Science

Both of my boys have a love of science. For Mitch it was mostly nature science, but with Owen it's everything and anything hands on. We had science club on Friday and I woke up, with a sore neck and shoulder, to a blustery, stormy and miserable day. One that made me think that if it were not for science club I'd go back to my bed and my kids and I could snuggle up and watch BBC's David Copperfield, after all, that would tie in nicely with the subject of child labour and the Industrial Revolution that we've been reading about and discussing. I had seriously planned on quitting science club and yesterday was going to be my last day. I really didn't think there was enough value versus output. But, alas, science club arrived at my house and each family took turns demonstrating different aspects of water: phases of matter - solid, liquid, gas - ice cube in the frying pan; egg floats in salt water, sinks in unsalted water, Archimedes' Principle of Buoyancy ("Eureka!") - clever, clever man (we read and enjoyed Archimedes and the Door of Science a couple of years ago); density of water at different temperatures; how salt mixes with water. While all of these hands-on type of presentations were occurring, I could see, plain as plain, that Owen is passionate about science and thrilled with science club. I cannot quit.

Today, my little scientist decided to copy something he had once seen in a book. He drew and coloured a race track and race car, then taped a paper clip on the back of the car and pulled it around the race track with a magnet taped to some pencils. It took him around two hours from start to finish as he was hunting all around to find what he needed then: he taped four pieces of paper together to make a large paper on which to draw and colour the track; he put a lot of detail into drawing and colouring the race car; he found a variety of magnets and tried all of them until he figured out which one worked the best; he wanted to have something long to attach the magnet to, so he taped some pencils together. He was very pleased with the finished product.