Today's Lesson: The Big Bang Unit Study

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Welcome Back to Homeschool! 

 After getting our school room organized and lesson plans written, we are finally ready to start school. We will be doing review for some of our core subjects and are going to be starting a Science/History unit study every week (at least that's what I planned, we'll see how well we do! :) ) This year we are working our way through history from beginning of time, to the present.

Kids tend to ask questions, a lot of questions. Questions that I realize that I don't have all of the answers to. This can be both frustrating and irritating at times.  After being brought down a couple of notches because I'm not as smart as I think I am, I usually hop on Google to try to find my minions some answers. It's because when I tell them the answer to a question is "that's just the way things are" or "because I said so," apparently those aren't acceptable to kids who want a scientific explanation for everything.  Here are some of the great free (or cheap) resources that we are using.

 Videos
If you have time, watch "How the Universe Works," Episode 1 "The Big Bang" I was able to find it on Youtube here.  My local library also carries the DVD's for rentals. At this time it is no longer available for streaming on Netflix.

 The Beginning of Everything – The Big Bang 
The History and Future of Everything - A great explanation of time, that helps out when you are learning about things that happened billions and billions of years ago.

 Lesson Plans
The Big Bang Theory (click on "Worksheet" for the lesson plan) this site also has a couple of video links. 
Worksheet http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/the-big-bang/

 Hands On Activity
Using the time line on page 4 (See above), http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/7585/vce-astronomy-astrophysics-student-activities-1-10.pdf  
Make a “Calender of Time”- We used black construction paper and the kids drew what they think each point in time looked like. We numbered them accordingly and labeled each drawing. Then put it together in order. We made title sheets for each month and stapled it together. The kids now have a visual representation of the timeline.
We made a title page for each month along with the events that happened on that day.  Here are some pictures of our solar system, the first multi-celled organisms, and two strikingly handsome first humans. One complete with armpit hair and hairy toes. 
Interactive
This is are really cool interactive time line. 
Control the time line by clicking the green joystick in the center of the spaceship and drag back and forth to move though time. 

 Book List
A Cartoon History of the Earth – The Birth of the Earth by Jacqui Bailey and Matthew Lilly 
I really like this series of books because they give you all the facts in comic book form. Great for visual learners!

 Other Interesting Stuff
A visual timeline of the Big Bang Shows what scientists believe happened in the past and what they think will happen in the future.