I spend alot of time choosing curriculum for my children and talking with other homeschool parents about their choices. It’s something we homeschoolers obsess over. Many subjects are straight forward…you purchase a teacher’s manual, student text book, student work book and a few supplementary materials. Then you are off to the races, so to speak.
Science, more than any other subject area, is like the wild west. Not only do science books need to be updated continually due to the ongoing discoveries that occur in various fields, but there is a lot of debate about teaching methods, scope and sequence, state standards, topics to be covered, and even religious considerations. No wonder so many parents get frustrated and essentially give up.
Photo Credit: My Hands are on Fire by Senoramor
Top that off with a healthy dose of “insecurities” that many moms have about teaching science–it’s complicated. Concerns about blowing up the kitchen combined with ever persistant time crunches, nearly guarantee that science gets pushed to the “we’ll do it tomorrow category” with good intentions and little follow through. It’s a vicious cycle.
Who suffers? Our children. And as parents, we know it. We want to do better…really!
I have felt this pain! Last year, we were faltering in science. I had a program I liked alot, but we outgrew it really quickly. I realized that the best days we had in science were the days that I blocked out time and made the committment to do experiments. On experiment days, we rocked science. We came, we saw, we conquered as Julius Caesar liked to say. I got a big hug afterwards and the kids had a smile on their faces. Even with that being said, sometimes our experiments didn’t work, and there was no one to turn to for troubleshooting problems.
Photo Caption: Genius or Insanity by Inspired Impressions
On non-experiment days, I was pretty sure they were learning, but they weren’t having much fun. And, I found it necessary to review the materials ahead of time so we could have a good discussion. The whole system hinged on me being prepared. I don’t know about you, but I am not always prepared. Our system wasn’t very sustainable.
Then I found Super Charged Science. For the complete story, click here, and you can read more. The bottom line is this. One day I said to the kids, “I found some really awesome new science videos. Let’s watch a couple of them today.” After the requisite moaning and groaning, they acquiesed. I showed them a three minute clip that demonstrated how to make a Hover Craft. It peaked thier interest. We moved on to an Astronomy Tour of the Galaxy. Their eyes were glued. And finally, we learned how to create various States of Matter in our microwave. Immediately afterwards, I closed my computer and said, “Okay, we’re done with Science for the day”.
Their reaction was unpleasant to say the least. So I left them there, with my computer and the superchargedscience.com website and told them to find three more experiments they wanted to do the next day. That was it. That was all it took to hook them in and keep them engaged. It didn’t matter that I was unprepared. They taught me by re-enacting the experiments at the dinner table.
The next day, we did science for three hours. I had a hard time getting them to stop. In fact, because of that, this year I am going to try doing two, three hour modules of science per week instead of an hour a day. The kids get so engrossed in what they are doing, it’s a shame to break their momentum. Ahhh! The beauty of homeschooling. (Pardon my digression).
Photo Credit: Experimentalist by Vourdallaque
The Super Charged Science program is brilliantly organized into modules. There are roughly 20 experiments per module with video instruction for the kids and the parents on how to conduct the experiment so that it will work. Some other science programs don’t even include experiments and if they do, some times, the experiments have not been tested.
It doesn’t really matter what order you go in base on my conversations with Aurora, but now that I have been doing it for a while, I suggest working through one module at a time so that your kids get the full benefit of the learning. This also makes it easier for you to have everything organized. I just print out the shopping list and buy everything needed for the experiments in that module. Then I keep it all in one of those plastic drawers in our home school area. When it’s time for science, I tell them which experiment to do, point them to the drawer and the computer and turn them loose. It’s a breeze. No more skipping science because I am not prepared. Aurora has that covered.
She’s really engaging, too. Kids just love her crazy fun personality. She is like a big kid and her passion comes right through the video into the room with you. No more boring text books. No more dull experiments. This is supercharged science, literally.
But don’t think that just because there are no text books, that your kids aren’t learning. When kids are doing experiments, they are having fun, learning and engaging. That gets them into a state of being really “open-minded”. As we all know, when a person is open-minded, they are much more receptive to new information. So after Aurora has gotten them completely engaged, she introduces the technical aspects of the science behind it. Working in this order; engagement, open-mindedness, text book learning, they retain much more than they do using traditional school techniques.
Remember how it worked when we were in school? We sat in the classroom listening to a boring professor. We read a bunch of stuff, studied, took a pop quiz, studied some more, and then if we were lucky, we did an experiment. Then, we took the test and forgot it all two weeks later. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the Super Charged Science approach.
What it does in a nutshell is teach your kids to ask good questions, formulate hypothesis and methodologies for testing them, and to ultimately think for themselves. I couldn’t ask for anything more than what Aurora has provided in Super Charged Science. I just wish other curriculum publishers would learn from her, and apply her methods to make other subject areas more engaging.
There is nothing like a good teacher! The lessons learned will last a lifetime. And with online escience, Aurora has figured out a way to duplicate herself, and to reach more families. I only wish they would adopt this program in the mainstream school system.
I hope this Super Charged Science Review has been helpful for you! Now go get some free stuff!
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