So maybe I'm a glutton for punishment.
Or maybe I just like having a lot of kids around my house.
Blindfolded piano playing
One of the questions homeschoolers hear a lot, of course, is the one about socialization. Socialization isn't a big problem in our house. We find ourselves surrounded by families whose company we enjoy, and we are blessed with two kids who developed good social skills long before they parted ways with their diapers.
So our problem is a little diffrent. Whenever we do "learny" things at home, we do them alone. And sometimes we do feel the satisfaction of completing a task, or finishing a book, or moving to the "next level". But sometimes it just gets a little boring. Some learning is more fun in a group.
How'd they get their edges so straight?
I'm not quite sure how we stumbled into doing a segment on vision. It may have been simply that we were doing the chapters in Gee Wiz in order, and one on vision came up. Because Peter and Nadia were into it, I went on a hunt for more activities we could do, and it occurred to me that as long as I am setting it up for my own kids, I might as well invite some others to join us. So I sent and email to some friends announcing "Science Friday".
Awaiting the arrival of the scientists
As is usual with adults, I think, my plans were a little too ambitious. All these experiments looked so cool! Let's just try them all! I prepared everything meticulously, and an orderly table with neatly organized stations greeted the guests as they arrived. At the last moment, I realized that the perfect accompaniment to the occasion would be Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science!" And, thanks to the miracle of iTunes, the musical selection became available with a click.
Watch that pupil grow!
As kids gathered around the table, it became clear that they cared not a whit for my plans or preparation. Although at first, I tried to direct their activities, I abandoned that approach fairly quickly, and let them simply plunge into whatever interested them. The much-anticipated vision meter proved too complex to be truly engaging. However, optical spinners of all kind were an instant hit.
Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of string to thread through holes in a cardboard circle, and watch a fish appear in a bowl of water, a butterfly hover over a flower, or colored rods meld into a constantly changing rainbow. "Ooooh, this one is cool! Try this one!" With very little adult guidance (usually only to solve technical difficulties), the young participants found their way through most of the activities laid out on the table.
Mirror maze
But was it science? There was no method in their madness. Their observations were not tabulated and analyzed. No hypotheses were posed. There is a part of me that wants that level of organization. But I'm not sure I can have it all at once.
There is a natural curiosity and exuberance in kids that makes them just want to make that interesting thing happen over and over again. I know this from my own school experience, and also from working with my own kids alone. The interesting part of the experiment is the doing. Discussion is fun too, as long as it's fairly spontaneous. Writing? Eh... that's not so much fun. Then we are getting "schooly".
So, first, I want to get them hooked working on these fun projects, and on working together. I want to give them the time and the space to explore "what happens, if", and to draw one another from one fascinating discovery to the next. Only after they do it enough times they may want to change some of the variables and note the differences. Who knows? Perhaps then the desire to monitor their findings will emerge.
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