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Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

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Exploring space and astronomy free unit study for multiple ages is a fascinating study. It’s a glimpse into the sun, moon, stars, galaxy, and structure of the universe. Also, look at my page Best Homeschool Unit Studies.

Astronomy is a study of the universe beyond the earth. The universe is huge and whether you’re gazing at the starry heavens or watching a moonlight night, it’s staggering to the human mind. The universe is complex and immense.

There are many reasons why we find it fascinating to study about space and astronomy:

  • to find our place in the universe,
  • to learn how natural disasters like comets and meteorites impacts our earth,
  • to understand how to mark the passing of days, months, and years,
  • and to explore out of natural curiosity.
Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

Look at some of these topics to explore with your kids as you do this space and astronomy free unit study.

Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study Ideas

  • Define eclipses and learn their ancient mystery.
  • Investigate space objects and how they’re formed.
  • Recognize famous constellations, their names, and shapes.
  • Name some famous men and women astronomers.
  • Learn what is an asteroid.
  • To understand what is a planet.
  • Gather information about the moon and the importance in our solar system.
  • Discuss Kepler’s Laws and how they affect our understanding of astronomy.
  • Appreciate the history and achievements in astronomy.
  • What are stars, their colors, birth of stars, life expectancy, and patterns?
  • Analyze the origin of the universe.
  • Explain what is the Milky Way.
  • Investigate about black holes, their meaning, and how they’re formed.
  • Describe the solar system.
  • Tell why seasons change.
  • Summarize Einstein’s Theories and explain how they affect our increased understanding of the heavens.
  • Compare and contrast dwarf planets with planets.
  • Examine the meaning of terms like orbit, rotation, and revolution.

First, let’s jump into exploring space and astronomy free unit study by learning the history of astronomy at a quick glance.

History of Astronomy

Navigators were able to find their way on the seas through compasses and landmarks, like lighthouses, but the earliest was through celestial objects. The sun, moon, and stars served as the earliest guides.

Today, few people really spend much time looking at the night sky. In ancient days, before electric lights robbed so many people of the beauty of the sky, the stars and planets were an important aspect of everyone’s daily life.

All the records that we have—on paper and in stone—show that ancient civilizations around the world noticed, worshipped, and tried to understand the lights in the sky and fit them into their own view of the world.

These ancient observers found both majestic regularity and never-ending surprise in the motions of the heavens.

Through their careful study of the planets, the Greeks and later the Romans laid the foundation of the science of astronomy.

Aristotle, who was a Greek philosopher, believed the earth was the center of the universe and that the earth was surrounded by water, fire, and air.

Then, Aristarchus believed the sun was the center of the universe and he was the first to measure the distance to the sun and moon. He was a Greek astronomer who maintained that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

Furthermore, interest in the fascinating heavens continued from ancient times to medieval times.

Here is part of a medieval manuscript on astronomy.

This image is the front piece of a book covering topics like the movement of the planets, distances between stars, signs of the zodiac, the nature of the moon, and the art of reading minds.

Astronomy Free Unit Study

Moreover, there is an astrolabe in the picture above.

This is an instrument formerly used to make astronomical measurements, typically of the altitudes of celestial bodies, and in navigation for calculating latitude, before the development of the sextant.

In its basic form (known from classical times), it consists of a disk with the edge marked in degrees and a pivoted pointer.

Medieval scientists in the Middle East used this device to solve problems related to time and the positions of heavenly bodies.

While the astrolabe was a Greek invention, it was greatly improved upon by Arabic astronomers.

For example, the most important reason for science innovation by the Arabs was for their religion Islam worship. If they perfected the astrolabe, they could find out the time of day and direction for prayers toward Mecca.

Astronomy was used by the Egyptians, Mayans, Aztecs, Europeans, and the native Americans. Look at this site Star Date and the information it has about the Milky Way. Read what different cultures thought was this glowing strip of light across the sky.

By the early ninth century, in Baghdad, the study of astronomy was part of every scholar’s education.

Free Ancient Astronomy Notebooking Pages

Additionally, I’ve created these fun Ancient Astronomy notebooking pages for your middle or high school kids. It’s a fun way to add history with science because it’s inextricably linked.

A budding astronomer can’t fully appreciate today’s advancements unless he understands the pains ancient astronomers went through to understand celestial objects.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

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Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

More Hands-on Astronomy Ideas for Kids

How Did Ancient People View Astronomy

To help your student in their research about ancient astronomy and to use the notebooking pages above, look at a few of these helpful sites.

To go along with the notebooking pages look at this fun idea for a hands-on project. Build Your Own Stonehenge (Mega Mini Kit).

Exploring Astronomy and Space Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

The Solar System

Earth is only one of eight planets that revolve around the Sun. These planets, along with their moons and
swarms of smaller bodies such as dwarf planets, make up the solar system.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

A planet is defined as a body of significant size that orbits a star and does not produce its own light. If a large body consistently produces its own light, it is then called a star.

We are able to see the nearby planets in our skies only because they reflect the light of our local star, the Sun.

If the planets were much farther away, the tiny amount of light they reflect would usually not be visible to us. The Sun is our local star, and all the other stars are also enormous balls of glowing gas that generate vast amounts of energy by nuclear reactions deep within.

When you look up at a star-filled sky on a clear night, all the stars visible to the unaided eye are part of a single collection of stars we call the Milky Way Galaxy. The Sun is one of hundreds of billions of stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy.

ABOUT THE SUN AND MOON

However, the Sun is not the only object that moves among the fixed stars.

The Moon and each of the planets that are visible to the unaided eye—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus (although just barely)—also change their positions slowly from day to day.

During a single day, the Moon and planets all rise and set as Earth turns, just as the Sun and stars do. But like the Sun, they have independent motions among the stars, superimposed on the daily rotation of the celestial sphere.

Noticing these motions, the Greeks of 2000 years ago distinguished between what they called the fixed stars—those that maintain fixed patterns among themselves through many generations—and the wandering stars, or planets. The word “planet,” in fact, means “wanderer” in ancient Greek.

Constellations

The backdrop for the motions of the “wanderers” in the sky is the canopy of stars. If there were no clouds in the sky and we were on a flat plain with nothing to obstruct our view, we could see about 3000 stars with the unaided eye.

To find their way around such a multitude, the ancients found groupings of stars that made some familiar geometric pattern or (more rarely) resembled something they knew.

Each civilization found its own patterns in the stars, much like a modern Rorschach test in which you are asked to discern patterns or pictures in a set of inkblots.

The ancient Chinese, Egyptians, and Greeks, among others, found their own groupings—or constellations—of stars. These were helpful in navigating among the stars and in passing their star lore on to their children.

You may be familiar with some of the old star patterns we still use today, such as the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and Orion the hunter, with his distinctive belt of three stars. However, many of the stars we see are not part of a distinctive star pattern at all, and a telescope reveals millions of stars too faint for the eye to see.

Therefore, during the early decades of the 20th century, astronomers from many countries decided to establish a more formal system for organizing the sky.

Today, we use the term constellation to mean one of 88 sectors into which we divide the sky, much as the United States is divided into 50 states.

The modern boundaries between the constellations are imaginary lines in the sky running north–south and east–west, so that each point in the sky falls in a specific constellation, although, like the states, not all constellations are the same size.

Famous Men Astronomers

Then, introduce your students to some famous men astronomers.

For example, Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer of the 16th/17th centuries. Kepler discovered the three principles to govern planetary motion. Consequently, they became known as “Kepler’s Laws.”

More famous astronomers were Ptolemy, Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, and Carl Sagan.

Look below to see a few facts about each of the astronomer’s discoveries.

Ptolemy. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy made a summary of the astronomical knowledge of his time. This summary, entitled Almagest, contains a list of 48 constellations. His ideas were accepted for the next 1000 years or so.

Nicholas Copernicus. His ideas caused religious and scientific controversy; he wrote a book published in 1543 entitled On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. His evidence supported the idea that the earth was not the stationary center of the universe but, in fact, moved around the sun.

Galileo Galilei. He used the telescope to sketch pictures of the moon and Saturn’s rings. He heard that a Dutch inventor had invented something called a spyglass. Galileo decided to work on one of his own.

Within 24 hours, he had invented a telescope. It could magnify things to make them appear ten times larger than real life. He pointed his telescope toward the sky. He made his first of many space observations. Everyone thought the moon was smooth. Galileo saw that it wasn’t. The moon was covered in bumps and craters.

Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein was a physicist who developed the general theory of relativity.

Edwin Hubble. Hubble proved that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as “nebulae” were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Carl Sagan. He wrote several books about astronomy and is a popular scientist.

Famous Women Astronomers

Next, learn about women astronomers who are making a difference or have made a difference in the past.

For example, one woman who made a difference is Henrietta Leavitt.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt was an American astronomer. A graduate of Radcliffe College, she worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a “computer”, tasked with examining photographic plates in order to measure and catalog the brightness of stars. Watch this YouTube video Henrietta Leavitt & the Human Computers: Great Minds.

In addition, look at the list of women astronomers below.

Your student could research about one or two of them. It’s not an exhaustive list, but your kids will build an appreciation for these science shakers.

  • Annie Jump Cannon
  • Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
  • Williamina Fleming 
  • Helen Sawyer Hogg
  • Carolyn Herschel 
  • Margaret Burbidge
  • Mildred Shapley Matthews
  • Maria Mitchell    
  • Antonia Maury 
  • Jocelyn Bell Burnell
  • Adelaide Ames
  • Evelyn Leland 

Also, look at a few books about women and astronomy. This first one Astronomy: Cool Women in Space (Girls in Science), is published by one of my favorite publishers for unit studies which is Nomad Press.

The second one is 101 Awesome Women Who Transformed Science.

Living Books about Astronomy

In addition, I love the online self-paced language arts courses by Literary Adventures which uses living books. Look at these fun books about space and rocks to add to this astronomy course:

https://www.literaryadventuresforkids.com/p/the-little-prince-online-book-club?affcode=168584_izgghx15
https://www.literaryadventuresforkids.com/p/there-are-rocks-in-my-socks-said-the-ox-to-the-fox-online-nature-book-club?affcode=168584_izgghx15
https://www.literaryadventuresforkids.com/p/the-rocket-that-flew-to-mars-online-nature-book-club?affcode=168584_izgghx15

Astronomy Vocabulary Words

Next, add some basic astronomy vocabulary words. Here are some ideas below:

  • Astronomy – It is the study of everything in the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It includes objects we can see with our naked eyes, like the Sun , the Moon , the planets, and the stars . It also includes objects we can only see with telescopes or other instruments.
  • Star – A giant ball of hot gas that emits light and energy created through nuclear fusion at its core. The Sun is a star.
  • Aurora Borealis – The aurora in the Northern Hemisphere, also known as the Northern Lights.
  • Galaxy – A group of millions or billions of stars, together with gas and dust, held together by gravitational attraction. There are millions of galaxies in the universe.
  • Crater – A hole caused by an object hitting the surface of a planet or moon.
  • Moon – A natural satellite that orbits a
  • larger object.
  • Andromeda Galaxy – The nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 2.2 million light years away and is very similar in appearance to our galaxy.

MORE ASTRONOMY VOCABULARY WORDS

  • Meteorite – It is a fragment of matter from outer space that strikes the surface of a planet or the Moon.
  • Telescope – An instrument for directly viewing distant objects, using lenses or mirrors or both to make the object appear nearer and larger.
  • Magnetosphere – The region around the Earth, or any other planet, within which its natural magnetic field is constrained by the solar wind.
  • Shooting star – A small meteor that has the brief appearance of a darting, starlike object.
  • Astro – A prefix that refers to the meaning of a star or stars, a celestial body or outer space to the name. “Astro” is derived from the Greek word “astron” meaning star.
  • Twilight – An intermediate period of illumination of the sky before sunrise and after sunset.
  • Polar Aurora – The most intense of the several lights emitted by the Earth’s upper atmosphere, seen most often along the outer realms of the Arctic and Antarctic, where it is called aurora borealis and aurora australis.
  • Solar System – The sun and all the planets that orbit it.
  • Comet – A frozen mass of gas and dust which have a definite orbit through the solar system.
  • Nova – A cataclysmic nuclear explosion caused by the accretion of hydrogen onto the surface of a white dwarf star.

Fun Hands-on Exploring Astronomy Ideas for Younger Kids

Also, the best kind of science unit study includes many hands-on ideas. Science is about investigating, exploring, and pondering how things work.

Look at couple of these hands-on fun ideas Mr. Munch King did.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages
Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

Oreo cookie moon phase we got here Oreo Cookie Moon Phases and this fun one erupting moon rocks strengthens fine motor skills.

So, whether you’re looking for sensory ideas or just fun space themed ideas, look at these ideas for younger kids.

Then Mr. Munch King really loved this Epic Space Adventures (LEGO Star Wars: Activity Book with Minifigure). Some of the Lego activity books come with press outs for play learning.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

Space and Astronomy Hands-on Ideas for Older Kids

Again, including astronomy and space hands-on ideas for older kids makes learning come alive even for your older kids. Grab one of these ideas.

Astronomy Learning Toys and Games

Next, you’ll love these fun items either for a serious star gazer or just for fun.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

Whether it’s a 3D Glow-in-the-Dark Solar System Mobile, 70mm Travel Scope – Portable Refractor Telescope -Ideal Telescope for Beginners or a 3D Solar System Model Crystal Ball Engraved Hologram with Light Up Base Planet Model your kids will love them.

There are so many fun things to get for your astronomy lover. Look below at this cool Solar Robots Toy, 190 Pcs Stem Science Project Kit 12 in 1, Kids Educational Science Experiments Building robotics Kit for Boy and Girls Aged 8-12 and the planet bracelet.

Free Astronomy High School Book, Free Lesson Plans and Background Information

Then, below I have gathered some of the best free astronomy curriculum and lesson plans.

Add in more hands-on easy astronomy experiments and you’ll have no shortage of topics to discover about our universe.

Books for Kids About Astronomy

Look at theses books, Janice VanCleave’s Astronomy for Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments that Really Work, and Seeing the Sky: 100 Projects, Activities & Explorations in Astronomy (Dover Children’s Science Books) for even more hands-on space unit study ideas.

Also, I’m particular about books which make awesome spines. One thing I learned while doing this unit study is that there is no shortage of wonderful books which serve as a spine.

What is a Homeschool Unit Study Spine

A homeschool unit study spine can be a living book, magazine, mentor, reference book or chart, art or art object, play, musical piece, brochure, movie, encyclopedia, or any other type of book, object, or person which is the main reference or authority for your unit study topic

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

With that being said, there were a few books which helped to put this massive subject into smaller bites.

One book is The Usborne Book of Astronomy and Space and the other is The Usborne Complete Book of Astronomy and Space (Complete Books Series). The point is there is a plethora of books for this topic.

Astronomy High School Lab Ideas

In addition, the best part ever to any astronomy and space free unit study is being able to count high school credit for science.

These astronomy high school lab ideas below will keep the topic fun for budding astronomers or those who want to get serious about it as a career.

Look at this list: Skynet and IRSA Nebula lab, Constructing 3-Color Astronomical Images, Discover the mass of a star using its exoplanets and a spreadsheet, Moon & Mercury crater counting, Hour of Code – Making Astronomical Images, Hour of Code – Making Astronomical Images, and ideas for using Stellarium.

Grab the above astronomy lab ideas and MORE activities here.

Careers in Astronomy

In addition, have your kids research about careers. Here are a few ideas:

  • Space Engineer – Space engineers design and monitor probes used to explore space. They also study the data collected.
  • Planetarium director
  • Astronomer
  • Astrophysics
  • Meteorologist
  • Climatologist
  • Research scientist

Astronomy Lapbook

Next, your kids will love this fun lapbook. Many activities exist for younger kids, so I gear my lapbooks toward older kids.

This lapbook is aimed for upper elementary to middle school. However, this lapbook comes two ways – one which has minibooks with facts filled in and the other one with blank minibooks. So, this lapbook can be used for ANY age even high school because I do not use baby-ish or goofy looking clip art.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

Awesome Features of the Astronomy Lapbook:

  • The same lapbook comes two different ways in this one download. One lapbook has a few facts filled in each minibook and the other lapbook has minibooks with all blank inside pages.
  • Because I use a combination of cursive and print fonts, I aim my lapbooks toward upper elementary up to high school. The lapbook could be used for high school when your student uses the lapbook with minibooks with blank inside pages. Another option for high school is to mix and match the minibooks with facts filled in with minibooks with blank inside pages.
  • This is a .pdf instant downloadable product and not a physical product.
  • You are paying for the printables, the lapbook.
  • You can use any reference materials, books, or online resources to complete the lapbook.
  • I don’t provide links in the lapbooks for filling in the information. This keeps my prices low for my products, but I do provide free links and unit studies on my site as I can.
  • My printables are very flexible. You decide which topics you want your children to research.  Also, you can mix and match filled in and blank minibooks of your choice.

MY GUARANTEE: To treat you like I want to be treated which means I know at times technical problems may cause glitches, so I will do everything possible to make your experience here pleasant. I value your business and value you as a follower. I stand behind my products because they are actual products I use and benefit from too. Though I cannot refund purchases after you have been given access to them, I will do what I can to be sure you are a pleased customer. Read carefully what you get on your digital download.

Astronomy YouTube Videos

Next, whether your learner wants to learn more about the solar system or a star, you’ll love these astronomy YouTube Videos.

Astronomical Instruments

Finally, learn about astronomical instruments like the telescope.

If you look at the sky when you are far away from city lights, there seem to be an overwhelming number of stars up there. In reality, only about 9000 stars are visible to the unaided eye (from both hemispheres of our planet).

The light from most stars is so weak that by the time it reaches Earth, it cannot be detected by the human eye.

There are three basic components of a modern system for measuring radiation from astronomical sources.

First, there is a telescope, which serves as a “bucket” for collecting visible light (or radiation at other wavelengths. Just as you can catch more rain with a garbage can than with a coffee cup, large telescopes gather much more light than your eye can.

Second, there is an instrument attached to the telescope that sorts the incoming radiation by wavelength. Sometimes the sorting is fairly crude. For example, we might simply want to separate blue light from red light so that we can determine the temperature of a star.

But at other times, we want to see individual spectral lines to determine what an object is made of, or to measure its speed.

ABOUT MICROSCOPES AND TELESCOPES

Third, we need some type of detector, a device that senses the radiation in the wavelength regions we have chosen and permanently records the observations.

How Telescopes Work

Telescopes have come a long way since Galileo’s time. Now they tend to be huge devices; the most expensive cost hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.

The reason astronomers keep building bigger and bigger telescopes is that celestial objects—such as planets, stars, and galaxies—send much more light to Earth than any human eye (with its tiny opening) can catch, and bigger telescopes can detect fainter objects.

The most important functions of a telescope are (1) to collect the faint light from an astronomical source and (2) to focus all the light into a point or an image.

Most objects of interest to astronomers are extremely faint: the more light we can collect, the better we can study such objects. (And remember, even though we are focusing on visible light first, there are many telescopes that collect other kinds of electromagnetic radiation.)

Since most telescopes have mirrors or lenses, we can compare their light-gathering power by comparing the apertures, or diameters, of the opening through which light travels or reflects. You may be thinking about buying your own telescope.

Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages

Free Unit Plan

Some of the factors that determine which telescope is right for you depend upon your preferences:

  • Will you be setting up the telescope in one place and leaving it there, or do you want an instrument that is portable and can come with you on outdoor excursions? How portable should it be, in terms of size and weight?
  • Do you want to observe the sky with your eyes only, or do you want to take photographs? (Long exposure photography, for example, requires a good clock drive to turn your telescope to compensate for Earth’s rotation.)
  • What types of objects will you be observing? Are you interested primarily in comets, planets, star clusters, or galaxies, or do you want to observe all kinds of celestial sights?

As you can see above, we barely touched the fringes of the universe with this unit study. There is so much to learn as you look into the heavens.

You’ll love more other free unit studies below:

7 Super Fun History Games to Bring the Past to Life

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have 7 super fun history games. Do your kiddos groan and moan about history?  You’ll love the other history games I have too.

What is it about history that can make it so boring? 

Because, really, history is so full of interesting facts and stories.

Let’s make history fun and exciting!  Let’s make it (dare I say it?!) your child’s favorite subject! 

7 Super Fun History Games to Bring the Past to Life

It’s a favorite subject around our house and I firmly believe that is because we use so many games in our history lessons!

Fun History Games


I’m going to be sharing 7 super fun history games that you can use in your homeschool to bring the past to life!  Let’s get started!

1) Made for Trade

Time Period: Colonial America

Ages: 7+

Players: 2 to 4
Game Length: 5 to 30 minutes (depending on which version you play)

We have been studying US history this year and Made for Trade has been so fun! 

This is a board game, shop cards, character pawns, dice, and shillings. 

This history game comes with 3 versions to play! The first game is a version of Spoons called Shillings where players try to get five cards from the same shop (blacksmith, potter, silversmith, etc.). 

I was really happy to find instructions for this game because my 5 year old could play this with no help and the kids are becoming familiar with items that were sold in different shops during Colonial America.

The 2nd and 3rd versions of the game are very similar. 

In the first version players work their way around the village buying or trading items from the village shops trying to acquire any 4 objects from the shops. 

Players also have to pay taxes and get paid as they move around the spaces. 

The 3rd version, players are also trying to acquire cards, but this time they are specific items on an inventory card for their character. 

This version also adds in event cards such as a smallpox outbreak that has kids learning even more about American History. 

Made for Trade is a great game to introduce your children to US History!

History Games for Elementary Students

2) Guess in 10: States of America and Countries of the World

Time Period: N/A

Ages: All Ages

Players: 2 to 6

Game Length: 5 minutes to as long as you want!

This game isn’t really history, but more geography.

I included it in my list because it is perfect for families with a wide age range, and besides, we all need to know states and countries! 

Ask up to 10 questions to guess the state of America or country on the game card! There are 50 game cards and 6 clue cards in each game. 

This would be fun for traveling or at the dinner table for some fun dinner time trivia! 

There are other sets, too, like landmarks, animals, underwater, foods around the world, dinosaurs, and more!

3)  Brain Box World History

Time Period: All of History

Ages: All Ages

Players: 1 or more players

Game Length: 5 minutes or as long as you want! 

Brain Box World History is a memory game and a history game in one!

Players look at the front of a card for 10 seconds. 

Then, they flip over the card and roll the die. Another player reads the question corresponding to the number on the die. 

If you get it correct, you get to keep the card; if you get the answer wrong, the card goes back in the box. The player with the most cards after 10 minutes (or some agreed upon time) wins! 

There is also a one player game version where a single player can try to get as many cards as he or she can in 10 minutes. 

This is a great way to introduce different events in history!

4) Timeline: Historical Events.

Time Period: All of history

Ages: 8 and up

Players: 2 to 6

Game Length: About 15 minutes

What is it about?

There are so many of the Timeline games and they can all be mixed together for some real fun!

The basic idea of the game is simple – start with a random card and then arrange other historical events either before or after it depending on when they happened in history.

These games are quick, fun, and a great way to learn when events happened.

This is also a great game for introducing lots of events and seeing which ones your children would like to dive deeper into. Other decks include Inventions, more Historical Events, and British history.

The cards come in a tin, like the Spot It, which makes it easy to store or take with you on the go!

Note: If you are looking for a game like this for older children, be sure to check out Chronology. Ages 14+

5)  Professor Noggin: History of the United States

Time Period: US History (various times)

Ages: 7+

Players: 2 to 8

Game Length: About 15 to 30 minutes

Professor Noggin is a trivia type game where players try to collect cards by answering questions correctly. 

There are easy and hard questions on each card. 

When we play, my girls answer the easy questions and I answer the hard questions.  It makes for a pretty even playing field, so fun for everyone! 

On your turn you roll the die and another player reads the corresponding question to you. 

If you get it right you get to keep the card; if you get the history question wrong the card goes back in the pile. 

The questions will be either trivia, true/false, or multiple choice format. 

The first player to collect 10 cards win! There are several versions of Professor Noggin, so you can get whatever topic you are needing: US History, Art History, Medieval Times, Science, Geography, and more!

History Games for Middle and High School Students

6)  The Grizzled

Time Period: World War I

Ages: 14+

Players: 2 to 5

Game Length: About 30 minutes

There are so many games and movies about WWII, but in this game players are immersed in the trenches of WWI.

This is a fully cooperative game (think Pandemic) where players work together to stay alive until Armistice. Each round will face the hardships of war such as blizzards, gas attacks, and trauma.

Soldiers must use strategy and luck to stay alive together!

World War I can be glossed over in a lot of history studies, with so much emphasis put on WWII.

7 Super Fun History Games to Bring the Past to Life

With The Grizzled, players can learn what it was like to try to survive during the miserable trench warfare of The Great War.

Reviewers state that it is simple and straightforward to learn, but the replay value is quite good!

One reviewer stated that he and his wife are at about 50% win rate, so that makes for exciting play! This would be a great game to play with older middle school or high school students.

7)   1775 Rebellion The American Revolution | Board Game

Freedom is currently not available. But the 1775 Rebellion the American Revolution is another favorite.

  • 1775 is an area control game that is great for head-to-head or up to 4-player team play.
  • 1775 Rebellion is the second title in the Birth of America series after 1812 – The Invasion of Canada.

Time Period: Slavery and Civil War

Ages: 13 and up 

Players: 1 to 4 players

Game Length: 60 to 90 minutes

Freedom is a cooperative game where players try to raise funds, free slaves, and end slavery in America.

As they play, players learn about historical figures, political agendas, and important events that occurred between 1800 and 1865.

This game won the 2013 Best Game Quest Awards for Best Coop Game and was nominated for 2014 Origins Award Best Historical Game! 

Freedom would be a great interactive way to cover the time period leading up to the Civil War. Also, look at the huge Civil War lapbook unit study here.

History Games Bring the Past to Life

These games are just the tip of the iceberg, let me tell you!  If you are struggling to get your kiddos to get interested in history, try one (or more!) of these games and see them get hooked! 

I hope you’ve found some useful resources to add to history in your homeschool this year!

Happy learning!

Look at these other fun history learning resources here:

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Why bats are not birds fun homeschool unit study and lapbook is an easy way to do a unit study with multiple ages of children. Also, you’ll love my page Best Homeschool Unit Studies.

Too, I’m mentoring Mr. Munch King now and he is doing kindergarten/first grade level work.

However, you know there are many bat activities to find for younger kids, but not so much for older kids. My lapbook is geared toward older kids.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook

I know you’ll love these activities and unit study resources for a fun bat unit study.

Free Bat Unit Study

(A bat) . . . is no bird but a winged mouse; for she creeps with her wings, is without feathers, and flyeth with kinde of skin, as bees and flies do; excepting that the Bats wings hath a farre thicker and stronger skin.
And this creature thus mungrell-like cannot look very lovely.

By John Swan
Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

Bats are located on nearly every continent and make up 25 % of the mammal species found in the world. There are over 1400 species of bats.

Why Bats Are Not Birds

However, bats are not birds. Bats are mammals and belong to the group Chiroptera. Chiroptera means “hand-wing,” referring to how the finger bones support its wings.

What is a Mammal?

Because a bat is a mammal, look at these characteristics of a mammals.

  • They are vertebrate animals that nourish their young with milk.
  • All are warm-blooded.
  • At some stage in their development, they have hair, although sometimes it can disappear before birth.
  • True mammals give birth to live young.

Bats are the only mammal capable of flight. Several other mammals are capable of gliding for long distances.

On the other hand, birds belong to the group Aves. So bats are not featherless birds.

Bats are divided into two types of sizes: Megachiroptera, which means large bat, and Microchiroptera, which means small bat.

Further, look at some of these features of bats:

  • they sleep by day
  • they fly by night
  • in bone structure, a bat’s arm and hand are similar to other mammals
  • as mammals they give birth to live young and nurse them

Contrary to popular belief, bats are not blind. They do have small eyes and sensitive vision.

In addition, bats come in a variety of sizes and species.

The Bumblebee Bat of Thailand weighs a third less than a penny and is the smallest mammal in the world. Cutest bat ever!

It’s also called Kitti’s Hog-nosed Bat and they are found mostly in Thailand.

The Bumblebee species is named after Kitti Thonglongya, a Thai zoologist who discovered them.

Look at some more facts here about the Bumblebee Bat.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
Kitti’s Hog-nosed Bat :World’s Smallest Mammal

However, a few other reasons why bats are not birds are because birds lay eggs and forage to care for their young. Also, bats have sharp teeth and birds do not have teeth but have beaks.

Bird and bats both fly and have strong skeletons which aids them to be strong flyers.

Blind As Bats – How Bats See

Too, you often hear people say blind as bats. Is this true? Bats are nocturnal animals. Nocturnal means being active at night rather than during the day.

However, bats have excellent eyesight. Some bats hunt by using eyesight alone.

So bats are not blind. They can see better at night than humans, however echolocation is their most important sense when hunting.

Bats use echolocation to find their prey.

Look at this fun echolocation activity to do with younger kids.

About Echolocation

When a bat is flying, it makes a series of high-pitched squeaks that humans can’t hear. They make squeaks, chirps, clicks, and buzzes through their mouths or noses.

Since these sounds range from 25,000 to 70,000 vibrations a second, humans with an auditory range up to only about 30,000 vibrations can’t hear most of the sounds.

The sounds hit an object and bounce back to the bat, just like an echo. How do bats avoid collisions?

We don’t know exactly, but it’s possible that each animal has its individual sound pattern and is guided only by its own echoes.

Many bats have large ears or specialized ear shapes, which is thought to help with echolocation (location of objects by reflected sound).

How Bats Fly

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

Attribution:
Andrew Mercer (www.baldwhiteguy.co.nz)

While bats are exceedingly graceful in flight, when they fold their wings and walk they are extremely awkward creatures.

As bats skim over the surface of the water, they lap up water as they fly.

.

If you observe bats closely when they leave their roost at dusk, you can observe their wings.

Bats’ wings beat much stronger and longer than those of birds.

Unlike birds, bats have a hard time taking off from the ground. They fly better by already being in the air.

Bats’ Bodies

The bodies of bats, excluding the wings, are covered with fur. While the fur of most mammals is smooth, bat fur consists of small tubes. It is the finest of all fur and in addition has the greatest numbers of hairs per square inch.

Since most bats fly at night and roost in dark places during the day, they have little need for protective coloration.

The majority of Chiroptera are dull colored, shades of black, brown, gray, and red predominantly.

The bat’s body structure, strong chest muscles, tapering abdomen, short neck and modified forearms is specially formed to support and operate the wings.

So, bats with long and narrow wings fly swiftly; those with large wingspreads are capable of long flights.

However, regardless of the shape of the wings, the design of the bones of the forearm is common to all bats.

The four elongated fingers radiate and support the membrane a short thumb extends beyond the forward part of the wing and is like sharp hooked claw.

A claw also protrudes from the second finger of most fruit bats.

Where Do Bats Live – Bat Barracks

Bats live in all kinds of places: Caves, tall trees, barns, attics, and garages. They also roost, they do not build nests. However, the majority of bats roost in dark places.

In warm regions, caves have curved corridors which prevents the penetration of light.

Also, while insect eating bats prefer dark retreats like caves, culverts and hollow trees, fruit bats in general do not.

A few bats have unusual homes. Certain African and Indian species share the burrow of the crested porcupine.

In addition, some bats migrate for the winter and some sleep during the winter months.

Also, look at these fun ideas and free lesson plans about caves at Homeschool on the Range.

Bat Babies

Although most bats mate in the autumn, their young are not born until spring. The majority of bats have one baby at a time.

The only bat to have more than two consistently is the American red bat which can have a litter of four.

In spring, the females go off by themselves to have their young. When the baby is about to be born, the mother hangs on the ceiling of a cave or in some other sheltered placed.

She holds on by her thumbs and her back legs, making a basket to keep the newborn bat from falling. Baby bats are tiny pink creatures when they are born, with little or no hair.

They are almost two weeks old before their eyes open. The baby clings tightly to its mother for the first week or so. It uses its hooked milk teeth and little claws to cling to her breasts and fur.

Mothers take their baby along with her when they go hunting. Since bats are good fliers, this is no problem. When the baby bats get too heavy, the mother leaves it hanging by its back feet.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

Baby Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus)
Attribution: Mickey Samuni-Blank

Eastern Red Bat with three babies
Attribution: Josh Henderson

Why Do Bats Sleep Upside Down

Bats hang upside down because their knees only bend backwards, making it impossible for them to hang in other position.

However, there is a variation in the sleeping pattern of different species.

Bats that sleep in the open fold their wings which are crisscrossed. On the other hand, cave-dwelling bats do not use their wings as sunshades.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook

Hands-on Bat Crafts and Treats

Next, nothing brings a unit study to life more than fun hands-on ways to learn about bats.

Look at these hands-on bat activities and crafts.

Look at this fun printable bat template craft which helps with cutting skills.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

Also, we made a coffee filter bat with just a few fun things we had on hand. We mostly followed the instructions at Woo Jr.

You just need markers, a clothes pin, paint, and some markers along with scissors. So much fun.

Free Bat Printables

In addition, I’ve rounded up some free and fun bat printables for this bat unit study.

Image Attribution: Wise Owl Factory. (Please Pin from original sources)

Download this Free Printable Bat Diagram Work Page.

About Bats on YouTube and Media

Books About Bats

Whether fiction or non-fiction, your kids will love some of these books about bats.

MORE Bat Activities and Science Ideas

  • Look at this site Bat Week. Bat Week is an annual celebration of the role of bats in nature.
  • Plant a Bat Garden
  • Learn about bats in relation to the lunar cycle and study about moon phases. Look at this fun printable stackable moon phases. Also, make these fun Oreo moon phases.
  • Learn about echolocation and play a game where you blindfold one child. You tap on something in the room or have another child and see if the blindfolded “bat” can locate the sound.
  • Also, look at this mammals’ organ dissection kit for older kids if you want to focus on mammals
  • Also, go to Smithsonian Institute for Bat Facts
  • National Geographic Kids Bat Myths Busted
  • Make blood. Although only three species consume blood, it’s fun to learn how they do it without their prey knowing. Compare human blood to animal blood. Are there any differences? Too, vampire bats only suck blood normally from other animals. This is fun hands-on activity for learning about human blood.

Further, you’ll love these Montana Field Guides for various species:

• Big Brown Bat
• Eastern Red Bat
• Little Brown Bat
• Long-eared Myotis
• Silver-haired Bat
• Spotted Bat
• Townsend’s Big-eared Bat

Bat Predators and Prey

Bats have few predators compared to other mammals, but diseases are harmful. Owls are one predator because they hunt at night. However, snakes and hawks eat bats too.

The bat hawk (Machaeramphus alcinus) is one such hawk. Watch this YouTube video Predators of Bats. Bats have to look out for other raptors like red-tailed hawks and orange-breasted falcons.

Also, did you know there is a bat falcon? The bat falcon eats other rodents too, but also hunts bats.

However, nothing compares to the white-nose syndrome disease. The disease is named for a white fungus on the muzzle and wings of bats.

Around the world bats eat fruit, nectar, frogs, mice, fish, blood, and insects.

Bats as Pollinators

Bats provide many important things and one is spreading pollen. About 50 bat species feed just on nectar. Others are omnivores, feeding on fruit and insects as well as nectar.

So, when bats visit flowers for food they spread pollen. Bats are primary nighttime pollinators. Bats pollinate over 300 species of fruit like banana, mango, guava and tequila agave.

From the U.S. Forest site:

The flowers that are visited by bats are typically:

  • Open at night;
  • Large in size (1 to 3.5 inches);
  • Pale or white in color;
  • Very fragrant, a fermenting or fruit-like odor; and/or
  • Copious dilute nectar.
Bat covered in pollen.

More Bat Activities

Bat Quiz

All bats are carnivores.

False-A large group of bats, known as megachiroptera live on fruit and pollen. Most of the bats in the U.S. are insectivores.

Bats fly around your head and get tangled in you hair.

False-Bats may come in for a closer look but are far too smart to get tangled in your hair.

Vampire bats are huge bloodsucking bats that are all over the world.

False-Vampire bats are small bats that live only in South America. They don’t suck blood-they lick it up after making a cut with their teeth.

The world’s largest bats have a wingspan of nearly seven feet.

True-Flying foxes have a wingspan that can reach nearly seven feet.

Few More Bat Books

Furthermore, once you start looking, you’ll find a mix of fiction and non-fiction books about bats for all ages.

I used an older book I have, Wonders of the Bat World by Sigmund A. Lavine. to guide me for content for the lapbook.

Batty About Art

Then, here is a fun and easy arts and craft project for the younger kids.

Make some fun silhouette art by using sponge painting and a template on cardstock.

This idea was found here at how to make bat silhouette art.

Also, look at this black bat silhouette watercolor lesson.

Bat Poetry

Next, no unit study is complete without a focus on some fun language arts.

Look at this poem, The Bat by Theodore Roethke.

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.

He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.

But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:

For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face.

And then look at these questions to focus on the meaning:

  1. Why does he compare what the bat does during the day with the night? He possibly may be conveying the idea that the bat is misunderstood and is just a simple elegant creature or is the writer conveying that everyone has a side we never see?
  2. What are two metaphors in the poem? a) When mice with wings can wear a human face. We may view the bat as a dark creature, but the writer wants us to know that they can be like humans. b) By day the bat is cousin to the mouse. The writer compares the bat to the mouse to help us see bats through his eyes as something familiar and not dark like many tales about bats.
  3. Did you notice the writer alludes to both a bat’s sight and hearing which are of great interest to us?

Try a little Batty Math

Next, this fun video is a great way to practice observation skills for any age.

From the site: Count the bats — how do your skills compare to a bat biologist’s?

World War II Project X-Ray and Bats

Project X is a plan conceived by the Unit States Army to use bats to destroy enemy installations during World War II. It may seem outlandish, but two million dollars was spent on perfecting the Project X plan.

Bat Bomb Canister

Scientist and members of the armed forces captured thousands of bats in New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns. Then a one-ounce bomb which produced a 22-inch flame and burned for eight minutes was harnessed to each bat.

The bats were put into crates with parachutes and loaded onto airplanes. The airplanes dropped the crates on testing sites and the parachutes opened at 1,000 feet automatically.

The bats then flew to a roost, often a cave or eaves of a building. Then they chewed off their harness and flew away, leaving the bombs behind which exploded. They destroyed many “town testing sites”.

Whether they actually used the bats or not is a military secret.

Bat Viewing Spots

A zoo is a great place to view bats both common and rare species. If you are on a lake or stream at dusk, watch bats as they as they skim over the surface of the water. You’ll notice them lap up water as they fly.

Bracken Cave here in Texas right outside of San Antonio is the summer home of more than 20 million Mexican Free-tailed Bats. It is a must visit. (Please note, the land is privately owned by Bat Conservation and you need to make arrangements to visit.).

Read more about Bracken Cave here on National Geographic.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook. Your kids will love studying about bats in the fall or anytime. Hands-on ideas for multiple ages to learn about the various kinds of bats. Grab the unit study ideas for multiple ages and the bat lapbook for older kids. CLICK HERE to grab it at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

Bats are amazing creatures! For many years, people thought bats were diseased, dirty and evil. In general, bats are very helpful creatures.

Farmers even set out bat houses so that bats will roost there and protect their crops from massive insects.

Despite superstition, bats are usually peaceful creatures. They are the only flying mammal with a unique miniaturized sonar system.

Bat Lapbook

Your kids will love this fun lapbook. As I mentioned earlier, I know many activities exist for younger kids, so I gear my lapbooks toward older kids. This lapbook is aimed for upper elementary to middle school. However, because you get the same lapbook in two ways – one which has minibooks with facts filled in and the other one with blank minibooks, you can really use this lapbook for ANY age.

If you’re using it for high school, you can count the hours as part of a science credit and if you want to give a grade to the project itself, you decide.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook

Awesome Features of the Bat Lapbook:

  • Aimed at upper elementary to middle school, but the lapbook with blank minibooks could be used for high school.
  • This is a .pdf  instant downloadable product and not a physical product.
  • You are paying for the printables, the lapbook.
  • My lapbooks are created for multiple ages.
  • Most of the minibooks have facts which accompany the minibook and a lot of the minibook are offered two ways. One way where your child uses the facts provided and another way where your child can add his own research and not use the inside pages.
  • You can use any reference materials, books, or online resources to complete the lapbook.
  • I don’t provide links in the lapbooks for filling in the information. This keeps my prices low for my products, but I do try to provide free links on my site as I can.
  • Because I have been a working homeschool mom for more of my journey than not, I need flexibility for using lapbooks. Proving a few facts from the main resource I use is one way I have of saving you time and giving you flexibility in how to use the minibooks.
  • Too, some of your kids may be older and you want them to do more research and some of your kids may be reluctant writers so you may want to mix and match pre-filled minibooks with blank minibooks. Flexibility is the key to my lapbooks.

Bat Lapbook

MY GUARANTEE: To treat you like I want to be treated which means I know at times technical problems may cause glitches, so I will do everything possible to make your experience here pleasant. I value your business and value you as a follower. I stand behind my products because they are actual products I use and benefit from too. Though I cannot refund purchases after you have been given access to them, I will do what I can to be sure you are a pleased customer. Read carefully what you get on your digital download.

Why Bats Are Not Birds Fun Homeschool Unit Study and Lapbook

You’ll love my other free unit studies below:

How to Easily Meet the Lab Component of Homeschool High School Science

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Teaching the lab component part of high school science doesn’t have to be expensive or overwhelming. Quite the opposite, it can be utterly fun and fulfilling. Check out my page How to Homeschool High School for more tips!

With that being said, when I had my first homeschooled teen I was at a loss as to where to start.

So today, I’ve rounded up some fun ways to easily meet the lab component of homeschool high school science.

How to Easily Meet the Lab Component of Homeschool High School Science

The first place to start when planning is to identify the end science goal for your teen.

Not all kids will be science majors.

Lab Component Goals Matter

If your student will be, then you’ll want more of a traditional experience.

The best thing for kids pursuing a science major is to always ask the college for their requirements.

If your kid will not be choosing a science major, you have so much room for flexibility and to mix and match lab component resources.

6 Things to Know When Choosing Science Lab Components

Moreover, look at these six things to know when choosing science lab components.

1.
Determine your teen’s science learning track – career or college?

  • Will your teen follow the traditional high school science route? What I call the traditional route is studying these areas: Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. It begins in your teen’s freshman year. A lot of the traditional curriculum providers follow this sequence. So for beginners, it’s easy to follow this sequence if you use a textbook.
  • Also, depending on what your teen chooses to do after graduating, your student may need a fourth year of science if attending a specific college.

For example, if your teen will be going into a STEM field, then the course and labs will have to meet high expectations.

Another point to understand is that if your child is a science major, you still have much room to pick and choose lab resources.

Labs are meant for your teen to experiment, engage, and interact with the information your teen is learning.

Whether your teen is choosing a career track or college track, try to keep all future options open by doing at least two or three sciences for high school.

2.
Meet your homeschool state law science requirements, if any.

Next, each state’s law is different.

For example, some states list hours needed to cover subjects only, but don’t separate the lab component.

Other state laws require two labs; others divide hours by core and non-core.

However, they may not state number of labs hours needed or even separate the lab component.

Many others list no requirement for hours, but to just teach science in high school.

For a lot of states, you have much flexibility in how many labs your teens does and what actually counts as credit and how many hours too.

Point is know exactly what is your state law.

The second step is mix your teen’s goal with your state law to give you a wider picture of your goals.

3.
If this is your first teen, will you get your money’s worth by purchasing some home lab equipment now to use with all of your kids?

Subsequently, I realized that I had quite a few more future labs after my first high school teen because I had younger children.

Determining how much science equipment, if any, I wanted to invest in was my next step.

Purchasing science equipment, using it with my first high school teen, and using it for every child after that gave me my money’s worth for my purchase.

One of my best purchases early on when all my kids were younger was the niftiest microscope sold by Sonlight which was specifically built or made for home use.

But for high school, look at microscopes with a few more options.

Look at this Home LED Microscope by Home Science Tools. This home microscope is easy-to-use, sturdy, affordable & allows observers to see intricate cell details.

The final step before you choose resources for the lab component is to understand how high school science curriculum is organized.

4.
Traditional high school science courses incorporate labs in their curriculum.

For beginners, purchasing the type of curriculum that easily adds science lab component which can be done at home is a great starting point. This is what I started out doing.

It was sanity-saving when I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare labs to know that my teen could gather most items needed at home and perform the activities.

For example Apologia has step by step instructions. The course description for Biology states: Labs that cover experimentation, field studies, microscopy, and dissection.

Bob Jones and Abeka homeschool are more examples of a science program which includes instructions for labs. Some of the curriculum providers have science kits which you can purchase separately.

Finally, you’ll want to know what is a good rule of thumb for counting lab hours. The simple answer is that it varies, but that didn’t help me much in the beginning..

5.
Thirty (30) lab hours is a good rule of thumb for a lab science course.

Fast forward twenty years of homeschooling and research I learned a good rule of thumb is thirty lab hours.

If you’re using 180 hours for 1 science course then logically that means 150 hours would meet the academic course and 30 meet the lab hours.

6. Simple Lab Report

Another area I stressed about in the beginning was how to get my teens do what I call the official lab reports.

I learned that because he was not going to have a science major that I could ease up on the reports.

Sure, I wanted him to know what one was and to have some of the official experience.

However, I learned too that thoughts could be penned in a worksheet just as well and still accomplish much of the same.

Like I mentioned we did lab reports on certain labs because they were valuable in teaching my kids how to write down what they were learning, draw pictures, and label.

You don’t really have that ability with a straight worksheet.

Again, the point is you decide when you want your teen to do an official lab report and when sometimes a worksheet will work just fine.

8 Easy Homeschool Science Lab Component Resources

Next, if you have flexibility in planning labs, there are other ways to meet the lab component which are creative.

Because a lot of homeschool state laws don’t describe what counts as a lab science, you have wiggle room.

Depending on how your teen learns you can use many resources to meet science lab. Mixing and matching to add spice works best.

1. Dissection Kits and Supplies

A lot of curriculum providers provide kits which can be purchased from them, but separately from the course.

However, one of the BEST science provider through the years for me has been Home Science Tools.

Not only do they put kits together for numerous curriculum providers, they also have the best science tools and supplies for home use.

How to Easily Meet the Lab Component of Homeschool High School Science
How to Easily Meet the Lab Component of Homeschool High School Science

Also, look here at my Amazon store for more ideas for kits and supplies.

2. Videos

Although you’ll want your teen to know how to write a lab report to analyze his findings and learn from his mistakes, writing lab reports is not the only component to learning.

Many students benefit from watching videos and incorporating them as part of the lab.

Look at this site, Biologybyme which has many dissections and videos. Brainstuff is another one I love and Deep Sky Video. Deep Sky Video is amazing. And here is another super one about the human body.

The point is there is NO shortage of wonderful videos and science channels.

However, remember when choosing resources to count for high school credit your resource needs to be for a high school level. Unless your child has special needs, you want to choose videos for teens to adults.

Also, paying for a video course is a great option too. I love The Great Courses They can be a bit more, but then somebody else is also doing the teaching. That can be a good thing when you want that option for you or your teen.

3. Yes, Adult Science Coloring Books

In addition, a lot of teens love to learn by the color and/or label method. It wasn’t too long ago that science coloring books were frowned on, but hands-on education has come a long way.

Too, many of the coloring books are great reference tools and encourages students to dive deeper to learn the different parts of the science topic.

Look at Human Anatomy Coloring Book: an Entertaining and Instructive Guide to the Human Body – Bones, Muscles, Blood, Nerves and How They Work .

Too, here is Veterinary Anatomy Coloring Book. How cool!

I have MORE great science coloring books here on my Amazon storefront.

Then another choice we love as homeschoolers is to do labs with others like in a co-op.

4. Homeschool Co-ops

Homeschool co-ops which are set up to suit homeschool families instead of ran like mini private schools maintain tons of flexibility and teens love them.

Some subjects are just better learned with others. Lab science is one of those subjects my teens loved doing with others.

A co-op can be as simple as two, three or more families meeting together sharing science supplies and the best part is sharing the teaching.

If you’re not a science-minded mom, this is a great option to let your girlfriends do some of the teaching.

How to Easily Meet the Lab Component of Homeschool High School Science

5. Community College

Another option we had available in our area was doing a science at the local community college.

Teens mature at different rates and some of them enjoy taking courses or dual enrollment at colleges. Be sure to talk to the counselor at the colleges like I did.

It was very helpful to understand how they assigned credit for high school and college with a lab.

6. Virtual Labs

Next, virtual labs are another way of meeting the credit for science labs.

Remember, your teen’s science track determines if virtual labs are frowned on by colleges.

Some colleges where teens are seeking STEM careers may designate that only a certain amount of time is credited for virtual learning.

A lot of colleges want teens to have the interaction of learning hands-on, then still others may not care.

However, if there are no strict guidelines to abide by, enjoying the flexibility of adding virtual labs.

Also, look at this Experience Biology Lab Kit from Home Science Tools.

Look at some options for virtual labs and simulations.

  • VirtualLabs is a fun one about testing food for humans and animals.
  • The Biology Corner. From the site: It contains a variety of lessons, quizzes, labs, web quests, and information on science topics for all levels, including introductory life science and advanced placement biology.
  • PhET Interactive Simulations has virtual labs which you can search by grade.
  • the Science Bank. Their online dissection resources are fantastic.
  • Disease Lab.
  • The CDC has this Microbiology Series.
  • This next site, SERC, is pretty fun and helpful because it’s a year long earth science course (free) with labs.
  • ChemCollective. From the site: The ChemCollective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, tutorials, and concept tests. Teachers can use our content for pre-labs, for alternatives to textbook homework, and for in-class activities for individuals or teams.

7. Field Trips Count

In addition, don’t forget to count field trips as labs too. I know some in our group counted the whole time as hours and other moms only counted the time the teen was learning, etc. Again, it’s up to you.

There are many places near you that you may not have thought of. The easiest is a museum with classes, but also we lived near a state park that offered classes outside on various topics.

I had learned about the rangers leading discussions early one when we had scavenger hunts there when the kids were little. So it was a great resource as the got older.

Don’t forget the zoo counts if your teen is leaning towards biology.

At Galveston near where we lived they had classes for ocean science and even on the beach. Even the aquarium offered classes. They’re constantly changing so I had to research each year.

Too, if you live near an estuary, it’s a great place for labs outside.

Next, remember since you’re the one in charge and fun in science doesn’t have to stop in the high school years, you’ll want to add games.

8. Science Games

If you’ve homeschooled for any length of time, you know the value of games. Not only is it a fun way to review concept, but teens love them.

The Basement Workshop Store

I love the ones from Ellen McHenry’s Basement. Also, check out her fun courses and free games.

How to Fit In Homeschool Science Labs With a Busy Schedule

Additionally, I wanted to share one more important tip to take out the struggle of how to schedule labs. With my first teen it felt like huffing and puffing to get the labs in.

However, I learned that when we did them on our own, having an all day science day worked for us.

We would basically pull out all of our supplies and do several labs in one morning or one day. Even leaving the items out overnight so we could tackle more labs the next day was good for us.

Just like I did with my kids when they were younger and we would have an all day reading day or all day history day that tip was great for high school too.

Sometimes, having a lab a week worked, but with so much on our plate it was hard to do them consistently a few years.

Doing labs with other teens at a co-op where you have a set time and an all day science days was great too.

Finally, remember labs are fun ways to test theories for a teen and to get your students thinking.

There is no one right way to teach science at the high school level or to do labs. Just relax, have fun, and fit them into your day naturally.

Look at these other helps:

If you have a question, let me know. What do you like to do for your teen’s lab?

Hugs and love ya,

18+ Fun and Interactive Ways to Learn Geography With Kids

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Eighteen fun and interactive ways to learn geography with kids is more than learning to label a map. Also, look at my page Homeschool Geography for hands-on and simple ideas and tips.

After all, nothing about labeling a map ever worked in enticing a kid to want to know more about the world around him.

Making geography come alive is key to making it stick. Too, some kids are craft loving, others not so much.

18+ Fun and Interactive Ways to Learn Geography With Kids

The point is having a large trunk so to speak to pull ideas out of works.

Fun and Interactive Ways to Learn Geography With Kids

Look at these 18 fun and interactive ways to learn geography with kids which work for a variety of ages.

Geography with Kids

Also, adding in an adventure whether you drive or take a virtual trip or two makes a difference.

  • 5) You don’t have to go far to enjoy geography. Just going out doors or to a state park where you can learn about the flora or fauna of an area is something kids love. Nature, science, and geography are subjects that fit together naturally.
  • 6) Google Earth. Just pick a place and roam the streets. Kids love this.

Another fun way to learn about other places is to use fun picture books. You’ll love this roundup.

In addition, games ( 7 to 10) are one of the BEST ways to learn geography.

Learn Geography With Kids

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego (11) is a great series too. The series comes in paper back, on pc, a board game if you can find one and currently is on Netflix.

The Basement Workshop Store

Another idea to make geography fun for kids is to make a travel brochure (12). You’ll love the fun one here on Crayola.

Also, host a co-op with another family or two (13).

You know kids love looking for an opportunity to get together; a mini-geography co-op is a great way to feed their need to interact while learning a useful topic.

Sharing teaching is another reason why a mini-co-op is fun. You can assign countries to each family and have them do a presentation together. This allows each child to share what he loves about geography.

As you can see kids get an added benefit of public speaking in a smaller setting. Writing is naturally incorporated and becomes fun since it’s meaningful.

Other natural ways are focusing on art(14), dressing up like the costumes of each country(15), cooking recipes is a big hit always(16), creating a cookbook for each country or state(17) and Minecraft(18).

Creating worlds in Minecraft is another fun way to create a place or even to learn about coordinates. Coordinates in Minecraft are precursor lessons to to longitude and latitude. See my post Hands-on Geography: Longitude/Latitude Mapmaking Activity

And one more fun one (19), grab a map from the dollar store and add landmarks on it, track your vacations and add to it, add rivers or other fun tidbits on it. It’s a fun keepsake too.

These are just a few ways to bring geography with kids to life. You’ll love these other posts below with great tips.

18+ Fun and Interactive Ways to Learn Geography With Kids

What do you like to do to make geography fun?

Hugs and love ya,