B. Peruse science books or magazines. Remember, good ideas aren’t created, they’re identified. Give your child some examples of good science projects and let her mind explore and identify a good question to answer when she comes across it.
C. Spend time outside. Science is everywhere. It’s in the clouds, it’s in the billowing air, it’s in the leaves and trees, the insects, rocks, and sands. Spending some time outside and observing nature will inspire a host of observations from which to formulate questions around.
4. Be a good assistant. Your child will need your assistance with research, planning and gathering the materials necessary to perform her science project. Make sure help your child get access to necessary books, DVDs and other research material. You may need to chauffer your child around to the library or to craft stores in order to gather the materials she’ll need to perform her science project. While it’s the assistant’s job to point out the holes in research or missing ingredients for the experiment, try to steer clear from conducting the research or performing the experiment yourself.
5. Let your child direct his experiment. You may need to help your child measure, time or prop things up. Just remember to offer help only when asked. Let your child lead the experiment.
6. Drawing conclusions. Underscore the significance of learning through trial and error. Whether your child’s hypothesis was right or wrong is not the important thing. If the results are not crystal clear, it may be worthwhile to conduct the experiment a couple of times. A good way to display results is in the form of a graph. Feel free to teach your child how to draw a graph, but encourage her to create one herself. When it comes to the display board, leave the unprofessional writing and showcase it proudly as a sign that your child did the bulk of the work on her own. The end product will be rewarding for your young scientist to see!
Deborah Song
