Resources for you to make science fun!

The textbook we are using for the semester.

Throughout the semester, I am reading Teaching Children Science: A discovery approach  by Donald A. DeRosa and Joseph Abruscato. It is an e-textbook which personally, I am not a fan of. I am the type of learner that needs the textbook in her hands to really read it and understand it. E-books just open a door for too much distraction for me personally, but I will say they are a great tool for engaging students. This text provides an abundance of information for you so that you are able to accurately instruct your students on all things science. We are currently on the first part of the textbook which discusses different strategies and techniques. Each chapter discusses different ways to engage students with science information.

While I was reading these chapters, I was trying to think of other ways to make science instruction interesting and came across this article on edutopia.org! It discussed ten different ways to re-engage your students with the materials and information. This is extremely important because once you lose out on your students attention, you’re going to have to really work to gain it back. I found these to be really useful tips because you may think you have an extremely engaging lesson planned and then two minutes in the students are no longer engaged. For example, I was extremely excited about this “dancing raisins” experiment for my three year-olds. Sadly, the students didn’t share my enthusiasm and two minutes in, they were off playing with legos. I quickly had to figure out what I could do to re-engage them and decided it was time to add in some more baking soda, music, and magnifying glasses. BAM! They were engaged for a good twenty minutes. This just goes to show how important it is to have a backup plan!