Tag: Coursera

Animals & Farms – Pandemic Homeschooling, Theme 7

This is a tricky theme right now since zoos are closed, the Museum of Science is closed, the Harvard Museum of Natural History is closed, Mass Audubon sites have closed (except for hiking, get out there and take a walk in nature), and there aren’t many farms reachable by public transit, and who knows if they’re open….But we’ll do our best!

Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com

Activities

  • Make your own music video to “Baby Monkey”
  • Some art stores might be open, get some paper mâché animals and decorate them at home
  • Ideas for Dairy Cow Learning Activities from Ohio State University, a list of possible activities for learning about this important animal in our food supply. Written for 4H but applicable for anyone interested!

Virtual Field Trips

  • Farm Food 360 offers 11 virtual tours of all kinds of farms, from apple orchards, to pig farms to grain farms. Check it out!
  • San Diego Zoo‘s live animal cams: penguin, baboon, polar bears, panda, koala, giraffe, burrowing owl, elephant, tiger, and condor.

Books


“Zoology for kids : Understanding and Working with Animals, with 21 Activities,” Josh Hestermann, Overdrive
“Birdology : 30 Activities and Observations for Exploring the World of Birds,” Monica Russo, Overdrive
“Who was George Washington Carver?” Jim Gigliotti, Overdrive

Online Learning

Field trips

Head to your nearest pond or park and watch the ducks and other wildlife. I am at my closest pond right now and there are ducks, geese, doves and woodpeckers!

Plants & Flowers – Pandemic Homeschooling, Theme 4

Here’s the fourth theme in this series. I know this guide was originally written at a normal time where we could freely go out and get supplies or books from the library. You might not have all the supplies listed in these posts. I hope, however, this series of themed activities can still help you with inspiration to help you get through your days of Social Distancing with your family. My kids haven’t gotten nutty yet, but I myself am on my way there. Having a list of options is always helpful for me when it’s not easy think creatively, so maybe this will be helpful for some of you too!

Field Trips

  • If you can get to a place where you won’t run into people closely, take a nature walk!
  • If you have a yard, go out and collect plants or sticks to make a centerpiece for your table.
  • The Arnold Arboretum is open to visitors but all the facilities have closed. Click here for more information.

Books

“Martha Says it with Flowers,” Susan Meddaugh, available on Overdrive
“The Ugly Vegetables,” Grace Lin, available on Overdrive
“The Secret Garden,” Frances Hodgson Burnett, available on both Hoopla and Overdrive.

Free Online Learning

Understanding Plants, Part 1: What a Plant Knows on Coursera
A list of 4 free Herbalist classes
Becoming an Herbalist Mini Course, The Herbal Academy

Activities

  • Potato Maze Experiment, which requires some advanced planning to get a potato to start sprouting before building the potato obstacle course. Note: Make sure there are not light leaks in the box except for the exit point.
  • Biome in a Baggie Experiment, to learn about the water cycle, Zoom from PBS.
  • Make sun prints with colored construction paper

Snacks

Any kind of fruit plus pictures of the whole plant and flower that fruit comes from.

Free Online Learning for You!

One of my favorite parts of this homeschooling journey has been the opportunity to fill in gaps in my own education. I love learning about history, culture and science.

Over the years I’ve used some online education portals to pursue some amazing classes. Not only is it a great way to pass time while my kids are doing their own work, it’s also a powerful way to demonstrate to them my values around education.

Two textbooks. "Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. A geology textbook, "Understanding Earth, 5th Edition" by Grotzinger, Jordan, Press, Siever.
Books I used with online courses, Source: BBHS

Here are my fav online learning portals, let me know of your favs in the comments!

EdX.org – This platform was created by Harvard and MIT and hosts courses from colleges and universities around the world. Most courses you can take for free. The first amazing course I took was “The Science of Religion” from the University of British Columbia. I’ve also taken courses on Chinese History, the basics of Neuroscience, Ethics, History of Architecture. Most EdX courses do not require any outside materials or text books, though classes may suggest optional readings. The site is user-friendly, and you can go at your own pace.

MIT OpenCourseWare – From their site: “MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.” I’ve taken an introductory course on Geology through this platform. Compared to EdX.org, OCW isn’t as user friendly. The courses available, however, are actual college-level courses! You will often want to buy or borrow the textbooks for each course. I bought my textbook off eBay for less than $20. If you can get your course’s books from the library, these courses are truly free and high quality.

A few years ago, a homeschooler was in the news for using MIT OpenCourseWare for his entire homeschool education and getting admitted to MIT at age 15.

Coursera – This platform is a lot like EdX. The biggest difference with Coursera is that you need to keep up with each course’s timing. It’s not as relaxed as EdX, but I do think the courses are at a slightly higher level. I haven’t successfully finished a class on Coursera because of the timing issue, but have found some really great topics, such as entomology and fair use copyright law for blogs!

Do you use these online platforms yourself? Do your kids learn from them? Please share your experiences in the comments below!