Working science into every day conversation in much simpler than you think!
Science was never my best subject. Let me just say a big thank you to Mrs. Alfiieri in 10th grade for allowing me to clean lab equipment for extra credit in chemistry so I could pass. I honestly tried; I studied very hard, but I just could not master the basics.
Let it suffice to say that the prospect of teaching my own children science is something I have tried hard to ignore. However, the subject must be covered at some point. I made the brave leap into science. Deciding to teach a homeschool coop class for elementary children on physics has made me look at the subject matter in a new and different light.
Science surrounds us every day. Physics,being basically the science of how things move, literally effects most of what we do every single day. For example, my boys were at a workshop where they built simple wooden trucks. I noticed their attempts to hammer the small nails into the wooden pieces were not suceeding for one reason - they were holding the pieces in their hands away from the table. In other words, every time the hammer hit the nail and the wooden piece, it caused each boy's arm to rock up and down. The energy from the hammer blow was being absoerbed and transfered to their arms, taking away from the energy distributed to the nail. I explained this simply, and we tried holding the pieces against the table. Now their arms did not rock and the nails went right in!
Even if science was never "your thing", you can still teach your child this subject. After all, science is all around us! Try Homeschooling for the Younger Years for some ideas. Or visit retired-science-teacher-turned-homeschool-mom Teresa Bondora's site - How to Teach Science. This site, and Teresa's philosophy, is the reason I am braving the world of science with 12 elementary school kids this fall. And what is more, I can't wait!
