Adding Science Experiments to the Home Education Mix!

In my infant experience with home education (and parenting, and family life in general), I have found that there are three parts to starting something new in our family culture:

(1) FINDING the new idea,

(2) FIGURING OUT how to do it well, 

and, most difficult of all...

(3) IMPLEMENTING the idea

That is, figuring out how to make it a regular, remembered, and successful part of our day or week. In my experience, I find that many wonderful and awesome ideas fall by the wayside simply because I cannot remember to do them consistently or because I never figure out how to work them successfully into our daily or weekly routine.

An especial problem in this area is that of non-daily academics - all of those things which are done only weekly rather than daily. Examples include Map Skills, Picture Study, Crafts, Science Experiments, etc. - all the things that we do only once per week.

One problem that we have recently solved is that of adding science experiments to our routine, which is a very exciting development! We have done so by partnering it with our Father-Son Monday Project Night, an already-established institution in our house in which DH works on some sort of project (LEGO, construction, etc.) with our 7yo. With our new arrangement, I have the science experiment prepared and ready for them, and they do the experiment before heading off for Project Night.

This week's experiment - Flame Tests! 

It works beautifully! DH gets to help with a small part of our home education, and they have a lot of fun together. And, very importantly, we now have an easy-to-remember way to work a weekly science experiment into our regular routine.

Now to find a similar way to incorporate crafts into our week!

Any tips to share, dear readers?

* The above experiment is from this awesome science website, referred to me by a wonderful friend!