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Hey Guys!, I was wondering if anyone had any great ideas on how to encourage your students to study and observe science at home? Anna

Hi Anna,
I am not sure what grade level you are interested in, but I found an article that has some excellent ideas for middle school students: Weekend Home Labs
According to the article, students involve their family members in investigations conducted over the weekend, then they present their findings in class on Monday.
Another article for younger children uses fingerprinting to involve parents and children:
The Home Zone: Get Familiar With Fingerprints
If you do an advance search using 'home zone' as the keyword, you will get some additional ideas.
Hope this helps.
Carolyn

Maybe there is a trade book that connects to what a child is learning in science. They could take the book home and share it with their family. An source for science trade books is NSTA's Outstanding Trade Books.

You can find titles of these books at the following location:

NSTA Outstanding Trade Books

Hi Anna,

I think that sending home science is a great way to help engage kids, and their parents! There are several great ways to encourage science observation and investigation at home. Here are a few ideas that work great:
- moon phase observations - have students record the shape of the moon every night for a month or assign each student one night to observe the moon. When I've had the kids observe every night, we make a flip book from their moon phases observation. When I assign each student one night, we use the observations to decorate the room.
- plant observations - have students take home a plant in a cup. Each day or week have the students record specific data with their parents (i.e. plant height, flower growth, etc). Observations can include drawing picture, graphing growth, etc.
-weather observation - observe the weather for a week (or month) to identify weather patterns.
- science current events - find current events from the paper, internet (reputable source), or tv news that relate to current events.
- science books at home - depending on the grade level, you can either send home a storybook reader or assign a science themed chapter book.

Hopefully some of those ideas help!
Maureen

Hi Anna,

I think that sending home science is a great way to help engage kids, and their parents! There are several great ways to encourage science observation and investigation at home. Here are a few ideas that work great:
- moon phase observations - have students record the shape of the moon every night for a month or assign each student one night to observe the moon. When I've had the kids observe every night, we make a flip book from their moon phases observation. When I assign each student one night, we use the observations to decorate the room.
- plant observations - have students take home a plant in a cup. Each day or week have the students record specific data with their parents (i.e. plant height, flower growth, etc). Observations can include drawing picture, graphing growth, etc.
-weather observation - observe the weather for a week (or month) to identify weather patterns.
- science current events - find current events from the paper, internet (reputable source), or tv news that relate to current events.
- science books at home - depending on the grade level, you can either send home a storybook reader or assign a science themed chapter book.

Hopefully some of those ideas help!
Maureen

Hello everyone: This topic really interested me and I enjoyed all the suggestions. I think I can really use these in my future classroom. I like the idea of doing projects at home such as the moon chart or observing a plant for a month and recording what they see. I think that kids should be stimulated both at school and at home, but it is at home where their curiosity arises when they are young. These are great projects to send home to the students so that not only they can be involved with science outside the classroom and see that science is all over the place, everyday,and they can apply it to real life, but they can interact with family members as they work together. Thank you for sharing the ideas. Olivia

I am currently going to school to be a teacher and I thought these responses were really full of great ideas! I think it is not as easy to have students do science things at home as easy as it is to do other subjects just because how involved it is. I think these ideas are a great thing to remember for my future classroom!

Hi Anna, I am not sure which grade level you currently teach but I have a suggestion for a plant observation project that students can do at home. This project is for third grade students. The Bonnie Plant company will supply your class with free cabbage plants. The students are to take the cabbage plants home, plant them, care for them and observe the growth. There is even a $1000 scholarship (toward education) given for the "best in state" cabbage. Here is the link to their website (http://bonniecabbageprogram.com/). This website is loaded with information for the teachers, parents and students. As a pre-service teacher, I am always looking for ways to help students bring school home. I feel that students can truly benefit from a real world connection to their learning. Best of luck to you.

These Are All Great Ideas. Kelly

science is everywhere! If you have a garden, you can explain how a seed becomes a flower, how the sun affects your garden, or even the phase of a butterfly. Also, in the kitchen, measuring things to cook or bake, cooking a very delicious way to learn science!

Hello everyone, I just read all of your posts, and I agree. Science is everywhere!! Thank you for those great articles!

Romina, you are exactly right...science is everywhere! I'm always surprised when I talk to friends and co-workers who think that they are not 'science people.' It's always fun to point out how they are (gardeners, athletes, bird watchers, even someone who uses leverage to open a jar). By sending home investigations that families can work on together, we help parents realize that science is really all around us.

Cathy, thanks so much for sharing the link to the Burpee cabbage plant project. What a great resource! Here's a link to NSTA Express freebies section There are lots of great free resource here as well.

Maureen

I have an idea for you. I had my students keep a moon journal. They are writing 5 to 6 sentences about what they see and about what is happening. The also had to draw the moon and name the phase of the moon. Some of the parents mention to me that they enjoyed watching the moon with their kids. I see it as science family night

An activity that I found interesting to use at home for students is teaching them how to make butter in order to see how a liquid takes the shape of its container when it turns into a liquid. I used a small container, whipping cream, and salt. You put it into the container and you have the children shake it until it forms into a solid. Once they see how it took the shape of its container, you can have crackers for them to try their butter :) It is a fun and interactive activity which the second graders I worked with loved.

Something that I think would be good for the students to study at home would be taking a plant home and watching how it can grow. I think the responsibility that it can show the students is a very helpful for parents as well as for them. Students will be able to see how the plants grows, and by doing that they will need to know the essentials in taking care of it. For example, watering it every so often and seeing how the plant progresses as each day goes by. I think this is a fun activity for the students to do because they will be able to feel like they have something to take care of everyday.

These resourcess are very helpful! I love all the activites that can be done at home. These activities promote family togetherness and learning. Through these experiences the students develop more about what they know about science concepts.

Science is everywhere. I believe you can take Science home as well. I can recall when I was in Kindergarten our Science homework was to go outside and draw what we observed. I think this was a great home learning activity. Science inside and out side your home. There are many science activities in a home. Chemical reaction, when mixing products whether its cleaning or cooking. The water flow, weather observations, electricity, etc. There is so much you can do at home with science.

Anna, I am currently a teacher candidate who had to plan and execute a science workshop to my colleagues. I think a huge part of motivating and encouraging students to study science at home is by giving them the materials and guidance to do so. For example, my workshop was on trees meant for a group of 2nd graders. Students learned about tree parts, trees through the seasons, and tree products. My station focused on tree products where I taught students about every-day items that come from trees and the papermaking process. I wanted to have students make their own paper in class, however, the process calls for the paper to dry over-night. You could technically leave them in the classroom, however, you might not have the time for it in class or it might be too messy. I gave students directions and a list of materials on how to make it home. After learning about tree products and the paper-making process, students might be eager to learn more on their own time when given directions such as these. Hope this helps! Jacquelyn

I usually use the website called Pinterest. It has many at home science activities that homeschoolers use. I also found a website that you can put in a science topic and fins at home experiments for kids to do. It's located at http://www.education.com/activity/third-grade/science/ '' target="_blank"> http://www.education.com/activity/third-grade/science/ ' target="_blank"> http://www.education.com/activity/third-grade/science/ [/url] I hope that helps.

Hello!! I am currently a student studying elementary education and I loved these responses!! I was so intrigued by the question because I have no clue how to send it home!! Thanks for posting such awesome links I can put in my teacher toolbox!

You could do a learning segment on phases of the moon and have students record their observations every night then discuss them in class the next day. Theres also an activity you can do with a ball and a lamp to demonstrate the phases to the class.

Wow these are some great ideas! I am going to follow this post so I can reference later. We've used the book Everyday Science Mysteries as a provocation for some of the lessons I teach (4th grade), just based on the class work I have had several students take the mysteries home to continue to work on.

Adah, Thanks for providing so many wonderful resources! Do you have any tried and true methods that you use to help encourage parent involvement in science? Maureen

Students may observe science at home in a variety of ways. For instance, children can apply what they learned in class through home experiments (age appropriate). Some of these experiments include: “Dancing Raisins, Roto-Copter, Outrageous Ooze, Black Magic, Floating Eggs in Water,etc.” The activities ought to relate to the concepts children are learning in the classroom. It should extend on their knowledge, and spark interest to the student. The topic you choose depends on what area in science your trying to teach, and the grade level.

As a student teacher, I am thankful I came across this post and great ideas. I wanted to add that at my daughter's schools, the teachers have had 'science days' for each grade level, where parents are encouraged to come along with the children and try out various science experiments. It has always been a great success and gets the first spark of curiosity put in both parents and children. The teacher can also give the parents more information on what they can do with their children at home. Cynthia

Something that would be good for students would be to keep a moon journal, and you can have students track how the moon looks every night. This is a good way for students to observe and partake in science every day. This activity would be for older students, probably 4th and up.

Hello, I saw one really cool idea while I was working at the Science Center in Baltimore, MD. You can purchase ant farm kits and have the ants sent to your house. As a teacher you can have the students build their own ant farm, and keep a six week journal that tracks the growth and development of the ants. This to me, is a good idea because it holds the students accountable for their own project and makes them feel important knowing that they are responsible for the ants. You could have students bring in weekly pictures of the farm to show the class their personal progress with the farm. I hope to try something like this in my own class. Hope this helps. Jaclyn

Hi! I find that encouraging students to see the science in their everyday lives is a way to encourage them to utilize science outside of school. In my science methods class we are currently logging a tree journal as the trees transition into their beautiful fall colors. We are noting the weather and any other things that may be influencing the rate at which our tree is changing. I feel that this is a wonderful opportunity for students to see how much science really plays a huge role in our everyday lives. Just simply practicing observation of our surroundings is practicing science outside of school.

Whenever you do a lesson in class, it is always good to create an extend portion where you have the students take the knoweledge they

Whenever you do a lesson in class, it is always good to create an extend portion where you have the students take the knoweledge they've learned in cllass and apply it to an at home assignement. It helps keep the information frrsh in the students' mind.

You can have students take home critters(mealworms), to analyze and observe. They get to see the life cycle of a beetle, and conduct experiments.

I try to give the students a question about what we have studied to ask their parents when they get home. This can create a lively discussion among family members.

Hi Anna, Here is what I think is a fun one: asking your kids to bring 2-3 different types of rock with observations and you could classify them in class. (They'll observe a lot about the locations they found them in, how deep they were settled, etc.) Their is a lot you could do with observation and incorporate it with STEM teaching by weighing/measuring rocks, and doing scratch tests. Hope this helps you!

Hi Anna, Getting students to take science home with them can be a difficult task. I would suggest for an environmental science activity during class to take students on a nature walk outside. During the walk ask students to pick up two things from nature. Have the students closely observe these objects in the classroom with magnifying glasses. Then ask the students to take a nature walk around their home and collect two things. Ask the students to bring these items to class and have them observe these items as well and then have the students compare the items. By having the students collect things from nature around their homes this may cause students to observe nature around their homes like they haven't before. This observation could spark a curiosity about the nature around their homes. I hope this was helpful. -Shelbi

I would send out a newsletter to the parents and let them know ahead of time so they can make sure what needs to get done, is in fact done. You could make it a lesson that specifically incorporates a family member helping them.

Science is all around us. You can easily show your kids all kinds of science lessons at home. You can introduce density, habitats, solid, liquid and gas. Pinterest is a good resource to use when thinking about conducting science at home. 

I wanted to do this with the class that I am in now but it seems that we never have the time. Have the students record every time they throw something away, the original idea is a golf ball and to add a small red dot on the golf ball every time they use a disposable item i,e., straw, plastic cup, styrofoam, and so on. After a week they can compare one another's red marks and discuss it. You can obviously adjust how often you compare the red dots. You can give the students an open forum or lead them down a specific discussion path and see where it leads to. This will give them a sense of their contribution to the worlds pollution problem. It may also open their eyes to how something so small can pile up so fast.  

A great way to take science home is for students to track their water usage. Attached is a great graph in which students can record the number of times they use something and calculate how much water they use in a week. Great for conservation and human impact lessons!

Attachments

CAT_LP#2_Handouts.pdf (1.38 Mb)

Anna and everyone, I, too, used to think that science could only be done in a lab at school with your classmates and teacher present, but I am currently taking a science methods course (I am a student teacher), and I have learned science can be done at home or anywhere, for that matter. For example, if you are weeks or close to teaching your students on the different moon phases, you could have your students look outside at the moon for a month and record in their science notebooks what they have seen. It could be in drawings or writing. Your students for a whole month will have observed all phases of the moon, provided good weather conditions of course, but still, that could be talked about in the class as well! When you do begin to teach the moon phases in the class, the students will have already explored/observed and be able to talk about and understand what you are teaching on a whole different level. Also, you will get your students to think why has my teacher asked me to look up in the sky every night, and this will create great questioning/inquiry from your students. This is one of many examples. You could also have them do science fair projects, grow a plant at home, and many more. Hope this helps!

What a great question. This may be difficult as you try to keep students interested and learning. There are several interesting ways to get your students to enjoy science at home. Something interesting that one of my professors has given us as an ongoing project is to take home catepillars. We were required to log the progress and any observations as we observed the catepillars ate and grew, formed their chrysalis and then transform into butterflies. Other projects could be fun for students as anything with examining growth can be exciting. Maybe during instruction of plant growth, students can be grouped and assigned different types of plants like some groups may have an avacado while a different group plants sunflower seeds. In those groups, since students will bring the plants home, they can share what variables they are changing and compare how their plants grow in different settings (for instance, differences in sunlight exposure).

In the past, I have had my students complete a short term weather study (typically it is a two week study). Studens keep a log of precipitation, barometric pressure, wind speed, temperature. After the two week period, they compare their weather log with their classmates.  We are a large district in terms of areawith a sparse population so we find some variationin weather patterns.  After this study, we learn about the relationship between weather and climate. 

NSTA also has two great take home lab resources for high schoolers. Take-home Chemistry allows students to complete a lab activity with items one would typically find at home. Take-home Physics allows students to complete labs based on physics concepts. I love using both of these resources because the activities are something that students can do with their families. The labs get my students thinking about the concept we will be covering the next day in a thoughtful,yet challenging way.  

Hello, I would like to make a question. How is it appropriate to teach kindergartners about science? Should I just stick to one topic the whole year? 

In my letter to the parent’s of my middle school science students at the start of the year, and at Back to School night I encourage the parents to engage their students in dinner table discussions about what they learned that day. For my students, I encourage them to share their “Ah-ha” moment learnings with their younger or older siblings that evening.

I personally have started a garden in downtime. It is relatively easy for students to get their hands on seeds and require minimal setup to get growing. They can then do daily observations, especially for those fast-growing plants. At the end of the school year, the students could write up a report on what they did or did not observe. A bonus is if the students decided to grow a vegetable they now get to eat the fruits of their labors.