K12 Science Week - 4th Grade Unit Ten / Kindergarten Unit 7 - Dinosaurs and Measurements

I decided to try and combine grades and lessons this week to try and do more classes together with my chickadees.  They are always doing their own things by themselves, and I am not sure that I like that aspect of K12.  I see other family homeschools where they do family projects, and so I wanted to try it.

I do realize grade level understanding and attention span are different for each child - so I did take that into consideration.  My second grader is so far ahead in science - I had her just sit in on my 4th grader's science lesson.  For my Kinder student I had him measuring using dinosaur feet and his own feet.  We talked about Length and height comparing himself to dinosaurs.  We also talked about heavy and light, how much something holds, and hot and cold using dinosaurs.

We combined his science with his math lessons going over the same things.  We even did story problems comparing dinosaur's feet etc.

For my 2nd grader and 4th grader we learned about the layers of the earth.

So we made 3 different layers of sand and beans.

We put them in a small rectangular bowl and watched as the layers of sand fell and mixed together.  We learned the oldest layer is usually on the bottom and the newer layer is usually on the top.

Next we learned about fossils.  We took clay, and put petroleum jelly on shells.  We made a mold fossil in the clay.  We mixed up plaster of paris and poured it into our molds.

We let it dry for 30 minutes.

When we popped them out- we had beautiful cast fossils.  All 4 chickadees did this activity together.  They all enjoyed it  very much.

We made a really fun diagram illustrating how fossils form.  We learned that when a dinosaur dies it settles down on the bottom of the seabed or ground.  We decided this dinosaur fell into a lake.  Over time sediment forms over the dinosaur until it is buried.  The sediment is slowly turned into sedimentary rocks.  Years go by and water slowly seeps through the ground and brings with it minerals and chemicals that turn the bones into hardened fossils.  

As the days passed it was neat to see what had happened to our bean experiment.  We applied it to the sediment crushing together at the bottom - making sedimentary rocks.  We also talked how the beans could represent the layers changing, or even flipping over making the newest layer be the bottom layer, and the oldest layer being the top layer.

We also read Come Learn With Me:  What Fossils Tell Us found here on Amazon.

This book is very interesting, however it is heavy into evolution.  So, for us, we just looked at and read the factual science parts, and we discussed why the theory of evolution is just a theory.

So, that was our science week this week!  What projects did you do for this unit?  Any other suggestions for other projects or books we could read?  Thanks!  And have a great rest if the weekend!