Tips on learning science

1. Stimulate your child to make use of all senses in discovering the surrounding world. Encourage curiosity about the feel of textures and materials, characteristic smells, sounds, tastes, weights and sizes of things. Train the child to look carefully and to see beyond the surface appearance of the environment.
   
   
2. Children are normally curious and should be encouraged to find answers to questions by patient observation and through the use of references, either at home or in libraries and museums. Let the child manipulate and learn about familiar objects: a dripping faucet, the household water system, a nutcracker, an old doorbell, discarded appliances, locks and door hinges, household plants and gardens. When making household repairs, servicing the family car or other domestic equipment, include your child as an observer. Natural scientific and mechanical skills can be discovered and developed in this way, and many scientific principles can be demonstrated in firsthand and practical ways.
   
   
3. Make certain that you teach your child rules of safety in the handling of electrical, mechanical and chemical equipment. In this modern scientific era, a whole range of educationally approved toys and games are on sale for gift-giving to the budding young scientist in your home. Consider giving a subscription to a scientific magazine, an easy-to-assemble radio earphone set, a general science kit, an ant farm or toy farm that grows real crops, binoculars, an aquarium or terrarium, a chemistry set, a model airplane, a biography of an inventor, a microscope, a telescope or a magnifying glass.
   
   
4. Work with your child on projects such as making bird feeders, caring for pets, setting up a home weather station, observing the night sky and preparing a family vegetable or flower garden. Take the opportunity to confer with the child's science teachers. They welcome such parental interest and can give many useful tips to help you reinforce your child's formal science training.
   
   
5. Encourage your child to be a "collector." Provide a place for collections, even if it is just a dresser drawer, a soapbox, or a shelf in the bookcase. An upended orange crate provides shelves for "display'' of rocks, insects, leaves, stamps, shells. A dime-store picture frame can display summer collections of flowers, leaves or even insects.
   
   
6. REMEMBER! Listen with interest, encourage and ask questions, be generous with praise, enthusiasm and sympathy. You can bridge the gap between home and school and make learning fun for both you and your child.