• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • New? Start Here
    • Learn More About Us

Forgetful Momma

Secular Homeschooling in Canada

  • Homeschool Resource Centre
    • 2021 Ultimate List of Secular Homeschool Curriculum
    • Curriculum and Resources
    • Homeschool Resources – What We’ve Used and Use
    • Homeschool Help
    • Natural Homeschooling
    • Book Recommendations for All Ages
    • Google for Homeschoolers
    • Homeschool Mom Care
  • Kids Activities
    • Science Experiments for Kids
    • Kids in the Kitchen
    • Gardening with Kids
    • DIY Summer Camp at Home
  • Our Box of Recipes
    • Breakfast Recipes to Start the Day Right
    • Snack Recipes
    • Main Course Recipes
    • Slow Cooker Recipes
    • Condiment Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
      • Mini Donut Maker Recipes
      • Single Serve Desserts & More!
  • Shop
    • My Account
    • Cart
    • Checkout

nature

Earth Day – What Can We Do With Our Kids?

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22. Worldwide, various events are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. What can you so to help the environment? More importantly how can you teach your children to? Role modeling great behavior is the first and best way to teach your kids any type of behavior, including those for protecting Earth.

This Earth Day we will be planting some more seeds, I can’t wait to get some more herbs growing, as well get some flowers growing for the bees and for us as well.

Earth Day - What Can we do with our kids

Earth Day

*This post may contain affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

The 3 Rs

Reduce. Recycle. Reuse.

We recycle here in our small town with curb side pick up. That means we have a small recycling bin in our home, that we then empty into a bigger one that gets picked up biweekly. Our kids are still learning what goes where, but they are learning, and my husband and I are role modeling that behavior by using it as well.

We also return bottles for refunds. In fact it is Brookland’s chore to wash any out and take them down stairs where we keep them before returning them.

Earth Day TpT

Children’s clothing is something that gets reused in this house, girls clothing in particular as they go from the oldest to the middle child. We also reuse jars and boxes. We tend to save a lot of our boxes that we get from online orders for sending parcels to family for birthdays and Christmas, as well as in our own home at Christmas to make wrapping a little easier.

Nature

Show them how they can enjoy being out in nature instead of sitting in the house playing video games or watching TV. Together as a family plant some seeds. Whether they are seeds to grow flowers to enjoy or for the bees (a whole lesson right here folks!), or maybe you want to plant some seeds to grow some food (and another whole lesson right here too).

Litter

My oldest hates seeing litter, I mean HATES it. One day someone stopped on the corner and dropped out a few bottles, and she was ready to chase them down! Needless to say we will be out there picking up litter this Earth Day.

If you’re child isn’t like my oldest, and I think most of Saskatchewan isn’t, then teach your children what to do with their garbage when you’re not home. Most public parks and store have garbage cans outside for you to use. Teach them to simply hold on to their garbage until they see a trash can.

How do you teach your children about protecting the environment?

Similar posts that you may be interested in:

Earth Day Books

Earth Day Books

Earth Day - What Can we do with our kids

Earth Day – What Can we do with our kids

 

Filed Under: Homeschool, Natural Homeschooling Tagged With: Earth Day, Environment, Litter, nature, Reduce. Recycle. Reuse., Three R's

Why Do Leaves Change Color? Autumn Science

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

It’s the first day of Autumn ya’ll, and I love Autumn. My girls ask every year why the leaves change color, and I finally found an experiment to show them the colors of leaves, the colors they change, instead of just just trying to explain it. This is fun and easy to do. I love getting hands on with science with my kids, they learn a lot more when they are involved.

Why Do Leaves Change Color_ Autumn Science

Why Do Leaves Change Color?

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

It’s really simple actually, just a few things from around your house and yard.

Rubbing alcohol, jars or glasses, some leaves from your yard, and some coffee filters.

Why Do Leaves Change Color? Autumn Science

I started this by asking my kids the question that they ask me”why do leaves change color?” The answer I got, was that they change because it is autumn, a simple answer and it completely makes sense for kids. They change because the season changes.

I grabbed 3 different leaves – 2 red leaves from the vine crawling up our shed, 2 green leaves from the vine crawling up our shed, and 2 green leave from a tree.

3 jars, one for each set of leaves I had.

Tear the leaves up and put into each jar.

Why Do Leaves Change Color? Autumn Science

Pour just enough rubbing alcohol into each jar to cover the leaves.

There are two (or many more) ways to do the next part. You can cut your coffee filters into strips, or roll it into a cone shape, either will work.

Why Do Leaves Change Color? Autumn Science

Now you wait. It took 6-8 hours before we saw anything, and 24 hours before it was clear. I took this pictures after about 24 hours.

The Why Behind It?

Chlorophyll would be the answer. It is the dominate pigment in the leaves (green). It covers the other colors that are there in the leaves, the reds, and yellows. The leaves stay green the water that the tree takes in through its roots.

Why does the green disappear? The trees realize that summer is coming to an end (due to less sunlight) and stop taking in so much water. Without the water, the green chlorophyll starts to disappear and the other colors in the leaf and the yellow and the orange can be seen.

So leaves don’t really “change” color so much as lose color. You can clearly see the different colors on the filter. Do this with your kids. You only need some coffee filters and rubbing alcohol. You have kids, so you probably already have the rubbing alcohol and coffee filters.

Resource Library Sign Up
Make sure that you sign up to receive emails from me with new activities, including more science experiments, and more!

Similar posts that you may be interested in:

Disappearing Color Science Experiment

Disappearing Color Science Experiment

Charlotte's Web - Watercolor Web

Charlotte’s Web – Watercolor Web

Filed Under: Experiments, Homeschool, Kids Activities, Natural Homeschooling Tagged With: autumn, Homeschool, leaves change color, nature, science, science experiment

Color Changing Flowers

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

The white flowers growing in our yard inspired me in this activity. I had been thinking it, and looked at buying flowers to do it a few months ago but flowers can be pricey. Instead these color changing flowers were inspired by nature.

This is a simple science experiment for your kids, starting quiet young, about three years. It teaches them how a plant absorbs water up it’s stem and nourishes its petals or leaves.

color changing flowers

Color Changing Flowers

*This post may contain affiliate links. For more information see my disclosure policy.*

Because our flowers were small, the change took place really fast. The longer the stem and bigger the flower they longer it is going to take. I hope to remember to pick up flowers, such as carnations, after Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day and do these over again.

All you need is:

  • clear water
  • food color
  • containers
  • white flowers

Simply add food color to the water in individual containers and add your white flowers.

After an hour:

color changing flowers

You can see a little of the red and blue in the veins of the flower petals. After only an hour, mainly because our flowers are just small.

After almost 3 hours:

color changing flowers

Aren’t they pretty? I love the red. You can see a little yellow in the… yellow watered flower.

You can see on the edge of this photo that we also had a container of green water. Nothing happened with those flowers. Not sure why. The darker the food color you have, the better you’ll be able to see it as well. The yellow was harder to see at first.

To keep your flowers going, and get more color in them, trim the bottom of the stem a little in the morning.

This was a great activity as we are gardening and growing vegetables and flowers. It just goes to show the importance of watering our plants. And they do see what happens when you don’t water them… I am terrible at remembering to water my houseplants.

Posts that you may also be interested in:

Greenhouse Gardening with KidsIntroducing Gardening in our homeschool

color changing flowers

 

Filed Under: Experiments, Homeschool, Kids Activities, Natural Homeschooling Tagged With: color changing, flowers, natural homeschooling, nature, science experiment, Spring

Primary Sidebar

A Little About Me

I'm Ashley, a Canadian secular homeschool mom of 3, living in Nova Scotia.

I share our adventures in homeschooling and parenting.

You can usually find us at the library surrounded by books.
Read More…

Looking for Something?

Science Experiment E-Book

Footer

Forgetful Momma – Ashley Mullen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

  • Disclosure Policy
  • Terms of Use and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • You Can Contact Me Here

Copyright © 2021 · ForgetfulMomma.com