I thought I'd share with you where I find our science activities & experiments. Goodness knows I can't come up with it on my own. I'm not a math or science kind of girl so I have to have some help. Below is a list of things we keep in a basket on the bottom shelf of my baker's rack in the kitchen to use.
Spotlight on Science Famous Experiments Kit from Learning Resources. (Don't let that Amazon link scare you. We found these in a specialty toy shop for only $15 each so I'm not sure why that one is priced so crazy high.) This kit comes with 24 cards with hands-on experiments with most of the materials for them. Each experiment card is two sided. On one side it gives instructions for the experiment and on the back it gives more info usually about the scientist who discovered this property and why, etc.
Spotlight on Science Volcanoes, Earthquakes & Tsunamis from Learning Resources. Like the Famous Experiments Kit it comes with 24 cards with hands-on experiments and materials.
A teacher friend of mine had a book in her classroom called 501 Science Experiments. After looking through it I knew I wanted it. The ones we've done so far in this one have been easy and the items needed were household items we have. I found it at Books-A-Million, but I've linked it with Amazon. It was only $12.95 at BAM.
The last book we keep in the basket is the Explorabook: A Kids' Science Museum in a Book published by Klutz. It came with a very useful magnet, the one we used in this experiment that is kept in the basket. I like this one because it has activities about light waves, illusions, biology, physics, magnification, and many more. I'm thinking Squirt may get this one for Christmas. It's right up his alley and maybe he'll stop asking when he can do chemistry.
I keep a small flashlight, marbles, a baseball, a beaker, a couple of batteries, a bag of prisms, a notebook, measuring tape, corks and some string in our science basket also. We have a mason jar that has a mesh lid that Squirt brought home from science camp this past summer in there as well. Anything else we need we pull from the cabinets usually.
One website that Squirt enjoys is Steve Spangler. He likes to watch the videos of the different experiments and his Quest (science enrichment) teacher at school uses ideas from the Steve Spangler Teacher Boot Camp she went to. There are categories of experiments you can do at home on his site also.
So there you have it. Our science basket. Everything has been bought over the course of a couple of years so there wasn't a huge investment at one time. Maybe this will help other moms who have little science girls or guys in the house. I'll be back with another experiment soon.
