| Week 1A — Organizing Things into Categories |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Paper and pencil OR Writing Sheet for Memory Game
| - Categorizing Monsters worksheet
- Assortment of miscellaneous items from junk drawers and closets (for sorting practice)
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| Week 1B — Solids, Liquids, and Gases Introduction |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Solid, Liquid, Gas Sorting worksheet
- Writing Pages
- Water and various liquids in clear containers (cooking oil, liquid detergent, syrup, shampoo, etc.)
- Various solid items (toys, pencils, dishes, coins, etc.)
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| Week 2A — States of Matter: Changes with Temperature |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- No additional supplies needed (uses same materials from Week 1B)
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| Week 2B — Gravity Introduction |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Something to drop (literally anything that isn’t going to break)
- Clear bottle or cup with water in it
- Some type of oil (vegetable oil works well)
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| Week 3A — The Concepts of Horizontal and Vertical |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Blocks or something to stack that can fall without breaking
| - Plumb bob (any weight tied to the end of a string)
- Carpenter’s level
- Horizontal and Vertical Printable
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| Week 3B — What is Energy? |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Sorting Energy worksheet
- Energy Transfers worksheet
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| Week 4A — Energy Transformation |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- No additional supplies needed (same worksheets from Week 3B)
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| Week 4B — Air is Real / Air and the Atmosphere |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Balance scale
- Bubbles
- Straw
- Cup of water
- Fan
- Balloon (2)
- Bowl of water big enough to stick your hand in
| - Alternative to balance scale: stick/dowel balanced on a string OR a hanger
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| Week 5A — Categorizing the World Around Us |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Biological, natural Earth, and human-made sorting worksheet
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| Week 5B — Distinguishing Living Things from Natural Earth and Human Made / Technology, Tools, and Animals |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Fine Details + Magnifying Glass
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| Week 6A — Matter is Made of Particles |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Draw Particles Worksheet or paper to draw on
- Piece of paper to rip up
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| Week 6B — Changes in Particles with States of Matter / Reversible and Nonreversible Changes |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Diffusion Experiment: food coloring, hot water, cold water, room temperature water, three clear glasses
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| Week 7A — Sound and Vibrations |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Soundwaves Printable or paper
- Rubber bands (1 larger flat rubber band, 2 smaller, various other sizes helpful)
- Two JUMBO popsicle sticks (the wider ones)
- Plastic straw + scissors to cut it
| - Slinky
- Stringed instrument, xylophone, bell, or other tone-making item
- Tuning fork (especially useful but not required)
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| Week 7B — How Sound Travels |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- No additional supplies needed (uses same materials from Week 7A)
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| Week 8A — Kinetic and Potential Energy / Energy in the Natural World |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Ramp (any flat surface on an angle, a book balanced on other books works)
- Balls or toys to roll or slide down the ramp
| - Pendulum (a weight on a string tied to the edge of a table)
- Balloon
- Rubber bands
- Spring-powered or windup toy
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| Week 8B — Plants vs. Animals: Key Differences / Where All Food Energy Comes From |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Food Web Worksheet
- Plant versus Animal Sorting worksheet
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| Week 9A — Categories of Materials / Properties of Different Materials |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Wood pencil
- Various materials to feel and touch (metal, plastic, wood, ceramic)
- Examples of something translucent, transparent, and opaque
- Magnet
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| Week 9B — The Life Cycle Concept |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Lifecycle Worksheets (various)
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| Week 10A — Metamorphosis and Variation in Life Cycles |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Depending on the season, an animal to raise to observe its lifecycle (butterfly, ladybug, fruit fly, frog, etc.) — make sure it is a local species and not invasive
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| Week 10B — Understanding Force / How Force and Energy Work Together |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Items to toss safely (balls, bean bags, etc.)
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| Week 11A — Animal Adaptations / Food Chains and Energy Flow |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Food Chain Activity worksheet or blank paper to draw/write a food chain
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| Week 11B — Reading and Drawing Maps |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Blank Map or blank paper
- Drawing supplies
- Pencils or markers
| - Maps of your local street area
- Maps of your larger city or region
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| Week 12A — Matter vs. Energy: What Is the Difference? |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Bathroom or accurate scale or balance
- A lamp, heater, or springs and rubber bands (to illustrate forms of kinetic energy)
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| Week 12B — Identifying Local Plants and Animals / Habitats and Why Organisms Live Where They Do |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Field guides for regional trees, flowers, mammals, birds, and insects (used copies are fine)
- Seek App on phone
- Materials for making simple leaf or insect collections (as desired)
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| Week 13A — Air Pressure |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Balloon
- Clear cup of water and straw
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| Week 13B — Pressure Inside and Outside / Vacuums and Suction / Air Pressure, Wind, and the Atmosphere |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
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| Week 14A — Day, Night, and Earth’s Rotation |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Globe on a small table or stand + flashlight or lamp with no shade
- Toothpaste and rice grains OR a sticky note
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| Week 14B — Compass Directions / Maps and Real-World Directions |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Compass Rose Printable OR blank paper
- North South East and West Printable OR paper with grid lines (4x4 and 8x8)
- Cheap plastic globe (dollar store) that you can cut up OR an orange with the continent shapes drawn on it
| - Globe
- World map
- Compass (or phone compass app)
- Stick or pole mounted to the ground with a way to mark the ground
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| Week 15A — Properties of Magnets |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
- Bar magnet (2 or more, one to be suspended by thread)
- Things to test for magnetism (whatever you have on hand)
- Iron or iron-containing items (paper clips, small nails, pipecleaners, etc.)
- Non-iron metal items (aluminum soda cans, pennies, silver or gold jewelry, lead fishing weight)
| - Variety of magnets (horseshoe, bar, and button types)
- Directional compass
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| Week 15B — Magnetic Fields / Earth as a Magnet |
| Required Items | Optional Items / At Home Demonstration |
| - Iron filings (purchasable or sometimes free from a local machine shop)
- This set from Amazon is really helpful for more investigations
- This set is higher quality and NOT from Amazon, but only includes one bar magnet
- Dollar Tree sometimes has magnets for sale
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