Summer Science Journals for Your Home School

Do you want to improve your science program? Are you struggling to motivate your kids to write anything let alone something meaningful, especially in the summer? Are you trying to get the most out of those educational summer vacations? Try using science journals! The benefits of journals abound! Have you tried them yet? They are great even for the littlest scientists! Here are a few tips for a summer science journal. Hopefully you will be inspired to try them out this summer!

• Use something that is portable and durable for your journal. You’ll take it everywhere and use it in messy situations. You want it to hold up. Attach a pencil on a string to the journal. Bring some colored pencils or crayons along. Put the journal, pencil, and colors in a folder or a plastic storage bag.
• Bring your science journals when you go to various vacation spots. Children can journal about the ocean, fishing, the farm, the aquarium, berry picking, hiking, and camping experiences (think star gazing, and the like).
• Why not use your journal with some ongoing science projects at home? We have a garden that we journal about. (That’s a whole other post coming soon!)
• Put a title on the page indicating what the entry is about and where the family was. Write the date. (It’s important to maintain good records.)
• Have the kids include detailed, scientific drawings in their journals. They should label the drawings clearly and use appropriate colors in the picture. For example, color the ocean the colors that you see (green, blue, white, yellow), not just blue because blue represents water.
• Write observations in each entry. Little ones can dictate a sentence or two for you to write for them.
• Make the observations interesting and relevant to the topic, too. Don’t just say, “The ocean is pretty.” Try something like this, “When the waves crash on the shore, there is a lot of white foam. The water sprays up, and there is a loud crashing sound. I saw the water pull back slowly after it foamed up. I wonder what causes the water to pull back.”
• Add a layer of challenge by posing a question for the kids to answer before going out and adding the question on the entry page. Then the child’s entry must include the answer to the question.

Have fun with your summer science journal. You may just find that your children love them and use them all year long!

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Summer Experiment

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

I don’t know about you, but I am continuing school through the summer. I know that it seems like I should give the kids a break, but I like the continuity for me and the kids. I also like keeping the learning going so that we don’t have to start all over again in the fall. Summer does give me the chance to try out new ideas and not feel pressured. This summer I am trying out school with other families. We have a schedule worked out for the summer. Although it is not always the same day every week, we do see the same few families over the course of the summer. My kids love having the company. They all play nicely together, and the new people add a whole new dimension to the work. I also love working with other moms. We can learn from each other. Working together adds something extra to our relationship and to the quality of the lessons. When the kids work together, they also see different ways of doing things and build a whole new understanding of the concepts.

I have been truly blessed and filled with the spirit this summer as a result of my experiment. I think that God wants us to be in community with one another, and that must include us homeschoolers. Everyone benefits from it. The other moms that I am working with this summer are just starting out with home education. This summer time experiment has helped them to see the possibilities with their curriculum and ways to build a Godly foundation and familial relationships. I am also seeing these moms’ potential being reached as they take steps forward to take control of their children’s education. I am empowered by that. I have been blessed by seeing these moms grow and watching their children and my children benefit from it. I am being stretched, too. I am learning about different ways of approaching education. I am watching my children respond to other adults in very positive ways – sometimes better than they respond to me. I also feel like I have another person to lean on. Someone else can take the lead, which is really difficult for me to accept. I am blessed to be able to work with some else, and in the end we both get a better return for our work!

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