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Make Zopf (Swiss Style Bread): Day 3 Hands-on Learning

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Make Zoph. Swiss style bread. Day 3 of Hands-on Learning Activities @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusFor another switch in our routine, we read Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland (Case of Adventure Travel Series Book 1) and have been working our way through a fun and interactive Unit Study called Destination Switzerland by CASE OF ADVENTURE. Today, we made  Zopf (Swiss Style Bread) and you talk about delicious!

We basically followed the recipe suggested by Case Adventure, which is Zopf Bread. It required just a few ingredients and a slow morning while we did school.

Though the recipe suggested white flour, I had more whole wheat. And even though we didn’t get the combination right of white to wheat so that it didn’t become too crumbly without the gluten, it still was so delicious and a fun project.

After Tiny mixed it, we let double in size for about an hour. I think it was longer because he was doing math and we forgot about it. So I think it was closer to two hours.

Then he decided to go ahead and try the four braids instead of two and talk about challenging.

I’m not much help to Tiny because the poor kid has a spatially challenged mom (you know I have to turn the map sideways or the direction I’m facing to get it right), but he found a site that showed him how to braid 4 pieces.

Actually the Step 2 on the Instructables website was what he used because it was more helpful. So much fun for him as he loved the challenge.

The important part was to try to make the pieces even, but so not perfect is perfectly acceptable.

As you can see, he was pretty proud of himself and he should be because it was so delicious and the smell in the kitchen just permeated.

Again, it was crumbly because of the lack of white flour, but it didn’t affect the taste any.

Besides having a hot piece of buttered bread while reading the novel Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland (Case of Adventure Travel Series Book 1) and putting together our new lapbook and unit study about Switzerland was more fun this way.

I have a review and pictures about it coming up soon on our newest Switzerland unit study. But you can grab it now if you’re wanting to follow along.

Destination Switzerland CASE OF ADVENTUREAlso, grab these other hands-on ideas from Day 1: Make a Hair Hygrometer, Day 2: Desert Sand Art: Hands-on Learning (Colors of the Desert) and 365 Days Hands-On Homeschool Activities – One for EVERY Day of the Year for more ideas and look at my category for hands-on ideas for your unit studies

Hugs and love ya,

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Make a Hygrometer: Day 1 Hands-on Learning (Humidity in the Desert)

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Make a Hygrometer. Day 1 of Hands-on Learning Activities. Learn how humidity in the desert is measured @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusTaking a break from the books because we need a variation in our routine with everything going on right now, we are doing several days of hands-on learning with some upcoming unit studies. Today, we are learning about how humidity is measured in a desert, so we made an easy diy hair hygrometer.

Look at this list of supplies that you probably have on hand too at your house.

►Cardboard about a foot long and 9 inches wide
►A piece of thin cardboard. Ours was a bit too thick, you really want it thin here to make the pointer.
►A pair of scissors
►A strand of hair that’s one foot long
►A hot glue gun
►push pin
►dime
►pen for marking
►small cloth tape measure or regular tape measure

Make an Easy DIY Hair Hygrometer

Hygro comes from a Greek word that means moisture or wet and a hygrometer is a way to measure the humidity in the air.

An easy diy hair hygrometer is a great way to see a visual and learn how the humidity is measured in a desert because everybody understands a bad hair day. And hair behaves differently when the humidity is high or low.

This is the objective of this activity; when it’s humid, hair increases in length and when the air is dry, hair will shorten.

Look at this site where we got this idea from. It says:

Hair is made from keratin, a protein that is wound into a coil. The turns of the coil are held together by a type of chemical bond called a hydrogen bond. Hydrogen bonds break in the presence of water, allowing the coil to stretch and the hair to lengthen. The bonds re-form when the hair dries, which allows people to style their hair simply by wetting it, shaping it, then drying it.

Here is what we did.

1. Take the bigger piece of cardboard (called base) and cut two slits in the top about one inch from the left and separate the two slits about 1/4 inch.

2. Take the thin piece of cardboard and make a triangle pointer about 6 inches long. Then measure about half way down the base and over from the left about one inch. Attach the pointer there with a pushpin.

3. Take the hair strand, (I put some hot glue on one end at the top to keep it from coming out of the slit, slippery little sucker) and string it through both the top and bottom slits. Glue a dab of hot glue in place on top to hold the strand and a dab at the bottom to hold it.

And if all this sound like blah, blah, blah. Look at this picture.

How to make an easy diy hygrometer to learn about moisture

Attach the pointer to the base with a pushpin 1/2 inch from the left edge in the center. Take your time so your hair doesn’t break. Too, this works with healthy hair. If it is brittle, you won’t be able to pull it carefully taunt.
4. Hot glue the hair in place in both sets of slits, then hot glue a dime 1 -1/2 inches from the left edge of the pointer base.

Next, Tiny took it to the shower.

While he was showering, as you can see in the picture above, the hair lengthened because of the humidity and the pointer went down. That was humid or 100% humidity if you want to calibrate and use it to make other measurements for the day.

Your kid can take this outside during different parts of the day to see what it does and measure the pointer by marking it on the base for different times of the day. Record the time to see how humidity changes during the day.

Just remember, use a THIN piece of cardboard for the pointer because Tiny had to take an extra long shower because our pointer was heavy. He didn’t mind doing that this morning though.

Anyway, if your child takes it out during different parts of the day, he can calibrate where it points and learn how much moisture is in the air.

To hurry the process on along though, we got a blow dryer after it and the hair coiled and the pointer came back up to dry. This helps to understand humidity in the morning versus humidity in the afternoon.

Humidity is one way to describe how much water vapor is in the air and the hair hygrometer was such an accurate way to measure water vapor that it was used for many years.

Relating this to the Sonoran Desert, we learned that during the hottest, driest parts of the year in the Sonoran Desert the humidity may be around 15%. In other non-desert locations the humidity may be 80% or more.

Though we know deserts are very dry places, this really helped us to see why they are.

Also, look at my blog post, 365 Days Hands-On Homeschool Activities – One for EVERY Day of the Year for more ideas and look at my category for hands-on ideas for your unit studies.


Hugs and love ya,

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Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


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Learn About Leap Year Free Notebooking Page & Resources

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Learning about Leap Year free notebooking Page

Seizing the moment or in this case the year, the leap year, we took a rabbit trail off our unit study to look up a few websites and read about the leap year. Today, in learn about leap year free notebooking page, I rounded up a few websites to learn about why a leap year was started.

Can you believe poof in 4 years how your homeschool and kids will change? Anyway, the subject this month is too cool to pass over, so we took a day today to dig in and learn about it.

Look at few facts to think about or research:

    • February normally has 28 days.
    • Every fourth year, February has 29 days.
    • The fourth year is called a Leap Year.
    • When did the practice of adding leap year begin?
    • What is significant about 1582?
    • How do you keep track of your birth day if you’re born on February 29?
    • What are the differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars and why it matters?

Look at these free downloads and background information:

Download the Free Leap Year Notebooking Page!

Hugs and love ya,

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

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Homeschool High School Chemistry & Free Reference Sheet and Resources

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Tiny is finishing up middle school courses and scooting now into homeschool high school chemistry. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School.

(Yikes, with my third one going into high school, maybe I will learn something. tee hee hee.)

For his first course, we chose Paradigm Integrated Physics and Chemistry.

Homeschool High School Chemistry & Free Reference Sheet and Resources @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

One of my reasons for Pace Integrated Physics and Chemistry for high school chemistry this year is that its available online for .pdf download.

Homeschool High School Chemistry

When you are living overseas or are short on space, these .pdf downloads are a great option. Don’t forget to check out my post Digital Homeschool Curriculum – Big Ol’ List.

One tip that may help you when organizing digital content is that I use Google Drive for using and storing the curriculum on multiple devices.

By putting it on my google drive, Tiny can access it from his iPad and I can access it too from my laptop or any other computer that I am on.

Also, the beauty of digital downloads is that you print off what you want or don’t print at all and the curriculum is always with me.

Instead of lugging books back and forth with me from and to the states, I just get the .pdfs printed when I get  back here to Ecuador.

Like I said too, we always have our “school on the go” to.

The Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum we are using this year is more of a textbook approach and I prefer a much more hands-on approach to all subjects.

However, I know that I can “liven” up any curriculum with free resources or ones I create.

Free Chemistry Reference Sheet and Resources

Look at these four free resources that I have found and created that I will be using with our high school chemistry to bring it alive and make it fit our preferred approach.

Golden Book of Chemistry 1.Homeschool High School Chemistry & Free Reference Sheet and Resources

The Golden Book of Chemistry is apparently a beginners bible in chemistry though it can be a bit controversial.

It was written in the 1960’s (a long time ago when concerns were different then). It shows you how to set up your own home laboratory and conduct over 200 experiments.

Note: I have read that it is banned now because many of the experiments are considered too dangerous to do at home, but it is still considered one of the best diy chemistry books.

Too, we are looking at it for other value, like the word lists and understanding the changes involved in chemistry.

So NO, we will not be using it for hands-on activities, but as a reference to compare to modern day chemistry.

My research shows that it is also free to share because the copyright was not renewed. (If that changes, I will take this down and let you know because I respect copyright laws.)

Here is the free download of this book or this nifty little tool. It already has sparked Tiny’s interest in chemistry, which is what I wanted.

Too, because one of the reasons we are focusing on it is to build a beginner’s foundation in chemistry and to understand the history of chemistry, I created this Chemist Reference Sheet from the book as a quick way of glancing at terms.

Chemist Reference Sheet 1 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I added a portion at the bottom so that when we come across an updated view about the word definitions, Tiny can add them.

Download the free Chemist Reference Sheet below

Chemist-Reference-Sheet-@-Tinas-Dynamic-Homeschool-Plus.pdf (2399 downloads )

Moving on to what I will use as a guide to hands-on activities, I have a free Middle School Chemistry curriculum and High School Chemistry curriculum, both of which have hands-on activities.

High School Chemistry

The high school free chemistry has links to multimedia in it, which I think will be helpful to mix in with his textbook.

Download the free High School Chemistry Curriculum here.

Middle School Chemistry


The middle school curriculum is excellent because it has more actual hands-on activities ideas to include as we plod along in our study this year. So it will help to round out our study.

Download Middle School Chemistry Curriculum here.

See what I mean, you actually can use just about anything when it comes to curriculum as long as you are willing to spice it up.

More Homeschool High School Chemistry

Curriculum is just like cooking, add a little a bit of this and that that your family likes and you have something new.

Hope you enjoy the free downloads and find them helpful with your middleschooler or highschooler.

I know we will enjoy our study of chemistry this year and doing this the third time around makes it more enjoyable.

Also, you may want to look at these other helpful posts.

Hugs and love ya,

When You Have a Science Minded Homeschooled Kid And You Aren’t

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When You Have a Science-Minded Homeschooled Kid and You Aren't @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusWhen you have a science – minded homeschooled kid and you aren’t, it almost makes you feel ill-equipped to teach science.

Not wanting to squelch my oldest son’s love for discovery, I was up for the challenge though not every day did I always feel prepared.

It was when Mr. Senior 2013 entered middle school and high school that I felt I was not going to be prepared.

Let me back up first and share some sanity saving tips at each level that really helped me as each son came along because I was so tickled that they had a spark of curiosity that I wanted to feed.

Homeschooling Science-Minded Little Ones

Realizing early on that science is about hands-on exploring saved me.

No, don’t get me wrong, I would rather be the homeschool mom who throws a worksheet at my sons and get it done.

I learned that technique didn’t teach anything and well it actually made it harder for me to teach science. You wouldn’t think so, but it did because it stifled the love of naturally learning.

When the kids were excited about science and I followed their lead, it was easier to cover science for the day.  I didn’t have to “teach”, I just had to show up prepared with some useful resources and follow their natural leanings toward science.

Sanity saving tips:

  • Easy hands-on activities are a must so you can feed their love of learning.  Get all the help you can and I did by using this book, 365 Simple Science Experiments With Everyday Materials.  I realized the key to keeping the hands-on stress free for me was to use everyday things I had around the house. They even now have this book, 365 MORE Simple Science Experiments with Everyday Materials.
  • Books about science matter at this age even more because it sets the tone for learning in higher grades. I started gathering resources for older grades like How the Earth Works (How It Works)series. Little did I know then that these types of resources can span several grades and have been some of our all time favorites.
  • Zoos, nature walks, field trips and park learning.

Kids this age naturally want to be out doors and I took advantage of that time to add in learning at the zoo, on nature walks, at field trips and when we went to the park.

The bottom line, I learned that if I followed the lead of my first son, I didn’t have to work so hard to get science in.

Homeschooling Science-Minded Middle School Kids

Then I was just sure I would fall short of feeding all of my sons’ love for science as they entered the middle grades.  Somehow, you rise to the occasion though.

Homeschooling Learning at a 4H Club with others who are science-minded

{Mr. Senior 2013 learning from a lover of science, Dr. David Shormann, creator of DIVE into math and science. We were so grateful to have lived close by him and more grateful that he came over and taught our kids some science.}

Sanity saving tips:

  • 4-H club.  When I was in public school, I guess I didn’t know about 4-H because I thought you had to have a goat, sheep, pig or cow to join.  Little did I know that 4-H covers a wide range of subjects from quilting, to horse back riding to science.  It just took a few moms to start the group and since it was a private group, it was limited to just homeschooling kids.

So during the middle school years, we joined a 4-H homeschool group that was set up for the love of science.

Rubbing shoulders each week with other moms who had a natural love of science rekindled my love for science again.

The approach they took to keeping it hands-on during the middle school years stuck with me. They invited science speakers like Dr.  Shormann to come and share things he collected with our kids.

I am glad I joined this group to keep me rounded out because again, I was ready to throw a textbook at them.

It would have been okay to use a textbook and I did but I learned to not give up valuable hands-on projects and that I could still keep science easy.

  • Science kits. In the early part of their middle school years, I invested in some ready made science kits from The Young Scientist Club to come to the house.
  • Textbook help for mom.  Too, I realized now that it was okay to add a textbook because not only did I want them to do more formal work but I needed the help of laid out curriculum. Mr. Senior 2013 loved the series from Apologia, but Mr. Awesome preferred the Bob Jones science books.
  • Rainbow Science too.  As if that wasn’t enough help for me, I made sure I had a backup system too which was Rainbow Science.  I found a used one at a curriculum fair and supplemented with it also. The description on the website says: The Rainbow is a serious, two-year, total science curriculum for 12-14 year-old students.

Homeschooling Science-Minded High School Kids

You think I wouldn’t doubt myself by now, but again entering uncharted waters in high school, I felt vulnerable again.

By this time I had learned that high school is just a continuation of what I have been doing all along.

All I needed to do was to create the environment, steer my sons to some great homeschooling products and keep doing what I was doing it.

Sanity saving tips:

  • Outsourcing at the high school level can be fun. Though we had co-ops in our area, we had been homeschooling for a while now and felt comfortable at this point by going it alone. However, outsourcing science at the high school level is a doable and enjoyable part of schooling teens.
  • Take advantage of online classes like CurrClick . By this age, there are many issues of science that are much more enjoyable when discussing them with other science loving kids.
  • Computer based multimedia providers like Switched-on Schoolhouse. By this grade, Mr. Senior 2013 liked textbooks and computer based learning. Switched-On Schoolhouse starts off with physics & chemistry in 9th grade and we just worked out with through it using other resources. My oldest son liked the combination of videos, quizzes, interactive content and reading.
  • Don’t give up living books either.

Don’t be afraid to jump head first into a subject that you don’t feel particularly equipped to teach.  Who is afraid of a challenge anyway?

I learned to follow the natural enthusiasm my sons had for science, don’t force them to make conclusions about science activities too soon because part of science is discussing thought provoking issues and keep it hands-on where possible while feeding their knowledge about science through books.

Are you homeschooling a science-minded kid?

Hugs and love ya,

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