While concept of engineering may bring to mind far older and more studious children, it is possible to have fun with engineering activities even in elementary school. Here is how you can use this activity in your elementary homeschool classroom. Start with the story of the “Three Little Piggies”. This can consist of either a story telling session or an actual reading of a picture book. Once you have the huff and puff down pat, ask them to actually build the homes of the piggies in miniature on the dining table.
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Provide them with materials and ideas
You can use ice cream sticks to make one house, another one could be constructed out of shredded paper strips to simulate straw. Paper cards of 3X5 inches could be provided to construct another one while building blocks could be used in place of bricks. Do remember to give them glue and tape in ample measure to make the houses.If you can come up with other construction material feel free to use it in this engineering task.
Each one build one or work as a team
Ideally if you can build different types of houses with all the children making one kind it would be a sort of competition that they could indulge in as well. However some smaller children may not take too kindly to having their hard work blown away. If you don’t want the bother of judging the houses then just let everyone contribute to each house before you test its power to withstand the huff and puff of the big bad wolf.
Use the big bad hair dryer
Blowing with just the mouth will not be enough to make some of the more sturdily constructed homes. In this case you can bring out the big guns by using your hair dryer as the one simulating the huff and puff of the big bad wolf. The children will love to use the hair dryer to blow away the miniature homes on the dining table. Set a ten second time limit and if house survives, it will have beaten the big bad wolf and protected the little piggies inside.
Article Inspiration: About Homeschooling
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One of the simplest scientific unit studies can be based on the principle of gravity. It can involve students from kindergarten to the highest grade. Here is a set of activities and projects that you can undertake with your homeschool students using gravity.
Teaching science at home includes having the homeschool students perform science experiments. For this you will need some of the equipment that a school laboratory keeps. In case you have no clue where to buy such equipment or it is not that easily available in stores in your town, you can consider getting them online. Science equipment is not that difficult to buy online. You have a good choice of picking up either second hand or brand new equipment online depending on your budget.
One of the main challenges of homeschooling is to keep children in different grades gainfully occupied during the school day. There is a tendency for the homeschool teacher to get side tracked with the demands and tantrums of the younger child if there is not enough planned to keep the younger one occupied while the elder one is being taught. Here are a few techniques that you can use to ensure that neither of the children is neglected during school hours and both get a full school day’s work done.
You have three children in the homeschool classroom and find it tough to keep everyone focused on the lessons that they should be following. The elder one obviously needs the most guidance from you personally as they are learning new things every day. The youngest one needs you to hold their hand and guide them as they begin to explore writing. The middle one can always be guided by the elder sibling and so does not need your personal supervision.
Being organized is the key to making the homeschool classes interesting and informative. A large onus lies on the homeschooling parent to provide the child with activities that will challenge him and help him learn new concepts. This is not something that can happen overnight. The parent needs to plan out classes in a sequence for the learning to be steady and consistent. To this end having a lesson plan book for your homeschool classes can be a major help.
The focus in homeschooling should lie not just in planning lessons in each subject of the curriculum and teaching them, but also in developing independent thinking in the homeschool student. By allowing a child to solve a problem on his own you are equipping him with a great tool to handle life. The natural imagination and creativity that a child possesses can be a huge asset to you as a trainer. Here are some activities that would help the child in developing his creative skills.
If you plan to take your children for a foreign vacation you might be surprised to hear that your family can use the experience as a great learning tool. This applies not only to homeschooling students but to any child; the exposure is great for broadening their horizons. Here are a few things that you can help them focus on in order to get more out of the trip.
Your daughter is great at writing fictional stories, but basic multiplication and division give her major trouble.
Socializing with the peer group is not the only thing that homeschoolers are views as missing out on. In some situations the difference between regular school students and homeschoolers can become painfully obvious. If you wonder about what homeschooling students are missing out on, here are a few regular school traditions and activities that you can consider.
The family vacation, a trip to a new town, a visit to grandma, or any other form of travel can be easily converted into a teaching tool for your children. While it is a good way for homeschooling parents to add supplementary lessons, travel can be used just as effectively by parents of children who attend regular school. Here are the things that you can teach them.
When you think of school, do you think of the textbooks used in each subject? Textbooks are a great way for teaching a large number of students standard information. That is why they are so popular in regular schools. However they are not the only teaching tool that a homeschool teacher can use. The homeschool classroom is a place where textbooks can be easily substituted with other instructional tools.
As a parent there is a fine line between praise and just words said just to placate the child. If that parent is also the homeschool teacher there has to be a fine line between praising the child and merely mouthing the words. How much praise is enough and can you over do it?
Equipping a homeschool laboratory does not have to cost a whole lot of money. There are a number of things that you can use from around the house. However, you will have to invest in some things that will give the feel of a proper science lab to your homeschool students. Here we discuss the different types of equipment you will need to keep on hand to conduct your homeschool science experiments.
Centrifugal and centripetal acceleration are the same thing. These two terms constantly throw students into frenzy, mostly because there is no clear definition in most textbooks. Here’s the scoop: centripetal (translation = “center-seeking”) force is the force needed to keep an object following a curved path. 
How to Teach Science That Kids Really Enjoy AND That’s Easy To Teach.
If you've ever wanted to sneak a peek into my cabinet of educational games and books for kids, now is your chance. Use this list for gift ideas, boredom busters, and just plain family fun. Some of these games you can pick up at the store, and the rest are the home-made, print-it-out, cut-and-play variety that your kids will really learn from.
Math Games
Most kids love the idea of science – of building things, creating inventions, and getting stuff to work by using their own two hands. Kids have a natural passion for science. The problem comes in when the parent feels they can’t meet this need in their child, and they struggle with how to fulfill it.
Have you ever tried to teach a child something that they don’t even want to hear about? It’s harder than pulling teeth! In fact, it’s virtually impossible to do. The reason is that your job as an educator is to provide content in a way that has a greatest probability of reaching your student. The problem is that you still only go halfway. Like it or not, it’s really up to the student whether to learn the information.
Kids learn by modeling others. You see it when a baby starts to walk, when your child learns to write, and your teen slaps on a new attitude. Unfortunately, there are many habits we pick up that are not chosen consciously. The habit kids pick up when their passion isn’t fueled is that they learn to give up on their dreams. And that’s not the worse part.
As a hands-on science teacher who some kids think is a bit wild, I’ve found that there are certain very specific keys to teaching science well, and without getting burnt out doing it (especially important for me, because groups regularly hire me to do multi-day science workshops for hundreds of homeschool kids). Actually, these keys just the opposite of how most schools try to teach science.
When I teach a science class, this is the questions I get asked most: “What science stuff does my child need to learn?” Parents are wondering exactly what bases they should cover for their kids to understand science before they hit the high school or college scene.
Have you ever picked up a textbook, filled out a worksheet, or done a science activity and wondered…“What is my child really learning with this?” Parents wonder exactly what bases they should cover for their kids to understand science before they hit the high school or college scene.
Did you have a teacher that really had an impact on you? Remember the excitement? Or the thrill you felt when you taught something to someone else and they really got it? First, let me thank you for your commitment to education – a value that is high enough for you that you are stretching for resources to help you reach your goals. In this article, I am going to share with you some of the common mistakes that educators often make.
I’ve been traveling a lot lately and after seeing what’s on the market for science equipment… well, I just had to write this article to help you separate the trash from the treasures. (I’ve been to 13 different educational conventions in 16 months, 17 weeks of science camps, and countless other science-related workshops!)
MICROSCOPES 
This is the most important part of the telescope – the eyepieces! You’ll also need to get decent eyepieces. The ones that are included with the telescope you can replace with these 
Sometimes I’m lucky just to get my teeth brushed in the morning, let alone design an experiment that illustrates Einstein’s photoelectric effect for my 7-year old son. Luckily, though, YOU don’t need to reinvent the wheel (or the light bulb), because here’s a quick list of cheap and easy experiments that really drive home the basic principles in physical science.
