testing the waters...

So, I finally wrote out my big homeschooling epiphany the other.... now it is time to put it into practice.

In my newly (self) defined role of "facilitator", I tried out something Tuesday night at the library. While Alex was in book club I roamed the stacks... looking for inspiration. So, while browsing the paperbacks I found a Magic School Bus Chapter book and I just went from there. I ended up picking up the following three books...

Amazing Magnetism (Magic School Bus Chapter Book)
What Makes a Magnet?
Batteries, Bulbs, and Wires (Young Discoverers: Science Facts and Experiments)

I told Alex about them and his eyes lit up... he insisted on taking to bed with him so he could look at them. This was exactly what I hoped would happen.

What I did not expect was for him to emerge from his room at 10:15 to tell me that he had read all three books. He then started spewing out all kinds of information about magnets and circuits. It was amazing to witness... he was so fired up!

He had marked the experiments he wanted to try with kleenex (yes, clean ones) and couldn't wait until today to try them out.

Many of them were almost like magic tricks which made them even more exciting. He passed this excitement on to Clara who signed up to be his "lovely assistant". :-) He set up his "tricks" and started the show!

Here he is making the compass spin...
and here's Clara, the "control", not making the compass spin...
See... nothing up my sleeve...
.. hey WAIT... is that....
a MAGNET I see???
Yep, it was. He then took great pride in telling me why each trick worked out the way it did. They did a bunch more that I don't have photos of.... I'll tell you this though, I think they ended up magnetizing all of my butter knives in the process of setting up some of the tricks. :-)

Then, I dug out some science supply kits we had that went with a curriculum we didn't end up using and in the kits, he found enough stuff to do some of the experiments from the Batteries book.

Here he is making an electromagnet and seeing how many paperclips he could pick up...
This afternoon we made a solenoid as well.

It was a wildly successful experiment for me... I guided but did not push. He picked it up and totally ran with it.... taking Clara along for the ride. Alex read information, comprehended it and was able to explain it, in his own words, back to me. And this was all done with such excitement and wonder.

I'm realistic enough to know that this will not happen every time... but if it is only half of the time, I think that's good enough for me.