book report, they get to see a movie for free! Tomorrow is Despicable Me 2, and of course my boys find the minions in the movie hilarious, so we are going to go. Here they are working on their reports:

I had my 6yo write the title, author, one sentence, and his name. I wrote a few more sentences he dictated to me, since he is still working on his writing confidence. He got a little frustrated, so I guess that means we need to spend a bit more time on it. We've slacked off on our more formal homeschooling the past few weeks in lieu of summer activities. We tend to be pretty relaxed homeschoolers, but we do try to work on reading and writing skills as they are important as a learning foundation.

We participated in another free program where you log reading hours and get free passes to Six Flags with the Read to Succeed Program, but I'm not sure we will actually use them as it's not close and would be a very long day trip. We also have plans to visit a different, more kid-friendly theme park so I'm not sure we need to do both anyway!

What free or almost free activities do you have in your area? Do you school through the summer?

Draw/Write Paper FREE Download!

I have a freebie to share with you! If you use any drawing or writing books or work on short story writing with your kids/students, these pages are easy to use!

Download the printables here:

We have used Draw Write Now, but I know there is a Draw and Write Through History series as well, which looks fun. Draw Write Now was perfect for my reluctant writer, and I ended up purchasing books 1-8 during an Educents deal. I think that means we are likely set for now and won't be buying the Draw and Write Through History books, but I'd love to hear which draw/write series you have used!

word vault

This is something I've been meaning to post about for awhile, but I just haven't been at the computer long enough to sit down and write about it! I am so excited to repeat this project with my own children. I created a word vault (though I don't think we called it that) when I was in second grade. I still have it in a closet somewhere! You can use a very simple index card box or index file holder, and the alphabetical dividing cards are optional. Since we homeschool, I went ahead and purchased a locking index card box knowing that the ability to lock it up would make it even more exciting for my seven year old!

This is a great way to keep your spelling and vocabulary words. For my seven year old, I have him write the word on the unlined side of an index card, and then use the word in a sentence (or write the definition) on the lined side. After the card is filled out, it goes in the box in alphabetical order! At the end of the school year it will be filled up with lots of cards! Since he had just recently built the LEGO Tower Bridge and we have been learning about bridges, he chose a few fitting words as the first words to add, such as bascule, force, tension, and compression. He also then asked if decompression was a word and what it meant and if he could add that, too.  =)

Bascule!

Compression!

Locking it up!

Something great about this is that it is very inviting to open up the vault again and review the words. They become vocabulary flash cards, and are wonderful for review. I know that every student in my second grade class had one of these but you could have a class word vault instead! There is a lot of room for differentiation. Here are a few ideas:

• Add word roots (Latin, Greek, etc.) and words with the same root.
• Write the word in more than one language.
• Print the word and write it in cursive (we should be starting cursive soon so I think we'll do this).
• Draw a picture of what the word means.
• Take out all the word cards and mix them up. Set the stopwatch to see how fast you can alphabetize them!

I told H that once he writes his word, and learns what it means, he can lock it up and it's his forever. I sure do hope that is true!

*First image graphics by: Jessica Stanford, Fun for Learning, and Sweet Berry Patch.

a few free homeschooling resources

I LOVE this site: http://www.worksheetworks.com/

Free, highly-customizable worksheets? What could be better? So many of the activities are really fun. H always requests more worksheets from this site. I always figured we would use worksheets infrequently, but these worksheets are so well-liked, they aren't "work" at all!

H working on roman numerals, which he loves for some reason.

F working on an odd/even sums maze.

Need spelling lists? Check out K12 Reader - it has them for 1st-5th grades, as well as reading comprehension sheets. Great resource! For handwriting, I go to this site; it is worth navigating around the ads to get the worksheets, which you can tailor for everyone from pre-readers on up. I have used this site for copy work in the past, by typing out a few sentences from a favorite story and having the kids trace the words.

Have fun teaching is another site I've been using lately, and it looks like they do giveaways on their site and have a Teachers Pay Teachers store for some of their stuff, too. Khan Academy is another one that is getting more and more use (and giggles; H thinks it is hilarious!) on our end. Another math site I've used with success is Homeschool Math. What are your favorite free homeschooling resources?

exploring clouds

We did this cloud project a couple of months ago and it is something that has really stuck with the boys. They often point out "serious" (cirrus) clouds, which always makes me smile. I think that making clouds with cotton balls is such a fun way to learn about them!

First we made a mini book about clouds with this Clouds Mini Helper (free when I did it, not sure it will stay that way!). We also read a this cute book we found at the library" Clouds (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1) and talked about the atmosphere and water cycle. The fun part was making clouds! We used blue paper for a background and then played with the cotton balls into the shapes we wanted.

Clouds Mini Helper

Cloud types

Clouds are fun!

Hanging clouds

Close up view

quick dry erase board

What you need:

• piece of wood/plastic/cardboard the size of your dry erase board
• plain white contact paper
• dry erase markers and eraser 
• general purpose spray adhesive (optional)

This isn't a perfect dry erase board in that it doesn't really erase all the way. However, it erases better than the dry erase boards from the dollar store, and you can make it in whatever shape you'd like! I used spray adhesive to increase the likelihood it would stay attached to the wood.

Materials to make the board.

Testing it out.

If you have any chalkboard paint lying around, it might be fun to paint the reverse side with it!

cornmeal lettering

Blogger had a bit of a hiccup the other day and lost this post so I'll do my best at reposting what I'd written. We have been very busy this spring and spending much time outside, so although I have a lot of posts half-written, I haven't had longer chunks of time to sit down and finish them. 

This activity arose after glancing through a Montessori Services catalog and seeing this cute tray. I knew H&F would like to try it out so I put a cornmeal lettering activity together for them.

What you need:

• Tray (I used the tops of cookie tins)
• Cornmeal or sand
• Letter cards, a letter chart, or sandpaper letters (which you can make; ours were purchased through Kid Advance)
• A small scoop/measuring cup

Have them trace the letter first on the sandpaper or letter card, and then make it again in the cornmeal.

The materials.

Older kids can swish, but we used a small scooper to smooth out the cornmeal.

While trying it out, I found that less cornmeal is actually better.

H tries it out.

We used both lower- and uppercase letters.

F gave it a try, but just liked scribbling in it as well.