Science Jar

So last week I made a Science Jar, and holy crap am I proud of this idea. Like, I’m-going-to-be-struck-by-lightning-as-I-type-this proud.

First, I guess I should explain how I’m going about dealing with all the different grade levels. For math and English, I bought Spectrum workbooks. The boys can work on those on their own, largely, and I can go around and help individually as needed. But then I figured science and history are two subjects that really, truly, don’t need to be separated by grade level. Yes, you can understand history on a deeper level as you get older; yes, you can do more with science as you get more math under your belt. But by and large, we can learn these things together. Especially since I’m hoping mainly to inspire interest, and send them into the world as adults who will seek knowledge on their own. And know how to do it. Without Google.

So I got to thinking about science as a subject, and trying to put together a curriculum, and it was very daunting. But then I thought about the history of science. Where does all our scientific knowledge come from? Dudes got curious about the world around them and started asking questions. Then they really poked and prodded at those questions till they came up with answers. That’s science, boiled down.

While I was going through that thought process, the boys would every once in a while ask me a totally normal question, like “Why don’t dogs and cats talk like humans do?” or “How does ______ work?” And then it came to me – those questions were my curriculum! If I gave the boys a solid grounding in The Scientific Method, then we could just spend our science time asking questions and gaining knowledge about the world around us in the same natural way that Real Scientists do. Newton and Archimedes and all the great scientists through time did NOT become great scientists by learning a bunch of regurgitated facts by rote. They saw something, it made them curious, and they pursued that thing that interested them and shared their knowledge with the world. That’s how we’ll pursue science in our home.

I found a jar in my kitchen awaiting a purpose in life, grabbed a bunch of $0.25 science magazines from the library bookstore, and got out the old jar of decoupaging glue. Man, I haven’t had a real excuse to be crafty like that in ages. It was SO fun. And here she is!

This is not a photography blog.

And the back view:

Couldn't leave out the shuttle. It's in my blood.

I leave it on top of a bookcase in our front hallway. There’s a pen inside and sticky notes next to it at all times. Anytime somebody has a question they can pop it in the jar, and we will slowly work our way through those questions this year.

Plus, we have lots of “50 dangerous things to try in your kitchen” –type books to fall back on when we need something pre-planned, and plenty of Bill Nye DVDs (thanks to my sister Debby), and a selection of lesson plans to go with some of those episodes (thanks to the library bookstore, my new best friend).

SCIENCE!