Learn From The Past. Explore The Future.
Helping your kids learn from the past and explore the future is a tall order sometimes, isn’t it?
Raise your hand if:
- Your best ideas come in the shower.
- Your kids feel like they know they are right, but no one will believe them?
- People in your family get grumpy when doing difficult science or math problems?
Guess what! Your family has something in common with three very famous scientists!
The Let’s Study Great Scientists, by Captivating Compass is the perfect online ‘curriculum included’ lesson plan on Homeschool Planet to help your family learn from the past and explore the future.
Don’t forget to check out the free offer at the end of this post!
Use Museums To Study Great Scientists – No Matter Where You Are Or Where You’re Going.
I want to share a story with you. Maybe you will find answers to help eliminate the struggle you may be having with science and field trips in your homeschool.
As a digital nomad, homeschooling family, we travel quite a bit and use the world as our textbook. It is the ‘spine text’ for our homeschool. But, after quite a few ‘family field trips’ to world-famous museums, I realized we were not well prepared for the level of knowledge and understanding of the people and places that made the museum famous. This surprised me, because we study science, history, geography, and everything else every day. What was the root of this problem?
I was finding that my kids seemed uninterested in the exhibits. Honestly the seem bored, or just walked around like zombies. They didn’t have an accessible and transferable understanding of what they were looking and interacting with. They struggled connecting science to its place in history. From a homeschool academic perspective I was frustrated that we were not meeting our academic goals. As a traveling family, it often felt like a waste of time and money to even go visit some of the museums.
“Eureka!”
What I finally realized is that they were not so much uninterested, but they were overwhelmed. They lacked focus because they were being bombarded by so much excellent information at the museums, it became a museum and academic overload. They checked out.
Becoming intentional in our museum visits became my top academic priority. Through research and careful planning, I found the most delightful resources. These became the core of the Let’s Study Great Scientist lesson plans.
Using these science resources before, during or after a museum visit, I found the kids responded with excitement and expectation of what they were going to see and experience on their next field trip.
They had been given another peg on which to hang new science ideas. It’s exactly what they needed for the next level of deeper understanding of foundational science essentials that would keep them challenged and inspired to keep learning about the world around them.
The Importance of Understanding The Chronology Of Science
Studying the Great Scientists chronologically, by exploring their personal life history, is a remarkable way to study science in-depth. When history & science intersect, the understanding becomes exponential. Ideas we take for granted now (like gravity, or a heliocentric planetary system), were revolutionary in their time period.
Expanding on the history, and delving into the personal life of great scientists is the perfect way to learn from the past. Exploring the future becomes the next natural step, especially on science museum field trips, as the ideas of these great scientists are the foundations of continued groundbreaking modern science.
Newton said it best…
Studying the life and works of famous scientists is an enjoyable way to immerse your family in the history, culture and daily living in which these early scientists lived. Exploring their lives using quotes & copywork is a perfect way to cement all the swirling thoughts about science concepts.
The Isaac Newton Quotes & Copywork FREE Companion Resource
The Isaac Newton Quotes and Copywork is a companion resource to use alongside your Let’s Study Great Scientists lessons. This 20+ page download of Isaac Newton Quotes & Copywork includes short activities to create opportunities for discussion and to help cement science facts in a unique and creative way.
Have you ever felt as if homeschool planning sucks the life out of you every year or every quarter? If this time of year is especially grueling for you, it might be wise to try something new to make things so much easier for yourself.
One day, out of the blue, she called me from her apartment that she shared with some other college girls. She began to tell me how much she appreciated me giving her chores and making her learn how to do laundry, clean, and cook.
I have to admit that when I first started homeschool I was super organized. I was previously an early learning teacher, so the preparedness I needed to turn in my lesson plans spilled over to how I set up my lessons for my kids. I set the term up into what I wanted my kids to learn in the main subjects (Math, Science, History etc.) and the everyday Bible, reading time, and extracurricular lessons. The order I set outworked for a while, but I found that we would need to reschedule lessons often because of “life” and it became harder and harder for me to ensure we were caught up. Lessons changed. I had to move on to another lesson because of the time constraints I gave myself.
I have a paper planner that keeps my business life together. I order a new one every year and it has everything work related in it to keep my freelance work going smoothly. I am meticulous about my work and cannot afford to miss any appointments, being late or not completing tasks. I needed to be as organized with my homeschool as I was with work, and I was determined to do so.
