Sunday, June 25, 2006

A Relaxing Sunday

We had a very relaxing Sunday at our house. Thomas and his dad continued playing games on the computer, played some games and read some books. I putzed around the house all day, finally settling in at the kitchen table with my books, pencil and paper.

Thomas decided he wants to work through How Nature Works first. After studying the book for awhile this afternoon, I find it doesn't provide as much information as I would like on certain topics. That will be easily remedied because we have tons of science books.

We'll start the book out of order doing the plants and fungi chapter. I grabbed my book Simple Nature Experiments with Everyday Materials to plot our game plan. I made a list of things to buy and then hit the internet.

I checked out Edmund Scientific, Carolina Biological, and Home Science Tools. For what I wanted, and the quantities, Home Science Tools was my best bet. I spent an hour perusing their website, putting things in the wish list. I saved the wish list frequently. When I was done, I had a very healthy wish list, healthy enough to make my husband complain.

We ate a nice homemade Mexican meal that my husband prepared and I came back to the computer with credit card in hand. I can't believe it, my wish list was empty! Is that a sign that I should not be ordering all those science supplies? It couldn't be me, I know I kept hitting the save wish list button. Great, now I'll have to start all over.

I will start over. Tomorrow. I'll need to get my list and remember that Sal Soda, the term used in the How Nature Works book, is actually sodium carbonate or good old washing soda. Yes, I admit it took me five minutes to figure out what Sal Soda was. And I guess that doesn't even matter because I can buy that locally.

I did learn that I need to order my iodine solution online because they iodine they sell in pharmacies is alcohol based and may not work with some experiments whereas the iodine sold online is water based.

I swear I'll learn more science than Thomas will.

I've heard of literature-based education, classical education, but has anyone ever put together a science-based education? Thomas loves science, is very good and intuitive with science, and our upcoming school year is going to revolve around science.

And me, the poor mom who always hated science class, will finally love science. (I can hope.)

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