Science "Observations"

It's a while before we'll actually start doing science experiments with my kids, but I have several books on hand for elementary science ideas and I glance through them now and then for fun. And I've come to a conclusion: most of what they suggest are not science "experiments." They're science "observations." Think about it: they have kids set an ice cube on a plate and see it melt, then teach them about the states of matter. And that's great... for an observation. It can spark interest and make information stick. It can be very fun and entertaining (does anyone else have fond memories of dissecting owl pellets?). But it's not an _experiment_.

This is a little tricky, because some science "experiments" done by professionals are observations. And if you want to call these little observations "experiments," that's perfectly fine. Really. Just don't, please don't, try to use observations to teach the scientific method.

We've all been there. We're watching ice melt, and this is Science, so we'll use the Scientific Method! Child, please make a hypothesis about what will happen to this ice.

The kid either already knows, and thus thinks, "This is stupid," or doesn't have any idea, and thus thinks, "I am stupid." (Yes, I'm oversimplifying hugely here, but this was my elementary school experience with science.)

Then, after forcing the child to guess, we assign a procedure, a recipe to follow, and ask the child to observe the results and draw conclusions. What's the difference between results and conclusions? Surprise: there isn't one in an observation! That's why you had so much trouble with this as a kid! This only exists in a real experiment!

So what is a real experiment? What's different about it from what I just described, which is what most of us did in science class? (I know I did, right up through undergraduate work in college - at least there, my recipe-following was part of a real experiment for a professor).

A real experiment starts with observation.

I put that as it's own paragraph so that you would reflect a little. _A real experiment starts with observation._ Do the observation on its own, for its own sake, without forcing it into the formula of the scientific method, where it was never meant to be. Observe, and then ask, "Why?"

That's the second step. Why does ice melt on a plate? What makes that happen?

Now, this is something you could easily look up without an experiment. But let's say you really want to figure it out yourself. _Now_ you can generate a hypothesis. Actually, generate a lot of hypotheses. All you can.

Maybe it's a reaction between ice and plates? Ice and air? Ice and light? Ice and time? Ice and temperature? What else could it be?

Now, pick one of these ideas and design a way to test it. Not a recipe - your own plan. Hour could you show it was true? More importantly, how could you show it was not true?

(As an aside, please, _please_ teach them that falsifying is the way to go. Science is about trying to disprove hypotheses. You want to try to show that it's not true. Your experimental design will be much better.)

So you hypothesize that ice melts because of something to do with plates. Well, if that's true, then ice next to the plate on some other surface won't melt. If it's not true, ice will melt anywhere. Let's set out lots of ice cubes next to each other on plates, paper plates, grass, concrete, sand, glass bowls, plastic dishes, everything we can find, and see what happens.

Results? They all melted. But some melted faster than others. Hmm...

Conclusion: it's not plates that makes ice melt. But different surfaces make ice melt differently. I wonder why...

And it starts all over again.

That's the scientific method. That's the beauty and the fun of science. Show it to your kids! Have fun with it! And please don't squeeze the life out of it by trying to teach it through observations. Observe, yes, as much as you can. And then do experiments to learn more. That's science.

Goal Days

Goal Days are something that, as far as I know, I came up with all on my own.  That's so rare, I just wanted to make a point of it.  Most of what I share on this blog is from much wiser people than myself, and I've just learned and implemented it.  But this is one thing that I believe I created for myself.  (I'm sure other people have done it as well, but I haven't read it anywhere.)

So, my great idea is: Goal Day parties!  This idea came about when my girls were begging for another holiday during a long drought of them and when I was trying to encourage my oldest to put her new reading skills to use in reading books.  I had an idea that I still love: whenever someone in our family achieves a goal that we've been working hard on, we will celebrate with a Goal Day party!  This will match our (low-key) family birthday parties: the Goal Day achiever gets to decide on what to have for dinner and request a special dessert, and they gain one gift (from the thrift store or homemade for the kids, or bought used online for us adults).  And it's a celebration!  We can have holidays whenever, regardless of the calender, for achieving!

We all love this idea.  It comes naturally, since when we achieve a goal we want to celebrate.  It's fun to make it a little more formal and to really make a big deal of the big achievements we've done.  So far we've celebrated crawling, swinging across the monkey bars independently, reading a whole book independently, and writing a short story.  The adults have not actually achieved a party yet, but we started this with our New Year's Resolutions and the adult resolutions take a little more time and effort than the kid ones.  We hope to get there soon, though.

This year we're each having a goal in each of four areas: Mental, Physical, Spiritual, and Emotional/Social.  At the Goal Day party, we date the goal we've achieved on the goal chart in the kitchen and then set a new goal in that area.  It keeps us motivated to always have goals and work on them.

Three Areas of Learning

I was listening to a podcast this week from the Circe Institute on "Igniting a Love of Learning."  (You can find the podcast here: https://www.circeinstitute.org/podcast/podcast-igniting-love-learning-your-students.)  The thing that struck me most was a comment one of the members of the podcast made about there being three types of learning we're trying to teach our kids:

1. Skills - handwriting, math computation, tying shoes, disagreeing appropriately
2. Information - dates, facts, pieces of poetry
3. Understanding - concepts, moral values

And these three need to be taught in different ways.  Unfortunately, the podcast didn't go into much detail about the different ways to teach each one, but it started me ruminating on the idea.

I don't have a problem using rewards or payment to teach skills.  I know some people do, and it's certainly not my go-to approach, but when a kid needs to learn a particular skill on my schedule (potty training, for instance), a reward can jump-start the process.

Skills take demonstration and lots of repetition.  It's a matter of drill.  It did say in the podcast that a moderate amount of drill, like 5-10 minutes, is better than half an hour or more.  I totally agree!  Drilling every single day for a short amount of time helps my kids a ton with their skills in math and phonics and other areas.

Information is taught by repetition, usually.  Creative repetition is nice, but it's not my strong suit.  But spaced repetition is the key to retaining information, as far as I understand it.  When my kids get bigger, I think we'll use something like Anki to retain information that's important.  (At some point, I have to figure out what is important; that's what this is waiting on, not some nebulous "older" age.)

And understanding, I believe, comes best through literature, conversation, and living.  That's why my teaching is heavy on reading and discussing with my kids.  All the homeschooling philosophies I enjoy, like the Robinson Curriculum and Charlotte Mason and Classical Education, are heavy on reading the classics.  This may be why.  Understanding is the most important, so it needs a lot of attention, without neglecting the other areas.

So my kids read and discuss classics.  We drill on important skills regularly, daily if possible for the most important ones.  And I really like the idea of a spaced repetition system for information; now I'm looking for what information to include!