Tips for Homeschool Science Podcast from Elemental Science

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Give your kids the tools to build something. There's a meme out there that says physics is the branch of science concerned with using extremely long and complicated formulas to describe how a ball rolls. It cracks me up every. single. time. And the deeper you get into physics, the more this becomes a reality. But during...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Take a few moments to observe. In our neck of the woods, we are officially smack dab in the middle of summer, which in our house means that we break from normal school. But this doesn't mean that learning stops - for us, learning is a way of life. And although we may not crack a single book on science this month, we do o...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. The periodic table visually shows the elements that makeup everything we see around us. It is a key concept in chemistry that needs to be taught to our students. In fact, we recommend that you introduce the periodic table in the elementary years. But it can be a bit confusing because it appears as if there are so many different visual options out there . . . whic...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Enjoy some sunshine! We are heading into the dog days of summer, where the days are longer and the sun shines more brilliantly. The extra sunlight during this time of year makes it easier for us to harness a bit of solar science fun! Welcome to the Tips for Homeschool Science Show where we are breaking down the lofty ideals o...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Thank you guys for continuing to listen to the Tips for Homeschool Science Show! Today I'm wrapping up season 6, saying thanks, and giving you a sneak peek at what is coming for our next season. Links mentioned-> Season 6 Wrap-up: https://elementalscience.com/blogs/news/30-tips-for-homeschool-science The Elemental Science Blog:  https://elementalscience.c...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month – Try a few out-of-the-box science ideas. There is a lingering feeling amongst educators that if a textbook (or encyclopedia) wasn’t cracked open or an experiment wasn’t done, then our students didn’t learn about science. And although we do need to be reading about science, doing science, and writing about science, we have load...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->The science fair project takes a bit of time to complete, so doing one during a break is a great way to fit one in. Science fair projects take a good chunk of time to complete. And since we find ourselves with a bit more at-home time than we are used to, now is the perfect opportunity to do a science fair project. Here are three tips to help you...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->Use a bit of the spare time you find yourself with to add in a bit of STEM education, especially things about coding, engineering, and robotics. We are all finding ourselves with a bit more time on our hands. And over the next two episodes, I am going to share a few ideas to fill that time with a bit of science. In this episode, I am sharing thre...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->The point is to make your read-aloud time work for you, not to have some Norman Rockwell homeschooling moment. In our last episode, I said that we were reading aloud a lot more these days. But if you have one (or more) of those wiggly children, bursting with energy, reading aloud may end up as stressful instead of soothing. So this week, we are g...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Be in the driver's seat. In good times and bad ones, you are in charge of your child’s education. As their parent, you have their best interest at heart, and you can best gauge whether something is working or not. And as our world changes daily, our tip this month is to be in the driver’s seat and do what's best for...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->If you want to continue homeschooling during this stressful season, I recommend you read a lot, laugh a lot, and make a lot of good memories. I think that recent events definitely qualify as “stressful.” We’ve had a lot of changes to handle, in fact, some of you may be tuning in for the very first time as you find yourself a brand-new, sudden hom...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->If you don't have the supplies - try to find a similar material or swap the experiment out for a different one before you scratch it and head outside to observe science in your own backyard. One of the biggest struggles with doing experiments at home is having the right supplies on hand. But you don’t need to ditch hands-on science activitie...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->It takes some effort on our part to encourage independent learning, but the rewards are well worth it! One of the key skills that we as homeschoolers can impart to our students is to teach them how to learn independently. This is a gradual process, but today I want to share with you three tips to help you encourage your students to get on the roa...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->Having a big age gap between your kiddos may not allow for easy combining of subjects, but that doesn’t mean you can't homeschool successfully. Do you have a big age gap between your oldest and your youngest? We have 8 years between our two kiddos and have homeschooled both of them. At times, it was the best thing ever to have a big age gap....

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Add in a bit of science memory work! Memory work is a hallmark of classical education, but that doesn't mean that it's not a beneficial addition to a non-classical homeschool. So this month, our tip is to add in a bit of science memory work to your homeschool plans! Welcome to the Tips for Homeschool Science Show wh...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->To keep the notebooking-clutter beast at bay – plan digitally, keep those loose pages together, and store your past notebooks in an easy-to-reference place. Paper, papers everywhere!! Notebooking is a fantastic tool we can use to teach science, but unless your notebooking pages come pre-made and bound together in a book, you will struggle with a...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->The beauty of notebooking is that it is a tool that can grow with your students. Once you understand the basics, you can scale-back or level-up to meet the needs of your students. Notebooking is becoming a common recommendation in homeschooling circles because it is such an effective tool. It’s quite the departure from traditional worksheets, so...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway -> Give your children the opportunity to stretch their imagination and to try out their ideas through exploration.  Exploration - the foundation of science. But how do we invite the magic of exploration into our homeschools? In this episode, I'll share three tips to help you roll out the discovery-welcome-mat! Here is how we encourage explora...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month – Do these three things so you won’t burnout before the year is done. It’s February, often known as the doldrums of homeschooling. It's at this time that many homeschoolers crash and burn. So for this month's tip, I'm sharing the three things I do to avoid burnout. Welcome to the Tips for Homeschool Science Show...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Don't be a curriculum slave. As we head into the new year full of promise and new beginnings, I want to encourage you to not become a slave to a homeschool curriculum. Instead, use it as a tool to teach science to your unique children. Welcome to the Tips for Homeschool Science Show where we are breaking down the lofty i...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. **Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Don't stop sharing Christmas Science with your older kids.** When your kids are younger, homeschooling is cute and Instagram-worthy. As they get older, school becomes less and less about crafts and more and more about hitting the books. But the great thing about the holidays is that we can do things together as a famil...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->Allowing our students to interact with the steps of the scientific method through representations, hands-on experiences, and repeated applications will serve to firmly etch this foundational concept into their minds. A mention of science education or STEM will almost always bring up a mention of the scientific method. But what is the scientific m...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. **Homeschool Science Tip of the Month - Start a Science Club with your homeschooling friends.** As homeschooling mommas, we don’t try to keep our weird, unsocialized homeschoolers away from people altogether. We want them to have friends and to enjoy spending time with people of all ages. But sometimes we need to create those opportunities for them. And a great w...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->At its heart, science education is about providing opportunities for the mind to work. What is the core of what makes a lesson a science lesson? How do we know if we are really teaching science? In this episode, we are chatting about the heart of science. Welcome to season 5 of the Tips for Homeschool Science Show where we are breaking down the l...

Want to talk shop? Send me a text. Key Takeaway->There are benefits and downsides to the mastery and spiral approaches for teaching science. In the end, what matters most is that you actually share science with your kiddos. Should you teach biology all year long? Or should you teach a bit of biology, earth science, and physical science? In this podcast, Paige from Elemental Science is going to...