Candy Bar Math Lesson

All foods sold in the U.S. must be labelled with their nutritional content.  These labels are called "Nutrition Facts", and I found a picture of a really crazy one online that I thought would be fun to share.  It's the label from a "Mega-Kat", which is a giant Kit-Kat candy bar.  It weighs 2 pounds!

(Check out the pictures of someone holding an even bigger Kit-Kat candy bar here.  It weighs 30 pounds!)

Time to do something useful with this information!  Let's use this Nutrition Facts label to help with learning math facts & have some fun.  What can you learn from this Nutrition Facts label?

• If you were going to split this candy bar among yourself and 4 of your friends, how much cholesterol would each of you be consuming?
• How many of these giant candy bars would you need to eat to get 80 grams of fiber?
• How much sodium is in half a serving?
• If there are 4 grams in 1 teaspoon of sugar, how many teaspoons of sugar are in this candy bar?
• If you ate 5 of these candy bars (and didn't get sick), how much vitamin C would you have eaten?  

Ok, homeschool math class is over.  Now we all know candy bars are not healthy, but let's look closer at these Nutrition Facts.  Notice that the 2 things this candy bar contains the most of are.....Fat and Sugar.

I'll never look at a Kit-Kat quite the same!

Some Fun Twists To Supplement Your Usual Curriculum

We do the bulk of our schoolwork in the mornings. Afternoons are for extras, all those fun supplemental things that don't fit neatly into a subject category of math or grammar, etc. My oldest takes a French class on Tuesday afternoons, and the other days we do art or music. There's always homeschool gym class, field trips, and oh yes, NUTRITION to learn!

But a couple of things we've done this past week have turned out to be big hits with my family. The first was to learn typing. I've found this also to be a great thing to keep one child busy while I'm teaching something to another. They can sit at the computer and practice with typing games. It's fun for them and even kind of educational - I mean, who doesn't need to know how to type, right?!

We've also been exploring different genres of literature, so I thought a website about literature for homeschoolers was good material to set my 12 year old off to surf a while. Homeschool Literature.com has literature for homeschoolers, written by homeschoolers, or specifically for homeschoolers. Pretty neat stuff, and it helps that kids can relate to all that homeschooling going on. Get 'em reading more!

Teaching About Photosynthesis and Seed Germination

Are you looking for science activities for kindergarten and elementary school?  Here's a fun mini-lesson for you!

Seeds need energy sources (light), food, and water to grow.  The light from the sun allows a plant to create its own food by a chemical reaction called photosynthesis.  The process of photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen:

carbon dioxide + water ---->  glucose + oxygen

Seeds come with their own food supply.  Once the seed has begun to grow, the remainder of the seed provides food for the growing plant until it can produce its own food by photosynthesis.  Germination is the process of a seed changing from its dormant state into a growing plant. 

ACTIVITIES TO TRY:

 

SEED SPROUTING - It's hard to see what's really happening to a seed after you plant it.  If you'd like to see the process of seed germination up close, try this.  Soak a paper towel and then wring out the water. Wrap up a couple of seeds in the wet paper towel and place it in a sandwich bag. Check it daily and add more water periodically to make sure the paper towel is wet.  After several days, you'll begin to notice changes in the seeds as they begin to grow!

ROOT DISPLAY -  If you plant a seed in a glass jar, you can watch through the glass as the roots grow.  Just be sure to plant your seed along the side of the jar so you have a good view of it.  Then water, and watch it grow!  You can buy a kit of materials to do this, like the one to the right, but it's very easy to make yourself with a simple glass jar.