Episode 298: Homeschool Science; the Horror, the Humor, and Help!
Links and Resources:
- Science Unlocked curriculum/lab kits from Home Science Tools use link and code 30HIFALUT for 30%off 1st kit Offer available thru September 30th
- Kristin Moon Science- High School Video Chemistry Lab Course Use code HIFALUTIN10 for 10%off
Show Notes:
Homeschooling science is often frustrating and impossible, easily replaced with videos, or neglected altogether. Don’t let it be! I’ve got help and great offers! Science can be hands-on, exciting, edible, and dangerous! And can create lasting family memories. Like when you almost burn the house down for the science fair. True, hilarious story here….
Show Transcript:
Hello and welcome to another Hifalutin Homeschooler episode of The Homeschool Solutions Show. My name is Jennifer Cabrera and I am one of many hosts here on the podcast. Each week, we bring you an encouraging conversation, inspiration, tips, tricks, and or humor from this busy and blessed journey of educating our children at home.
Now, while the title of the show is Homeschool Solutions, we do not pretend to have the answer to every question related to homeschooling, but we do hope to keep it real through lessons we've learned and urge you toward Jesus Christ and prayer with him as the greatest parent-teacher conference available.
Here's a riddle for you, parents. Homeschoolers love them. Enemies of freedom, hate them. What are they? It's the Tuttle Twins books. With millions of copies sold, the Tuttle Twins help you teach your kids about entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, the golden rule, and more. Get a discounted set of books with free workbooks today at tuttletwins.com/homeschool. That's T-U-T-T-L-Etwins.com/homeschool. And now on to today's show.
Homeschool science. The horrors, the humor, and the help. This is Jennifer Cabrera, back from the Highfalutin Homeschooler with inspiration and laughs just for you. Okay. This episode is going to be full of horror stories from homeschool science and lots of laughs from homeschool science and new ways to look at homeschool science. Plus, some great offers for homeschool science. You guessed it. Here we go.
Now, right away I realized there are several types of homeschool moms out there when it comes to homeschool science. There are those raring to go, it's the most fun. Those of us who enjoy science might even enjoy a candle scent collection. Think of fragrances such as Cabbage Water Indicator, Pond Water Biology, Active Yeast in a Windowsill or Bubble Bubble You're in Trouble. Or Burnt Ants, which would come in a magnified glass. Because we love science and the smells bring back all the memories that we have with our children. And then there are those who would rather have dental work than pull out all of the junk that it takes to actually make homeschool science happen and so they don't. And they think that they can't talk to their kids about extracting DNA or how to age a tree or why you get that little tingly feeling when you lick a battery. It's just overwhelming if you don't have a science or a math background. Right?
So really I've kind of categorized us all into three types of homeschool moms, like three camps. The first being science is so much fun — step into our apothecary, I mean our kitchen, and we'll show you all of the things that... Wait, wait, wait. Don't eat that. And then there's the second type, which I like to call the computer science group, and by that I mean science is, like, really messy, but I see, like, why we should probably learn it but it's not happening here. We just like to watch it on YouTube. So we open the computers and we call it computer science, where we watch all the messy experiments without having to clean up all the mess. It just works for us. And then there's the third camp — Uh, no. Ew. We don't do science here. Let's go outside and see if we can spot some birds and Mrs. Kinney is having an Oobleck Party at her house next week and that's enough of that science stuff for this month because I don't know how to teach it and they'll learn it when they get to college. So do you choose Newton or Needlepoint, Jane Austen or acids and bases, Mark Twain or tweezing organs off a dead amphibian? Of course, these are broad generalizations, but I feel like that most of it fits somewhere along the spectrum between "We have our own apothecary" to "What do you mean, 'do science?'" This is homeschooling. We craft.
So which type of homeschooler am I? I think I lean a little bit more apothecary. Somewhat computer science on the bad days. I get it. It's not always convenient to do science, but I do have a science background, I have a master's in public health, I'm a physician assistant on paper somewhere, and I think science is fun because anytime we can get out of a chair, yay! And after homeschooling three boys I know (and possibly you with girls know this too but I don't have any experience with that) if it's gross or cool or dangerous, they're all in and learning is fun. Add edible to that and you are the most awesome teacher ever. Plus, science can include all the academic areas. You can add math, you can add writing, you can add reading, and you've basically done all of your school work if you've done science.
So why do people balk at science? Especially if you can buy curriculum these days that tell you exactly what to do, what to say, what to tell the kids to do, here's the picture, don't eat that. Why do people shy away from actually just doing the fun stuff, right? Well, first off, yes, I get it. It's messy. We don't have time for any more cleaning because we're not getting any cleaning done anyway because we did math today or I don't have the time, especially if I need to run to the store for one teaspoon of iodine and a grape because I don't need 37 tea light candles. I only need one. And why do I want to buy a bunch of split peas anyway if I just need to extract the DNA from two in a bag of 7 million. And inevitably I'm going to feel Jesus staring down my back if I sneak out the two split peas that I need in my pocket while rushing the children past the bubblegum machines to get out of the grocery store.
And then, it's tedious because not only do we have to first read, learn the lesson, and then we have to go get all the supplies and then I have to let them possibly burn the kitchen down (and I am about to tell you a story about the time that we burned the kitchen down for homeschool science but that comes later) but we don't have to let them burn the kitchen down. We could just go outside and, you know, let them bald the yard with whatever they spill. And all this before cooking dinner and starting the whole routine over tomorrow. I get it. People don't want to have to mess with all of that stuff. And especially if it's not required before it ends up needing to be desperate situations on a high school transcript.
And that's where I think a lot of people get caught off guard because science kind of takes the back burner. It kind of resembles more of crafting than it does science until about ninth grade and biology strikes and we don't have a microscope. This is impossible. And so people start to wonder, should I put my kids back in public school because I can't do this here? And the co-op doesn't have the right equipment and we don't have this glorious lab. News flash, think back (for those of you who went to public school). I remember sitting in our high school chemistry labs and biology lab and being in awe, looking in the glass cabinets around us of the fetal pig parts and, I don't know, mysterious eyeballs from another dimension looking back at us and wondering, which of the Tuesdays lined up we were going to actually get to pull these things out and look at them.
And then the Bunsen Burners and all the microscopes and all the neat little tools that we were going to get to use, it was so exciting. And now looking back, I'm like, wait a minute, we never got to use any of that stuff. I remember standing there with my assigned lab partner feeling like, okay, we just did the thing that the teacher did. We recreated the Alka Seltzer bomb or whatever it was. We didn't know what we were looking at, really. We didn't really know why we did it, but we never really did anything great. And then all of a sudden they hand you a calculator and a paper and you're finding out the weight of something and it was over.
And so don't be blinded by the whole idea that because science in a public school classroom has all of these great labs and equipment, that you can't recreate this at home at least as good as them. You can do it so much better. And here's how you can do it: homesciencetools.com, a leading homeschool science retailer, offers a new type of homeschool curriculum for science. It is called Science Unlocked. You get to order which kits that you want, in which subjects you want, for which grade you want. Seriously, this is great for the homeschool mom who needs her sanity and doesn't have time to run to the store for one packet of yeast or one tea light candle. So they have three levels. They are Wonder for K through second grade, Accelerate for third through seventh grade and Launch, eighth through 12th grade. And you can pick topics in biology, chemistry or physics, and everything you need is already in that box. I mean, barring like, you know, sunshine or tap water and so don't get cheeky and say, "Well, they didn't have everything in there."
But it even has the student text book, the teacher's Guide, full of questions and discussions to start, great vocabulary lists, extreme amount of information so that everything you need is there. All of the supplies are there and there are 4 to 6 weeks worth of lessons and great lab experiments. I'm talking like down to the six inches of string and the one yeast packet. It's there, it really is. And you can pick your own boxes, so it's not like you're getting this, you know, mystery box and they try to make it all fun. But homeschool moms like to plan. We want to know what's coming. So you pick the box. You can pick one at a time. You can order an entire year's worth and set up your own curriculum there. But it's a great, great program. And you get 30% off if at checkout you put in the code 30HIFALUT. And that's 30% off the first box in your order and that can be stacked with any of their other codes that allow you to buy several boxes at once with a 10% to 15% discount depending on how many that you buy. So it's 30% off one box and then 10% to 15% off the whole order when you buy in bulk later. So keep that in mind as you try to go forth and make homeschool science possible.
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Another reason kids like homeschool science is because it can be dangerous and dangerous gets their adrenaline pumping and the possibilities of why. Why is it dangerous? What could go wrong? Well, one of my boys could tell you what could go wrong, that's for sure. He can tell you why it is important to wear goggles, even when Mom's not around and you're doing unauthorized science experiments upstairs. You can still have an accident and sling a magnet into your eye. And speaking of goggles, part of homeschooling science is having 64 pairs of safety goggles that no one wears and one balloon with everyone in the house's spit on it.
But back to the dangers of homeschooling and science— what if we actually do light the kitchen on fire? And so now I'd like to tell you a tale of the time that, well, we almost burned down the kitchen for science fair. Okay. So it almost burned down the kitchen. And also, maybe it was just me, not we. I mean, I'd like to blame the children because this was totally something they would do. And in a way, it was because of them that I was up to my elbows in combustibles that day. But darn it, I have been teaching this whole "take responsibility for your actions" and "be a stand up person" moral nonsense. Seriously, I should really think before I speak.
But I knew if I blamed it on my nervous six pound Yorkie that was freaked out and probably having seizures under the couch that I'd lose all credibility and my boys would be repeat convicts by age 21. So I just spun the whole ordeal like an expert politician. "Oh yeah, that was just a fire drill, Guys. Congrats. You all passed. I mean, you never know when accidents will happen. We have to be prepared." They weren't buying it. I was shrill and shaking like I just witnessed Satan walk into our kitchen and pour himself a cup of tea and sit at the bar. Because he did, except it wasn't tea. It was hot, boiling wax. And his flaming horns were looking at my eyebrows when the boys came barreling down the stairs to my rescue.
Okay, now let me back up and clear the air here, because at this point it was full of burnt orange smoke and earsplitting sound waves from the screaming smoke alarms. So it was science fair season around here, which meant that no one had any clean clothes or a decent home cooked meal. And if they managed to get their hands on something tasty, there was nowhere to sit and eat it anyway, because every countertop was an organized mess of creativity in limbo. Three boys, three separate projects and just one me. So staying organized was key, but cutting corners was easier.
So when it rains and you have a schedule to adhere to, then you just go ahead and launch a rocket in the kitchen because you need to record it to see what's going to happen because you can't actually launch the rocket at the science fair. So you have to have recorded evidence, right? And I know you're thinking, well, duh. No wonder you started a fire. But this is not where things went south. We launched with the utmost care and precaution by aiming our trajectory at the kitchen sink and managing to hit the cooktop backsplash instead, which is basically a fireproof enough wall. So we're talking tiny, homemade rockets here, out of a matchstick. And we have a vegetable sprayer thing on the sink, which is like a fireman's mini hose. We were basically OSHA compliant.
So we stopped after a near-perfect mission because we had already shot off 5 or 10... I mean, launched a test run just before and decided to quit when we got such a nice one on video. And of course we had to rid the home of the evidence of our pyrotechnics before the principal, i.e. my husband, got home and realized all the handiwork I had done. There was an odor of hint of rocket fuel about the place. I grabbed my cute mini little iron skillet with the yummy wax squares. You know, the ones that smell like vanilla orange or pumpkin on a warm windowsill. Okay. They melt like with the promise of fresh baked lemon pound cake without the calories. Well, except I didn't know where the mini tea light burner was that you sit on top of the candle, so I just decided to slap that puppy down on the gas burner and melt it a little. And then I would turn it off and cool the air and it would be all fresh and nice, and no one would ever know that we just launched a rocket in the kitchen.
But I forgot that last vital step about turning it off. The stove, that is. Not a good place to cut corners, just FYI. My multi-tasking mom brain had glitched and moved on. It was time for swim practice. I was busy putting towels in backpacks and changing out of my sloppy yoga pants into my newer, less sloppy yoga pants in order to get the boys to the pool. Because they were all upstairs on their tablets solving mathematical enigmas. Okay, okay. They were playing Minecraft and they were oblivious to the underworld bubbling up below them where Mom had forgotten to turn off the stove.
As the fire alarms went off like a domino rally across the house, I was using the bathroom in peace and I sat there a moment thinking how odd it was that the smoke from our rockets was just now making it to the detectors. Weird. And as I was yanking my yogas back up, I remembered the mini wax skillet and the distance from my bathroom to the kitchen telescoped exponentially. I rounded the cabinets to find the stove a fiery inferno of lemon-scented hell. I turned off the gas, but the flames continued to reach for the vent hood. Had I given it a few seconds, it probably would have gone out on its own. Maybe.
But time is funny and twisted and evil. Life-threatening moments tick by, like prolonged mental torture and my mind had time to write the entire press release for the local news in 1/25 of a second: "Recent homeschooling newcomers to the area burned down their house today in a science fair experiment gone wrong. The mother claims it was simply a forgotten air freshener but the smell of rocket fuel and assorted questionable materials scattered around the home leave room for suspicion. The children have been removed and placed in protective services after admitting their mother was teaching them to build and set off explosive devices. Their dog was found to have died of fright under the couch." Yes, we had just moved here and I didn't want to get to know the rest of the town by asking for their donated socks and underwear.
So, you know, I acted — Grabbing the oven mitt and then the flaming skillet and tossing it into the water and dirty dish filled sink. The boys rounded the corner in time to see a blazing mushroom cloud explode from the sink over four feet into the air. If their individual reactions were any indication of what kind of men they would become, I should make notes to warn their future wives. But what fun would that be? And I won't say who did it, but know that one child literally stopped, dropped and rolled out the back door. Another froze in place, screamed and plugged his ears and the third's eyes lit up excitedly as he exclaimed, "Awesome!".
Okay, so the fire was out. I still had eyelashes and the tip of my nose, but I could feel the need for a pacemaker in my future. We opened the doors, turned on all the fans, and thanked Jesus for our functioning smoke detectors, which finally hushed when the smoke was thinned to a light sea fog. Amazingly, there was a nice, not to overly done lemon pound cake smell left in the house. However, every dish in the sink was not only still dirty, but the food bits were encased in a hard wax veneer. And that, folks, is how my children made me almost burn down the kitchen and how I pulled off the most awesomely realistic, epic fire drill ever. And just as a disclaimer, if you work for or are planning to contact Child Protective Services, I totally made all of this up, especially the part about getting it on video.
And so you can see that homeschool science is dangerous and exciting and gives us great epic stories to tell about all that we've learned. It grabs our kids' attention and has them interested in learning more about the world around them, and it'll help them in their future. I believe doing as much homeschool science as we have has helped my oldest two to get into a middle college program with an honors program for science and math, and I believe that all of the crazy stuff that their mother did and showed them how to do led them to be interested in the science fields that they're in and certainly strengthened them to be competitive in a college area.
But even if your children aren't interested in a science related field for their career in the future, sometimes, you know, what they decide they want to do now may not be what they decide to do later, and we certainly don't want to handicap their possible chances for other interests they may have when they get older and it is required for high school. And speaking of high school, my friend Kristin Moon of Kristin Moon Science is offering a new course of high school chemistry lab online. So she is going to put together an entire year of high school lab experiments that your child can simply just watch (like the computer science type of homeschoolers) or they can watch and reproduce on their own and she will teach them not only how to complete the experiment, but also how to do the calculations and the write ups correctly. And she is offering a discount at kristinmoonscience.com and you can use the code highfalutin and you can get 10% off those courses. So check that out.
So just remember that learning science, especially through homeschooling, we have the advantage of talking to our kids in a way that they don't get spoken to in a group setting or in a public school setting for sure about God's world, the truth of the world, and the wonder of all of his creation. And we get to question and we get to prove or disprove different theories and strengthen our views of creation. And I want to leave you with this Bible verse, Psalm 111:2, "Great are the works of the Lord. They are studied by all who delight in them." And we can certainly delight in homeschooling science. It's the time that we get to spend with our kids doing fun things, hands on, enjoying God's world and enjoying each other, making memories, whether it's burning down the kitchen (almost), or creating something fun and edible, or seeing the light bulb come on in their eyes as they see an experiment work through God's laws that He created.
So give homeschool science a try if you haven't. And if you have, keep enjoying it. Learn new ways to experiment with God's world together. See what there is out there. Remember these offers I've given you if you're at your wit's end and don't know what to try. But have a fun time together and remember anything with homeschooling is less overwhelming when you realize you can learn right alongside your kids as you go and that teaches them to learn throughout the rest of their life. So until next time, highfalutin homeschoolers. Stay weird and homeschool on.
Thank you for joining me here on the Homeschool Solutions Show again. You can find show notes and links to all the resources mentioned at homeschooling.mom. Don't forget to check out my friends at Medi-Share for healthcare you can trust. To learn more about why over 400,000 Christians have chosen Medi-share, go to greathomeschoolconventions.com/medishare.
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Lastly, have you joined us at one of the Great Homeschool Conventions? The Great Homeschool Conventions are the homeschooling event of the year offering outstanding speakers, hundreds of workshops covering today's top parenting and homeschooling topics and the largest homeschool curriculum exhibit hall in the United States. Find out more at greathomeschoolconventions.com. I hope to see you in Texas.
Also, if you'd like to connect with me, you can find me at Facebook at Hifalutin Homeschooler and on Instagram @hifalutinhomeschooler. That's H-I-F-A-L-U-T-I-N Homeschooler. Also, you can email me directly with any questions, concerns, anecdotes. I love to hear stories from other homeschoolers. That's [email protected]. Until next time, stay weird and homeschool on.
