Tag Archives for " science "

These books are full of solid science, but with all the “gross” bits left in. But I find that even my girls enjoy the humor and style.

And I enjoy how easily the content is absorbed into their brain. 🙂

CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool.

Transcript

Hello, my name's ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I want to tell you about why we're horribly excited about science.That's because we have this really cool series of books called "Horrible Science." Have you heard about these? First of all, I have to show you -- we have a lot of them. 

Look at all those titles, you guys. I love these books! They come from the same people who do "Murderous Maths" and "Horrible Histories." I don't know you may have seen their videos on YouTube. "Horrible Histories" has videos, but today we're going to talk about "Horrible Science" because we are doing science right now in our homeschool, and we're specifically focusing on chemistry. So, I wanted to show you the chemistry book.

Let me tell you a little bit about why I like the "Horrible Science" series. First of all, they're all about making things really funny, and they don't take themselves at all seriously. In fact, if Monty Python could meet science, this would be the book. They actually do come from England.

That's where the author is from -- Nick Arnold. And these books are full -- I'm going to show you -- full of -- let's see if I can get that to focus -- full of really silly pictures. It's not one cohesive story. There are little bits and pieces.  Think of it like a television show that's broken up into bits kind of like a "Bill Nye the Science Guy" television show.

There are pages that have lots of pictures, and they read more like a comic book, and then there are other pages that do tend to be a little denser in the content. Now, the content is solid. You're going to be learning whether -- and I'll go through a couple of these titles.

Whatever the topic is you're going to be learning solid, solid science, but in a way that appeals particularly to boys or girls that like kind of squishy stuff. Because it never ever ever talks about things in a super serious tone. It's always about why things explode, or why things are kind of gross, or why things are different. And whether they're talking about the history and the scientists who were involved in major discoveries or they're talking about how in this case atoms and molecules come together, they're going to tell it in a way that makes it super engaging and super fun.

Oh my goodness, we have read multiple versions of the series "Horrible Science," "Horrible Histories," and they make us laugh. And any time your kids are laughing … WIN! ... that means learning is happening.

So, the chemistry one is called "Chemical Chaos," and I love that they also do a lot of alliteration. So, we have "Painful Poison," "Killer Energy," "Fight for Flight." There's one here about "Ugly Bugs," and that's going to be all about the microscopic.

What are some other ones? Ooh, here we go "Bulging Brains: I'm a Bundle of Nerves" and the puns. It says "100 Percent Horrible." I love these books.

"Deadly Diseases: Evolve or Die," and obviously this is going to be a very traditional evolution book. So, if that's something that bothers you, you want to be aware of that.  "Fatal Forces" here's one. "Fatal Forces" it's all -- what does it say? "It's Crunch Time," and so here we are forces, and he's going to step on the snail. I wish I could just sit down and read this to you guys. It's just funny.

So, the forces one is going to be all about like Newton science and the different Newton's forces and physics. That's the word I was looking for ... physics … but again it's just -- there are quizzes, there are games, there are horrible health warnings. It's just really fun.

So if this looks like something that would be interesting to you, I will link you to the best place to buy these. It's actually not Amazon, surprise! It's a different website. That's where I buy all my "Horrible" stuff, and the link will be up above or down below. I highly recommend you check it out because it's going to be horribly awesome.

I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make meet these videos every week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.

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But we were still homeschooling. And even AFTER she slept through the night, the other three children took their turns waking me up.

Aching legs … bad dreams … croupy coughs.

It seemed I went FOREVER without sleeping.

And we still homeschooled.

But there were times when I was soooo tired, that the thought of doing ANYTHING extra was more than I could handle.

Enter today’s science resource! (duh duh duh!!!!)

I’ve used this awesome series over the years to feel like we were “doing” science when I just couldn’t muster the effort to “do” science.

And even if you’re sleeping blissfully through the night, these are amazing for those days when kids are sick or you just need a little extra time to do something … anything!

Seriously … who doesn’t need that?!?

CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool.

Transcript

Hey guys! It's ToriAnn Perkey here. From my homeschool to your homeschool, I get it! Sometimes you are tired. I know because sometimes I am tired. As a homeschool mom, we are doing so many things, and sometimes, well, the days don't go as planned.

The baby doesn't sleep through the night. We don't sleep through the night. The teenagers are coming home late. Whatever it is, and we are exhausted.  We've had kids yelling or running, or it's just not been a good day, and we realize we've got to do some science.

Whether you're trying to hit all of those earmarks every week for your curriculum or your report that you need to do, or you just realize that you'd like to shake it up a little bit and you've got to fit some science in. But you are too tired to get out all of the equipment and doing a science experiment, and like …. okay ... just the thought of it when I'm tired is way, way too much for me.

Which is why I'm going to show you a resource that I use on the days when I'm so tired that science is not an option.  It is called Magic School Bus. Oh yes.

So, these were books. They were turned into movies, and they are on DVD, and you can buy the complete set. You guys ... this is a lot of science! Now, for some of us, we grew up with Magic School Bus, right? And we know all about this. But for those of you who didn't, let me tell you a little bit about what makes Magic School Bus so amazing. 

So, the idea is that there's this crazy teacher called Ms. Frizzle, and the kids in the class -- whenever they have a science question or something that they're learning about -- rather than sit in class, she takes them. She puts them on the magic school bus, which can shrink or grow humongous or can sprout wings or can go in the ocean or can fly in outer space ... whatever ... and the bus takes these kids on adventures, so that they are embedded into whatever science topic it is that she wants them to learn about.

Oh, it's so much fun. Every episode ran on PBS, so it's like a 30 minute -- well, it's probably like a 25-minute episode. Perfect amount of time. I used these when I was too tired for science. I was also using them for a long time when we ate lunch. I would just put in the DVD. We'd watch it while we ate lunch.

It was an easy way to slide science into the day. They were learning so many things. And what I love about Magic School Bus is except for the solar system one, which was made before Pluto was declassified as a planet, every bit of the science is really strong science.

They're going to be talking about photosynthesis. They're going to be talking about molecules. They're going to be talking about the physics of simple machines. They're going to be talking about the geography of volcanoes and the different parts of the earth. It covers the gamut of elementary science and every disc -- so, if I open this up, you'll see that there are 1, 2, 3, 4 -- oh, there are numbers at the bottom. There are eight discs in the complete set. Eight discs and every disc has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 episodes. So, 8 x 7 is a lot of episodes, right? Fifty six. That's like an entire year of science plus some!

Aaaah, I love it!  But what we would do is when the kids were sick, or we were tired -- we would watch when we're tired. But if the kids were sick, sometimes they would watch several in a row because during the day I'd say, “Well, if you're sick. You need to watch something educational.” And so they would pull out Magic School Bus.

My teenagers still pull out Magic School Bus because it's that much fun. It's fun. It's engaging. They've got lots of characters. I love the fact that they can be watching something. They can be learning the science. And then we can follow up with that with more knowledge --  with maybe, if we want to do some kind of experiment later on. I'm not saying you have to, but if you wanted to.

There are lots of extensions to this series because it was so popular, but you don't have to get any of the extensions. But I highly recommend that you check out the DVDs because they are really, really helpful for being, honestly, a successful homeschool mom, because there are times when this is all you can do. When all you can do is open up the DVD player, put the DVDs in, and close it. And Magic School Bus is one of the things that's really tricky to find online. Believe me ... if I could find it on YouTube, I probably would just watch it on YouTube, but you can't. They religiously, religiously make sure that this content is copyrighted and protected. So, if you really want to have access to it, you got to buy the DVDs. Totally worth it.

Ahhh, okay, I love it. So, if you're interested, make sure you check out the link up above or down below or wherever it is based on where you're watching this video.

I'm ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I bring you these videos every single week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.

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